The New Democratic Majority -- It's Realignment

[stevekamp]

The New Democratic Majority: It’s Realignment
By Steven Kamp
President Obama’s election in 2008 and reelection in 2012 was a realignment of the Electoral College through the stable and durable change in voting patterns that occurs every 28 – 40 years, and this one has created a Democratic Presidential era that could last as long as 72 years.  American voters gave a Democrat consecutive popular vote majorities for the first time since 1940-1944, the last two Franklin Roosevelt reelections (Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton were all elected with less than 50 percent)  -- and did so amid incumbent Democratic President economic circumstances that caused two economic determinist models to predict only 46 or 49 percent for Obama, an economic determinist electoral vote model to predict Romney with 330, and Michael Barone to intone Romney 315 because of “fundamentals.”       

The Electoral College fundamentals are now with the Democrats, whose coalition has evolved into the 1860-1928 Republican Northern Strategy. The 2008 and 2012 results were the seventh in a series of a realigning elections that have occurred in 1968 (Nixon), 1932 (FDR), 1896 (McKinley), 1860 (Lincoln), 1828 (Jackson) and 1800 (Jefferson). Each of these elections was characterized by one of the two parties ejecting the other from majority status and maintaining the White House for up to 24 consecutive years as the “sun” party, but with an eight- or twelve-year interregnum by the minority “moon” party that coincides with a weakening but not a disintegration of the majority party coalition. The majority party usually comes back for a last hurrah at the end of the cycle, and then gives way as the sun coalition shatters.  Each of these realigning elections has flipped White House control from one long-dominant party to another – the Federalists to the Democratic-Republicans in 1800, the John Quincy Adams Democratic-Republican faction to the Jacksonian Democrats in 1828, the Democrats to the new Republican Party in 1860, the Civil War Republicans to the Grover Cleveland Democrats to the McKinley Republicans in 1892-1896, the Hoover Republicans to the Franklin Roosevelt Democrats in 1932, and the Kennedy-Johnson Democrats to the Richard Nixon Republicans in 1968.  In 2008, America was due for another realigning election – the Republicans had held the White House 28 of the 40 years post-1968.   
   Realigning elections are America’s substitute for revolutions. They occur because demographic changes over a 28-40 year period create a coalition of voters in states that represent an Electoral College majority who find the ideology and priorities of the incumbent party exhausted and not representative of the forward-looking desires of the new majority.  Realigning elections and their aftermath are characterized by a sharp change in Electoral College voting patterns that becomes stable and durable.  Between 2004 and 2008, the rounded total vote rose from 122.295 to 131.463 million, and the national popular vote margin flipped from Republican 3.012 million to Democratic 9.549 million. Of the 12.561 million Democratic margin gain, 25 percent or 3.503 million came from movements in 26 large urban counties – flips from Bush to Obama in six counties and large Democratic margin gains in 20 others.  In the Electoral College, nine states with 102 current electoral votes moved from Republican to Democratic. 
In contrast, very little changed between 2008 and 2012.  The Romney campaign added only a national net 981,930 raw votes or 1.64115 percent to the McCain 2008 total, with 14.82 percent or 144,570 of this gain coming from Utah. In contrast, the Obama campaign, which in 2008 won the national popular vote by a margin of 9,549,105, in 2012 turned out 94.84576 percent of its’ 2008 vote, losing a net 3.582 million, but still winning the national popular vote by a margin of 4.985 million.  Of the 50 states, all but two cast the same partisan vote in 2008 and 2012, a correlation of 96 percent. In 2012, Republicans flipped only Indiana and North Carolina, two states Barack Obama did not need to win in 2008 but where he won with less than a majority. Democrats again won an Electoral College majority in the East, Great Lakes, Upper Farm Belt and Pacific. Of America’s 3,113 counties, only 182 changed their winners between 2008 and 2012: Barack Obama fell from 875 to 693, and the Republicans moved up from 2,238 to 2,420. However, in multiple large metropolitan counties, President Obama actually increased his margin in 2012, with the second-largest increase in America coming from Florida’s Miami-Dade, where the Obama margin moved up by 69,179 even as the county’s total vote increased by only 14,543 -- in the largest county in the largest Purple Playground state, where the statewide Obama margin was only 74,309.  The largest: Romney’s flip of Salt Lake County in Utah that added 77,960 in the Number One Romney 2012 state.
The Democrats have now achieved two consecutive 60-million-plus national popular vote numbers, whereas the Republicans have achieved only one (in 2004), and this Bush 2004 number of 62,040,610 is below not only Obama 2008, but also Obama 2012. At the state level, the Bush 2004 raw number exceeds the Obama 2012 raw number in only one Obama 2012 state: Ohio, by a paltry 32,059. 
In each of 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012, Democrats won 20 jurisdictions that have a combined 242 electoral votes – in the words of The National Journal’s Ron Brownstein, the Blue Wall states.  Democrats have also won another three states with a combined 15 that went Republican only once in this period: New Hampshire (where in 2000 Ralph Nader siphoned 3.90 percent) and the narrow Bush 2004 states of Iowa and New Mexico.  With these 257 firmly in hand, Democrats need only one or two of the seven Purple Playground states: Virginia (13), or Ohio (18), or Florida (29), or a combination of Nevada (6) and Colorado (9) or Indiana (11), or North Carolina (15).  Reason: the Red Fort states (my apologies to the Delhi landmark) carried continuously by the Grumpy Old Party between 1992 and 2012 are 21 with only 170 electoral votes: Alaska (3), four rural Rocky Mountain states (16), Arizona (11), the four Wheat Belt states (17), the four Border States of Oklahoma (7), Missouri (10), Kentucky ( and West Virginia (5), and only eight of the former Confederate states (Texas at 38 plus seven others with 65).  Thus, to win in 2016 or 2020, Republicans need another 100 electoral votes: 28 from the two states the GOP flipped in 2012 (Indiana (11), North Carolina (15)), plus 60 from all three of Florida (29), Virginia (13), and Ohio (18), and another twelve electoral votes from a combination of Nevada (6), Colorado (9), or New Hampshire (4). This is a tall order for the GOP, the equivalent of the inside straight trap the President Reagan campaign sprung on Walter Mondale in 1984, when at the advice of former President Richard Nixon, it treated Ohio as a governor’s race -- exactly what the Obama campaign did in 2012, only on a larger scale, by adding Florida and Virginia.  Republicans must carry all of these three states plus one other to hit 270, whereas Democrats need to carry only one.

