The 1928–1936 Partisan Realignment: The Case for the Conversion Hypothesis

1981 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 951-962 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Erikson ◽  
Kent L. Tedin
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Unresolved Question ◽  
Gradual Evolution ◽  
Partisan Realignment ◽  
The New Deal

An unresolved question concerning the New Deal realignment is the extent to which the Democratic surge in the vote resulted from either the conversion of former Republicans or the mobilization of newly active voters. Analyzing survey data from the Literary Digest straw polls and from early Gallup polls, we find evidence supporting the conversion hypothesis. New voters in 1928, 1932 and 1936 were only slightly more Democratic in their voting behavior than were established voters. Between 1924 and 1936, the vote among established voters was extremely volatile, largely accounting for the Democratic gains. After 1936, however, vote shifts became minimal and party identification had become highly consistent with presidential voting, suggesting a crystallization of the New Deal realignment by the late 1930s rather than a gradual evolution due to generational replacement.

Realignment and Macropartisanship

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (4) ◽  
pp. 953-962 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael F. Meffert ◽  
Helmut Norpoth ◽  
Anirudh V. S. Ruhil
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Presidential Approval ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Partisan Realignment ◽  
Electoral Equilibrium ◽  
The New Deal ◽  
The U.S

Aggregate party identification (macropartisanship) has exhibited substantial movement in the U.S. electorate over the last half century. We contend that a major key to that movement is a rare, massive, and enduring shift of the electoral equilibrium commonly known as a partisan realignment. The research, which is based on time-series data that employ the classic measurement of party identification, shows that the 1980 election triggered a systematic growth of Republican identification that cut deeply into the overwhelming Democratic lead dating back to the New Deal realignment. Although short-term fluctuations in macropartisanship are responsive to the elements of everyday politics, neither presidential approval nor consumer sentiment is found responsible for the 1980 shift.

Catholic Partisanship and the Presidential Vote in 2012: Testing Alternative Theories

The Forum ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyman A. Kellstedt ◽  
James L. Guth
Keyword(s):  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
White House ◽  
Widespread Agreement ◽  
Electoral Change ◽  
Religious Perspectives ◽  
The New Deal

AbstractCatholics have long been an important force in American electoral politics. Once a vital and loyal component of the New Deal Democratic coalition, Catholics in recent decades have shifted their political loyalties away from the Democratic Party to more of a partisan equilibrium. Indeed, by 2012, the White Catholic vote had become predominantly Republican, even in a year in which a Democrat was re-elected to the White House, and on balance party identification among these voters showed a slight Republican edge. Only the growing contingent of Latino Catholics kept the national vote of the entire religious community closely balanced. Despite widespread agreement among scholars that the partisan behavior of Catholics has changed, there is much less consensus on the nature of that change, its permanence, and its causes. We review the historic patterns of Catholic partisanship and voting behavior, discuss three major perspectives on electoral change among Catholics, and test these perspectives with data drawn from the 2012 National Survey of Religion and Politics, with a rich battery of religious measures. We find that socioeconomic factors, religious perspectives, and issue preferences among Catholics all influence partisanship and vote choice, reducing any true “distinctiveness” of the “Catholic vote.”

Secular Partisan Realignment in the United States: The Socioeconomic Reconfiguration of White Partisan Support since the New Deal Era

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert P. Kitschelt ◽  
Philipp Rehm
Keyword(s):  
Voting Behavior ◽  
The United States ◽  
White American ◽  
White Voters ◽  
Education Levels ◽  
Dominant Parties ◽  
Partisan Realignment ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
The New Deal

White American voters have realigned among the two dominant parties by income and education levels. This article argues that the interaction of education and income provides a more insightful—and stark—display of this change than treating them individually. Each group of voters is associated with distinctive “first dimension” views of economic redistribution and “second dimension” preferences concerning salient sociopolitical issues of civic and cultural liberties, race, and immigration. Macro-level hypotheses are developed about the changing voting behavior of education-income voting groups along with micro-level hypotheses about the propensity of vote switching. The hypotheses are tested with data from the American National Election Studies 1952–2016. A profound realignment is revealed between (groups of) white voters and the two main US parties that is consistent with the theoretical expectations developed in the article.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schickler
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Partisan Realignment ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The New Deal

