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.
Umm buddy, I believe that is what people mean by the 1896 realignment. I mean, jeez dude, don't you know any history outside of electoral stats? I mean don't take this the wrong way, but virtually everybody on this website and probably even most American high school students would consider 1896 a realignment election. Especially for the Democratic Party, who had nominated a foaming at the mouth evangelical free silver liberal who damned Wall Street and the railroads like it was going out of style! Considering that four years earlier they nominated Grover Cleveland, who was considered to be basically a free trade Republican by many, it's definitely a realignment. Also, Bryan and his ilk sort of dominated the party from about 1896-1920, with the exception of when Alton Parker was nominated. And even then, Parker had to move significantly left just to appease Bryanites who threatened to sit out the 1904 Election.
And if you want to bring in electoral results, well. . . look at the West and the Plains states. If you are looking at just statewide results, like who won an election in each state, of course alignments will seem pretty easy.
Also, your conclusions about 1916 are just false. Wilson did the best since any Democratic candidate since Cleveland in the Northeast. He won the totally Old Confederate state of Ohio by seven points over Hughes. He won Washington with 48% of the vote. He won New Hampshire (barely). While he did lose in Massachusetts, he did better in that state than he did in New York (probably the first for a Democrat), losing by less than FOUR percentage points. He lost in Connecticut by only three points. Rhode Island was decided for Republicans by only five points. Rhode Island and Massachusetts were states that, in the 19th century, were stubbornly anti-Democratic in many cases.
May I suggest that in your analyses you seem to make the mistake of many of seeing the forest for the trees? It almost seems like political machines, organized labor, the Irish, German Catholics, etc. that made up the Northern coalition didn't exist.
Just saying.