Continued in next post

[Sol]

Man, you can just post all your posts in one thread.

[Del Tachi]

There are many strong arguments as to why 2008 was a realignment favoring the Democrats.

My interest lies in how the GOP will look at the time of the next realignment, which I'm placing somewhere in the 2048-2060 time frame. 

[memphis]

What has "realigned?" We have had, more or less, the same map since 2000.

[illegaloperation]

This realignment has been predicted a long time ago.

Ruy Teixeira and John Judis wrote about it in their 2002 book, The Emerging Democratic Majority

[Del Tachi]

What has "realigned?" We have had, more or less, the same map since 2000.

Social conservatism has ceased to be a viable, electable ideology. 

[Frodo]

Steve,

I don't disagree with you, but why can't you present your thoughts (or book) in a way that is reader-friendly?  Hardly anyone here is going to do more than skim over your walls of text, and type 'TL;DR' in response.  

[stevekamp]

In 2008 Ohio Iowa Florida Virginia New Mexico Nevada Colorado moved, and all held in 2012, albeit Florida by only 0.88 of a point.

[pbrower2a]

In 2008 Ohio Iowa Florida Virginia New Mexico Nevada Colorado moved, and all held in 2012, albeit Florida by only 0.88 of a point.

Another explanation: Ohio and Florida stayed basically where they usually: states at or swinging around the national average. They usually go D in a Democratic win and R in a Republican win. Iowa and New Mexico were close in 2000 and 2004 (likewise Wisconsin), but New Mexico has likely made the sharper D turn. Nevada was essentially a bellwether state until 2004. Colorado went decidedly right-ward in the 1970s  only to go decidedly leftward recently.