This introductory chapter provides a background of the civil rights realignment. The conventional account treats the civil rights realignment as the disruption of one stable partisan alignment and its replacement by another alignment in which race played a defining role. The critical decisions driving this process occurred in the 1960s as national party elites grappled with the question of how to respond to pressure from civil rights activists. The choices made at the center then reverberated throughout the political system, gradually remaking both parties at the mass and middle levels. In contrast, this book argues that the partisan realignment on civil rights was rooted in changes in the New Deal coalition that emerged in the mid- to late 1930s, not the 1960s. Rather than realignment starting in Washington and diffusing out and down, state parties and locally oriented rank- and-file members of Congress provided a key mechanism for pro-civil rights forces to capture the Democratic Party from below.

Lost in the New Deal Realignment: GI Joe

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 646-651
Author(s):  
Helmut Norpoth
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Life Stage ◽  
World War ◽  
Civilian Life ◽  
Lower Socioeconomic ◽  
Commander In Chief ◽  
The New Deal

ABSTRACTMilitary service in World War II produced a generation of Democrats. This finding results from an examination of Gallup polls (1945–1953) that probed both party identification and wartime service. The 1944 election afforded soldiers an opportunity to vote for their commander in chief, and they did so by a large margin for Franklin D. Roosevelt—a Democrat. A vote under these circumstances is bound to leave lifelong marks on a cohort in its impressionable years, which was the life stage of many World War II soldiers. Further tests rule out the possibility that the Democratic tendency of soldiers was simply the result of their youthful age, lower socioeconomic status, urban background, union membership, race, or Southern region—all of which predict partisanship. Neither did the return to civilian life erode the Democratic edge of veterans. GI Joe is an unsung hero of what is widely known as the New Deal realignment.

Public Griefs and Personal Problems: An Empirical Inquiry into the Impact of the Great Depression

1985 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Modell
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Empirical Inquiry ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Personal Attitudes ◽  
Partisan Realignment ◽  
Depression Era ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The New Deal

From Olympus, Samuel Eliot Morison (1965) reminds us that “we owe admiration as well as pity to the simple folk of America who suffered so grievously under the depression.” And no doubt we do. But those who would understand the long-term political and social impacts of the Great Depression must gain a fuller understanding of the ways in which Americans made sense of their Depression experiences. The critical passage through Roosevelt’s Hundred Days largely satisfies most historians’ appetites for understanding the impact of the Great Depression upon Americans’ personal attitudes. The effects of the whole Depression era upon the ways Americans felt are assumed to be congruent with changes in political institutions and ethos. In particular, the durable partisan realignment and its concomitant “New Deal coalition” occurring in the middle of the Depression calls up images of major modifications in attitudes. Thus Clubb, Flanigan, and Zingale (1980) explain the endurance of the New Deal realignment with reference to the “vital and active concern for a suffering citizenry” that FDR and the New Deal came to connote.

Southernization of the Nation and Nationalization of the South: Racial Conservatism, Social Welfare and White Partisans in the United States, 1956–92

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
JONATHAN A. COWDEN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Party System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South ◽  
Lyndon Johnson ◽  
The New Deal

Many scholars and pundits believe that the 1964 presidential election between Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson disrupted the New Deal order and ushered in a sixth party system anchored in part by race issues. But, curiously, the conventional wisdom has not fared well empirically. In this article, I employ disaggregated survey data and novel methodological tools to identify temporal patterns in the relationships between partisanship, New Deal issues and race issues. My conclusions are as follows: (1) the association between race issues and partisanship has switched signs in the South; (2) a racial axis of cleavage has opened up outside the South; (3) the New Deal issue axis has grown in the South; and (4) New Deal issues continue to cleave partisans outside the South.

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