The New Democratic Majority -- It's Realignment -- Part II

[stevekamp]

A similar Northern Strategy Coalition dominated American politics from 1860 through 1928 – same states, similar program, but a different party: the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, Reconstruction, the Homestead Act and the transcontinental railroad  -- that since 1988 has been dominated by the onetime Solid South of the Nineteenth Century Democratic Party.   The 2008 and 2012 results placed the two parties in entirely new roles: the Democrats are now the Eastern-Pacific majority party, with the largest state (California) more Democratic than any other state, none of which is larger, and larger than any jurisdiction that is more Democratic.  The Republicans are now the minority Southern/rural party, with the top GOP states Oklahoma, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, and Louisiana, and the largest double-digit GOP electoral vote states Georgia and Texas, after the Old Confederacy took over the Republican coalition in 1988, and a Northern-based Democratic Party majority emerged from the 1992, 1996 and 2000 elections after going into hibernation in 1968.  The Democratic majority first emerged with the President Johnson election in 1964, but its’ critical suburban component flipped back to the Republicans between 1966 and 1990.  The majority emerged again in 1992, 1996 and 2000, when Democratic percentages continuously rose in the North and Vice President Gore was kept out of the White House only by the Ralph Nader siphon in New Hampshire. It almost emerged yet again in 2004, when Senator John Kerry was kept out of the White House only by the Republican margin surge in rural western Ohio. 
The 1860, 1896, 1964, and 2008-2012 electoral maps are essentially re-fights of the Civil War, except that the party of Lincoln has become the party of the Confederacy, and the Democratic Party has evolved from the “White Man’s Party” of 1868 nominee Horatio Seymour and the 1960 Alabama Democratic elector slate ballot label (“White Supremacy”) to the post-1988 party mocked by Republican acolyte Sean Trende for its’ declining share of the white electorate. This Civil War reversed pattern began in the 1790’s emergence of the Federalists as the party of the nascent urban areas of the East, and the 1800 emergence of the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party as the voice of the rural South and the trans-Appalachian states; it was Alexander Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures versus Thomas Jefferson’s belief in the superiority of the yeoman farmer.  After the Federalist Party died in the 1820’s, its adherents wound up in another northern urban-based party first known as the National Republicans and then the Whigs, which was the minority “moon” party in the “sun” of the Andrew Jackson Southern-rural Democratic coalition that dominated American politics between 1826 and 1856.
However, the Southern slaveocracy took over the Democratic Party, electing 49 of the 81 Democrats in the 33rd Congress (1853-1854) and supplying 88 of the 174 electoral votes for 1856 winner James Buchanan. In response, a new Northern-based Republican Party arose in 1854 as the Whigs lost interest in paying for the printing of ballots.  The Grand New Party of Californian John Fremont came within 35 electoral votes of winning the White House in 1856, and elected Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln in 1860 by adding Illinois, Indiana and Pennsylvania, thus winning the White House with a state collection similar to the Democratic state collections after 1996 -- every state from Maine through Minnesota except Indiana (which went Republican in both 1860 and 2012) and New Jersey (which went Democratic in 1860, 2008 and 2012).

The 2008, 2012 and 1860 Presidential Maps

2008
  1860
2012
 


Republicans dominated the Electoral College from 1860 through 1928. The Democrats achieved one popular vote majority (1876), and did not win an Electoral College majority for twenty-four years (1884). Once Reconstruction ended, the Old Confederacy 11 states emerged in 1880 as the linchpin of the Democratic coalition. Republicans responded with a northern coalition from Maine through Minnesota to California that won the Electoral College in each of the 18 Presidential elections between 1860 and 1928 except 1884, 1892, 1912 and 1916.
The 1888, 2008 and 2012 Presidential Maps
1888
 
2012
 
2008
 



Democrat Grover Cleveland won the popular vote in 1888 and 1892.  However, the suddenly out of office Grover Opposition Party successfully blamed the Panic of 1893 on the Democrats, resulting in 1896, 1900, 1904 and 1908 Republican wins with 51-54 percent of the popular vote from a united North, as every pre-1896 competitive Northern state became a Republican overperformance zone, led by urban counties from Boston to San Francisco.
The 1896, 2008, and 2012 Presidential Maps
1896
 


2012
 
2008
 


In 1910, the Southern-based Democrats won back the House with a surge of newly Democratic seats in the North, a surge that also flipped the New York Legislature and sent future President Franklin Roosevelt to the New York State Senate.  However, many of these House wins were by plurality winners in five- or six-ticket races – 49 of 227 in 1910 and 123 of 293 in 1912 were elected with less than a majority. While the surge continued into 1912 – giving the Democrats 293 of 435 U.S. House seats -- it began to peter out in 1914 (when the Democrats lost a net 63 House seats), and in 1916, the Republicans pulled Democrats to 216 on Election Night, forcing them to hold the Speaker’s chair by support from three Progressives, a Prohibitionist, and a Socialist.  The Galloping Old Party re-flipped the House in 1918, and in 1920 achieved a record 302 seats.  In between, Woodrow Wilson won a plurality 1912 victory, thanks to the decision by the 1912 Republican Party (except in California and South Dakota) to shun Theodore Roosevelt.  In 1916, President Wilson was reelected despite losing the ticket’s two home states (New Jersey and Indiana) thanks to a 3,773 raw margin in California that provided the decisive 13 electoral votes. The 1916 Wilson reelection map is a mirror-image of the 1996 map, with the 1916 Republicans and 1996 Democrats dominating the East and Great Lakes states, and the 1916 Democrats and 1996 Republicans dominating the South and interior West.

The 1916 and 1996 Presidential Maps
1916
  1996
 

The negative reaction to World War I and the Versailles Treaty reinstated the Galloping Old Party back in the White House in 1920, 1924 and 1928, again with a northern-based coalition.
The 1920-1924-1928 Presidential Map
Democratic 1920, 1924, 1928 – Ark., La., Alab., Miss., Ga., SC
Republican once 1920, 1924, 1928 (Texas, Florida, Virginia, N.C.)
Republican 1920, 1924, Democratic 1928 (Mass., R.I.)
Republican twice 1920, 1924, 1932 (Tennessee, Oklahoma, 1920 and 1928; Kentucky, 1924 and 1928)
Wisconsin – Republican 1920, 1928; Progressive 1924
Republican 1920, 1924, 1928 – all other states

1928
 
1924
 
1920
 

Continued in next post -- Part III