In retrospect, which were realigning elections?
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  In retrospect, which were realigning elections?
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Question: In retrospect, which were realigning elections?
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1968
 
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1980
 
#3
1992
 
#4
2000
 
#5
2008
 
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Author Topic: In retrospect, which were realigning elections?  (Read 6061 times)
pbrower2a
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« Reply #25 on: September 28, 2020, 07:21:17 PM »

2000 -- the equivalent of 48 electoral votes in states that usually went D in close elections went R and never turned back.

1992 -- a raft of states (including California, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, and Vermont, which generally went R, have gone D and have never since come back.

1980 -- Carter had won Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas for the last time for a long time.

The realignment from 1976 to 2000 took three steps.

1952 -- several western states that had voted reliably for the New Deal Coalition went for Ike and have since not gone D more than once. Oddly the 1952 election looks much like the 1928 election for Hoover.   
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jeb_arlo
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« Reply #26 on: September 29, 2020, 08:35:27 AM »

1800
1824
1848
1872
1896
1920
1944
1968
1992
2016
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #27 on: November 24, 2020, 03:49:33 PM »

1800
1824
1848
1872
1896
1920
1944
1968
1992
2016

2016 is not a realignment election. 1976 to 2008 suggests a huge realignment in stages, and 2020 looks more like 2012 than anything else. Trump did not win an overwhelming win of the Electoral College and in fact lost the popular vote. If 2016 were a genuine realignment, then Trump would have won decisively in 2020.

2020 is of  course not a realigning election.
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Catalyst138
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« Reply #28 on: November 24, 2020, 04:07:04 PM »

1800
1824
1848
1872
1896
1920
1944
1968
1992
2016

2016 is not a realignment election. 1976 to 2008 suggests a huge realignment in stages, and 2020 looks more like 2012 than anything else. Trump did not win an overwhelming win of the Electoral College and in fact lost the popular vote. If 2016 were a genuine realignment, then Trump would have won decisively in 2020.

2020 is of  course not a realigning election.

2020 doesn’t look like 2012 at all. The popular vote margin is similar but the states are very different. If this was really a return to 2012 then Biden would have won WI/MI/PA by more than a point or two and not be competitive in states like AZ and GA.

The 2020 election is largely a continuation of the trends from 2016, with the Sun Belt becoming more left-leaning and the Rust belt being less (just look at how far OH and IA have gone), as well as more suburban counties flipping blue. The Democrats just did better this time than last time. The only difference from 2016 in terms of trends are the losses in urban Florida counties and south Texas.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #29 on: November 24, 2020, 04:56:03 PM »
« Edited: November 24, 2020, 09:37:02 PM by Skill and Chance »

Really liking the 1800/1856/1896/1952/1992 (1994?) story after seeing 2020 play out.  The realignments look something like this:

1. Agrarian interests become dominant, out-party represents infrastructure interests/early industrialists
2. Early entrepreneurs and industrialists become dominant
3. Urban working class becomes large and powerful enough to demand concessions from #2 while partnering with remnant of #1
4. Suburban middle class becomes dominant, movement to protect and support #3 fades in favor of small government
5. Urban/suburban managerial class becomes dominant, partners with remnant of #3 to seek more government intervention
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Alben Barkley
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« Reply #30 on: November 24, 2020, 05:29:48 PM »

1932 and 1980 were the only unambiguous realigning elections in the 20th and 21st centuries, though you can make a case for a few others.
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Alben Barkley
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« Reply #31 on: November 24, 2020, 07:54:35 PM »

1800
1824
1848
1872
1896
1920
1944
1968
1992
2016

1944?Huh
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Hope For A New Era
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« Reply #32 on: November 27, 2020, 04:24:16 AM »

After seeing how 2020 has played out, here's the argument I'll make.

1932 should not be the election we use to define a realigning election. 1932 is an anomaly.

Why is it an anomaly?

Because Carter and Trump, the two most recent "collapse" presidents, were only really hit especially hard by crises during year 4.

Hoover was hit during year 1. The country then had to struggle through 3 years of his poor management of the Great Depression, with no outlet in the form of an election, allowing the Democratic momentum to keep building. The result was extreme Democratic dominance for 20 years and lingering strength for a further 30.

Most realignments are not so clear-cut and decisive.

What we know as the Reagan Era has very fuzzy edges. Steps. 1968, then the big step in 1980, then 1994, then 2000. Bush's presidency was when the coalition of fiscal conservatives + the religious right was at its most dominant in American politics, culture, and society.