Virginia used to be a reliably R state then surprised lots of people in 2008. It had been drifting D, much like Minnesota in the opposite direction. The tip-off to it being vulnerable to a strong Democratic contender was that George Allen lost a Senate seat in 2006.

As for the two states that President Obama won in 2008 but did not win 2012: Indiana and North Carolina.... Indiana usually swings around 12% Rin a 50-50 election. Indiana got hit for a triple-whammy in a pair of boom-and-bust industries (RVs and manufactured housing) that got hit with the financial crisis that made credit unavailable, a spike in gas prices, and the general collapse of the economy that pushed it about 14% more Democratic than usual. North Carolina was close in both 2008 and 2012.

[m4567]

Usually at the start these cycles, the party wins at least three in a row. I guess watergate stopped the republicans from winning three straight in 1976.

[Mister Mets]

In 2008 Ohio Iowa Florida Virginia New Mexico Nevada Colorado moved, and all held in 2012, albeit Florida by only 0.88 of a point.

We don't know how political scientists are going to look at the era. Much of it is going to be based on information we don't yet have (IE- whether anything will happen in the future to damage the brand of a political party.)

It is normal for politicians to keep states when running to keep the White House for a second term. In 2000, Bush won eleven states that Dole had lost in 1996. In 2004, he lost New Hampshire to a New England Democrat, but he gained Iowa and New Mexico. And in the next cycle, Obama won the popular vote by seven percent.

It's actually unusual for a presidential candidate to lose support when running to keep the white house for a second term for his party (this tends to be the election in which parties peak.) Obama's an interesting exception in that regard.

[stevekamp]

m4567 -- you are correct (an unforced GOP error) plus the Democratic Southern Strategy (Carter; outside the CSA states, Ford won).  In 1980-1984-1988, Rs won three in a row.

Mister Mets: Obama 2012 1.86 point pop vote drop from 2008 not much different from McKinley 1900 going up by only 0.62.  None of the states where Obama won a majority in 2008 (i.e., states other than NC, IN, Neb-2) flipped in 2012.

[Non Swing Voter]

The unfortunate thing is that conservatives still have a majority on the Supreme Court so even as most Americans move away from their rancid, despicable ideology, they will still exert influence from the putrid trash like Scalia and Roberts who sit on the bench.

[Indy Texas]

The unfortunate thing is that conservatives still have a majority on the Supreme Court so even as most Americans move away from their rancid, despicable ideology, they will still exert influence from the putrid trash like Scalia and Roberts who sit on the bench.

There's so much vitriol in that post, it's nearly eating through my laptop.

[Non Swing Voter]

The unfortunate thing is that conservatives still have a majority on the Supreme Court so even as most Americans move away from their rancid, despicable ideology, they will still exert influence from the putrid trash like Scalia and Roberts who sit on the bench.

There's so much vitriol in that post, it's nearly eating through my laptop.

Was intended that way.  I just read about the anti-gay thing Arizona Republicans are pushing through.  I have less respect for Republicans today than I do for war criminals.

[Mister Mets]

m4567 -- you are correct (an unforced GOP error) plus the Democratic Southern Strategy (Carter; outside the CSA states, Ford won).  In 1980-1984-1988, Rs won three in a row.

Mister Mets: Obama 2012 1.86 point pop vote drop from 2008 not much different from McKinley 1900 going up by only 0.62.  None of the states where Obama won a majority in 2008 (i.e., states other than NC, IN, Neb-2) flipped in 2012.

I think the 1900 environment's a bit different as that was part of the sixty years Republicans dominated the White House to an extent that we haven't seen in modern politics.

Since 1928, when there's usually been two strong political parties, the tendency has been for a party to peak and steadily lose support, until the other party peaks and starts to lose support.

Granted, it's possible that we're in a period of Democratic dominance that kicked off in either 1992 or 2008, but we won't know for sure for some time.

Obama's failure to build on his 2008 numbers is historically unusual, and doesn't suggest the amazing strength of the Democratic party. Eisenhower, LBJ, Nixon and Bill Clinton won second terms for their parties with bigger numbers, and saw the other party back in power the next time around. It doesn't suggest Republicans are guaranteed to win, but that the party could still be competitive.