The first step into the new era was 2008. 2020, apparently, is step two. Step three is...2034?
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #33 on: November 27, 2020, 11:42:41 AM »

One of the most interesting things about the current era is big business and small business sorting into opposite parties.  This is something we haven't really seen since the 19th century.
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dw93
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« Reply #34 on: November 27, 2020, 05:44:20 PM »

After seeing how 2020 has played out, here's the argument I'll make.

1932 should not be the election we use to define a realigning election. 1932 is an anomaly.

Why is it an anomaly?

Because Carter and Trump, the two most recent "collapse" presidents, were only really hit especially hard by crises during year 4.

Hoover was hit during year 1. The country then had to struggle through 3 years of his poor management of the Great Depression, with no outlet in the form of an election, allowing the Democratic momentum to keep building. The result was extreme Democratic dominance for 20 years and lingering strength for a further 30.

Most realignments are not so clear-cut and decisive.

What we know as the Reagan Era has very fuzzy edges. Steps. 1968, then the big step in 1980, then 1994, then 2000. Bush's presidency was when the coalition of fiscal conservatives + the religious right was at its most dominant in American politics, culture, and society.

The first step into the new era was 2008. 2020, apparently, is step two. Step three is...2034?

I think with 2020 being the way it was, 2008 will be seen as the "big step" of this new era, with 2020 being one of many small steps.
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Del Tachi
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« Reply #35 on: November 27, 2020, 05:56:52 PM »

1800
1824
1860
1896
1932
1968
2008
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Hope For A New Era
EastOfEden
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« Reply #36 on: November 27, 2020, 08:58:15 PM »

After seeing how 2020 has played out, here's the argument I'll make.

1932 should not be the election we use to define a realigning election. 1932 is an anomaly.

Why is it an anomaly?

Because Carter and Trump, the two most recent "collapse" presidents, were only really hit especially hard by crises during year 4.

Hoover was hit during year 1. The country then had to struggle through 3 years of his poor management of the Great Depression, with no outlet in the form of an election, allowing the Democratic momentum to keep building. The result was extreme Democratic dominance for 20 years and lingering strength for a further 30.

Most realignments are not so clear-cut and decisive.

What we know as the Reagan Era has very fuzzy edges. Steps. 1968, then the big step in 1980, then 1994, then 2000. Bush's presidency was when the coalition of fiscal conservatives + the religious right was at its most dominant in American politics, culture, and society.

The first step into the new era was 2008. 2020, apparently, is step two. Step three is...2034?

I think with 2020 being the way it was, 2008 will be seen as the "big step" of this new era, with 2020 being one of many small steps.

It seems like 2020 involves more change in coalitions, though?

2008 is flashy and dramatic, but it's not really anything new. It's the combination of some of the older D coalition parts (look at all those counties Obama won in West Virginia) plus one big new thing, some suburban areas (a change that was hinted at in 2004). It's very much a 1968 - Nixon had all the traditional Republican pieces, plus one big new thing, some white southerners (a change that first began to show itself in 1964).

2020 seems to involve much more change under the surface, even though the electoral map doesn't look that different - 2016's huge loss of rural/WWC support for Democrats is proven to not be a fluke, and actually becomes even more extreme in many areas, while Republicans collapse spectacularly in suburbs.
Also, there's another classic sign of realignment: the suburbs voting D for president and R downballot, and the rurals voting R for president and D downballot. Missouri actually has a really good example of this. Galloway did better than Biden in the ancestrally-Democratic Leadbelt, and worse than him in suburban counties like Platte, Clay, and St. Charles.
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iamaganster123
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« Reply #37 on: November 27, 2020, 09:12:01 PM »

1980 and 2000 are both realignment years. in both those years you saw republicans solidify themselves as conservatives and saw aggressive shifts in rural america against the dems
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MATTROSE94
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« Reply #38 on: November 27, 2020, 11:59:48 PM »

1800, 1824, 1860, 1874, 1894, 1896, 1912 (maybe), 1932, 1952, 1958, 1964, 1968, 1980, 1994, 2000, 2008, 2010, 2016, 2020. 
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Devils30
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« Reply #39 on: November 29, 2020, 09:25:39 PM »

2020! Biden is the new McKinley! In all seriousness the popular vote is very similar to 1896.
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darklordoftech
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« Reply #40 on: November 30, 2020, 12:11:50 AM »

There were polls in 2008 that had Hillary winning the the states that last voted Democratic in 1996, so 2000 might have realigned those states into swing states while 2008 realigned them into red states.
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kwabbit
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« Reply #41 on: November 30, 2020, 02:17:15 AM »

I agree about 2000 being a realigning election. The South's long term trends might've been Republican, but it still voted for Clinton twice and Carter in 76. 2000 was the first close election where the South voted Republican and it was decisive. There were some huge trends all across the region from 96 to 2000. It also cemented the Northeast and West as left-leaning. It was the beginning of polarization across regional lines that would create a system of mostly safe states.
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« Reply #42 on: December 01, 2020, 01:19:35 AM »

I don't believe in 'realigning elections', but just for fun...

Obviously 1980. Ever since Democrats have never been able to sweep the South, and Republicans have never needed to carry California.  

1994 is critical but it was mostly the breakthrough of the Reagan Revolution at Congressional level, being the first midterm since Reagan under a Democratic president.

2000 was important for Appalachian whites flipping Republican but I'm not sure any other demographics moved significantly.

2016 may be considered a realigning election by future generations IMO. Trump broke the 'Blue Wall' and won states not carried by Republicans since 1988 thanks to an epic Democratic collapse in the rural white vote, this time in the Midwest (and Northeast).

2020 cemented the 2016 trend of white rurals, plus added a new swing of suburban educateds esp. in the South, who had failed to trend as anticipated in 2016 (hence Clinton's loss).

If people are still talking about realigining elections in 60 years time, I suspect they'll be saying 1980 up to 2016 was the Reagan party system, and 2016 - ?? is something new, where Republicans start depending on the Upper Midwest and Democrats begin to centre on the South for the first time since Carter.

(Or maybe Biden is a successful President who tampers down the culture war and brings back white rural voters to the Democratic Party, while suburban voters trend back to the Republicans without Trump on the ballot. Who knows.)
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DabbingSanta
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« Reply #43 on: December 01, 2020, 04:31:32 PM »

1796: First contested presidential election.

1860: Split the nation into north vs south.  Northern areas would remain largely Republican for over 70 years.  The South would stay Democrat for a century, excluding the brief period of Reconstruction.  This really solidified the GOP as the dominant party going forward.

1932: Roosevelt's New Deal coalition and the collapse of Republican support in the Midwest following the start of the Great Depression. Democrats would retain the presidency for 20 years.

1948: Period of dealignment. This is when southern Democrats distanced themselves from the national party and voted for their best interests... at the time that was to preserve segregation and "state's rights".  Republicans began to make inroads in traditionally Democratic regions and the "Southern Strategy" unfolded.

1992: Bill Clinton really changed the map. He flipped several traditionally Republican regions which remain Democrat to this day — the west coast, Northeast, and New England,  and also temporarily repaired the New Deal coalition and kept the upper Midwest in the Democrat's column for 24 years.

2016: Suburban realignment from Republican to Democrat. Rural regions increasingly strong for the Republican candidate. Urban regions increasingly Democratic.  The divides which were developing since the period of dealignment solidified during this election, and they're unlikely to break any time soon.  Upper Midwest became competitive, and white working class voters fled the Democratic party in droves for a rebranded, populist GOP.
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« Reply #44 on: December 02, 2020, 02:24:11 AM »
« Edited: December 02, 2020, 02:27:22 AM by laddicus finch »

All of them, but 2000 is the most underrated (though not the biggest) one. The cultural polarization between Gore's smarty-pants liberalism and Bush's folksy conservatism is a good starting point for today's political divide. Look at the 1996-2000 county swing map (in relation to PV change) for reference:



Gore improved in virtually every major urban area and the black belt, as well as most of California, while losing significant ground in most of rural white America. The swing map has a lot of similarities to how one would expect the parties to do today, with a few exceptions. His improvement in Kansas and Tennessee for example seems to be a home state factor, Florida has trended right in relation to the nation despite Gore's improvements there, and almost all of Texas swung hard right, probably just because of Dubya. The most pronounced rightward swings outside Texas happened in Northern New England and upstate NY, Appalachia and around the Ohio river, the parts of the south located west of the Mississippi (i.e. less black people than the rest of the south), and a swathe of heavily rural counties stretching from rural midwest, through the Dakotas, through the rockies before stopping at the Cascades. Basically, most rural white areas apart from Kansas swung HARD to the GOP, even adjusting for the change in national PV. Also, notice Gore's improvement in the suburbs. Nobody was thinking of the burbs as Democratic just yet (because they weren't), but heavily suburban counties were already swinging to the Dems.
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« Reply #45 on: December 06, 2020, 11:52:03 AM »


2016 is definitely one, if you take a white majority place anywhere in the country and look at its level of education, you perfectly predict the swing towards or against Trump. You can look at the levels of racial conservatism a person has and predict swings towards or against Trump.