[stevekamp]

Mister Mets:  the Democrats between 1896 and 1916 never got a majority, and except for Wilson's 1916 reelection, achieved majorities only in the CSA and migratory offshoots such as KY, OK, NM, AZ.  Republicans post-2008 have the same problem, though they can add the rural Interior and Wheat Belt states (AK, WY, ID, UT, ND, SD, NEB, KS).

Supreme Court analysts: partisan control of the Court is usually a lagging indicator (FDR did not appoint a majority until 1940).

[Heimdal]

I think a more interesting question is whether or not realignments actually exist. Sean Trende makes a pretty good case against it in The Lost Majority.

[m4567]

[/quote]
Obama's failure to build on his 2008 numbers is historically unusual, and doesn't suggest the amazing strength of the Democratic party. Eisenhower, LBJ, Nixon and Bill Clinton won second terms for their parties with bigger numbers, and saw the other party back in power the next time around. It doesn't suggest Republicans are guaranteed to win, but that the party could still be competitive.
[/quote]

He dodn't do much worse, I'm actually  surprised it doesn't happen more often. Plus, one could argue that he overachieved in 2008 because of the economic meltdown.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Nobody can predict a realignment. You only see a realignment once it has happened.

[Del Tachi]

Nobody can predict a realignment. You only see a realignment once it has happened.

True.  But if realignments happen about once every 40 years (1860, 1896, 1932, 1968), then we are due for one. 

[Non Swing Voter]

I think a more interesting question is whether or not realignments actually exist. Sean Trende makes a pretty good case against it in The Lost Majority.

Sean Trende has never had a rational thought EVER.  It's amazing he gets paid money to write such gibberish.

[stevekamp]

The Lost Majority is a collection of cherry picked data. I lent my copy to a friend, so I do not have it in front of me at the moment, but he in effect creates a long Republican realignment beginning with 1952 and trimming the New Deal to 1932-1936.

In a December 2013 RCP article about recommended books for political junkies, he endorses Kevin Phillips Emerging Republican Majority as an analysis that has "held up" -- and ERM is premised on the 32-36 year realignments that Trende disdains in The Lost Majority!

The Nixon cycle lasted 40 years because of the Watergate unforced error by the Reeps, and gave the out party (D) twelve years instead of the usual eight.

Trende's "Missing White Voter" theory collapses when analyzed in the context of state-level registered voter and actual county-level voting stats 2004-2012 in swing states and in the R-targeted Kerry states.  It does not work in Ohio, Virginia or anywhere else.  E mail me at steve.kamp@comcast.net and I can send you state-level analyses for Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota.  These are also posted at www.academia.edu   

[sdu754]

Nobody can predict a realignment. You only see a realignment once it has happened.

True.  But if realignments happen about once every 40 years (1860, 1896, 1932, 1968), then we are due for one. 

Why are we saying there was a realignment in 1896? Even though McKinley succeeded Cleveland, the Democrats were in no way the dominant Whitehouse party. Republicans won every election from 1860-1880, Cleveland won 2 out of three, then the Republicans won 4 in a row. Wilson won 2 then 3 more very lopsided Republican victories. Not only that, but them Democrats took power in 1932 due to the great depression, not a political realignment. Had the economy remained strong, Hoover would have been re-elected.

[stevekamp]

Every Eastern state from Connecticut southward that was winnable by a D post-1872 became a Republican overperformance zone except for Maryland, which moved from safe D to marginal.  Republicans flipped every urban county from Boston to San Francisco, and carried New Jersey, a state that never voted for Lincokln, as well the previously Democratic NYC boroughs.  This is what Walter Dean Burnham calls the "Systwem of 1896" and that Kevin Phillips discusses extensively in ERM and in his American Presidents Series bio on William McKinley (2003).

After 1896, Dems were confined to the Old Confederacy, sometimes KY-MO, the new state of Okla., and in 1916, Ariz and NM.

Dems won the WH in 1912 only because of the R party split, and held on in 1916 by a 3,773 vote margin from California.