In addition, 2016 was the first election since 1996 in where racial depolarisation decreased.

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« Reply #46 on: December 06, 2020, 01:17:55 PM »

All of them, but 2000 is the most underrated (though not the biggest) one. The cultural polarization between Gore's smarty-pants liberalism and Bush's folksy conservatism is a good starting point for today's political divide. Look at the 1996-2000 county swing map (in relation to PV change) for reference:



Gore improved in virtually every major urban area and the black belt, as well as most of California, while losing significant ground in most of rural white America. The swing map has a lot of similarities to how one would expect the parties to do today, with a few exceptions. His improvement in Kansas and Tennessee for example seems to be a home state factor, Florida has trended right in relation to the nation despite Gore's improvements there, and almost all of Texas swung hard right, probably just because of Dubya. The most pronounced rightward swings outside Texas happened in Northern New England and upstate NY, Appalachia and around the Ohio river, the parts of the south located west of the Mississippi (i.e. less black people than the rest of the south), and a swathe of heavily rural counties stretching from rural midwest, through the Dakotas, through the rockies before stopping at the Cascades. Basically, most rural white areas apart from Kansas swung HARD to the GOP, even adjusting for the change in national PV. Also, notice Gore's improvement in the suburbs. Nobody was thinking of the burbs as Democratic just yet (because they weren't), but heavily suburban counties were already swinging to the Dems.


Even in Texas Dallas county and Harris county begins to trend D . In Georgia the suburban areas begin to trend D and VA NoVa trends D
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #47 on: December 30, 2020, 12:56:20 AM »


Uhhh... no. Except for 1980 and 1992, in which the President elected in the previous election lost by a large margin, the electoral maps are fairly similar between years. If five or fewer states move one way or the other, there is no real realignment. Even in 2020 the difference from 2016 was five states, and the most likely three of the states that did move from Trump to Biden would have been enough. 2020 looks like about as status-quo an election, one that the personality and performance of Donald Trump decided for the Presidency more than anyone else, as there ever has been. Voters casting off an corrupt, erratic, or incompetent incumbent is no realignment. Open-seat elections are more likely to have change.

"1980" reflects a change in American cultural life, with the rise of the Religious Right whose economics are best described for the proletariat as "Suffer in This World on behalf of the owners and managers so that you may receive your rewards in the Next" (opinion: anyone who pushes that deserves to end up in the part of Hell that most resembles an ante-bellum plantation in the old American South... as a slave), and "1992" reflects the separation of the Eisenhower/Rockefeller Republicans from the reactionary, racist Southern agrarians with whom they had little in common.

Will 2024 be a realigning election?  Looking at prior elections in which the President or his VP successor ran for another term...

elections of 1956, 1984 (only five states 'moved'), 1996, 2004, and 2012 suggest more of the same.
 
1976, in which Ford would have been a continuation of Nixon years without Nixon's "dark side" is likely irrelevant.

1992 is imaginable if one sees Joe Biden as a tiresome third term of Barack Obama for all practical purposes. We shall see.

1980 suggests a Presidential failure, but really... the political culture changed as the New Deal coalition fell apart and the Religious Right won over the Mountain South.

1964 and 1972 represent the losing Presidential candidate winning the nomination by winning the more radical wing of the Party, only for the incumbent's Party to cast that candidate as a dangerous extremist out of touch with mainstream America. Paradoxically the losing Party of that year nominated a moderate in the next election... and won. The problem with that analogy is that there is no large 'moderate' wing in the GOP.

Open seat? Anything goes.       
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #48 on: December 30, 2020, 05:43:36 PM »

The one constant has been non-farm small business owners voting Republican since day 1.   Big business has flipped back and forth other than getting spooked by FDR for about a generation.   
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MT Treasurer
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« Reply #49 on: January 02, 2021, 04:15:58 PM »

1960 is a seriously underrated pick IMO -- marked a departure from Eisenhower's nonideological tendencies/rhetoric and the ideological conformity during WWII and the 1950s, foreshadowed some of the geographic trends of 1968 and a lot of the shifts during the 1980s (and beyond in some cases), and Nixon's campaign message paved the way for appeals to culturally traditionalist/conservative voters more than people give him credit for.

Nixon arguably ran a stronger race in 1960 than in 1968 as well.
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