Realigning elections

[pbrower2a]

For midterm elections, 1994 demonstrated that the Democratic party had lost much of rural America, particularly in the South. Clinton, trimmer that he was, was able to buck the trend and avoid electoral defeat the next year. But the GOP established how it would govern if given the chance.  By 2006 the GOP would lose its Congressional majority due to its misbehavior -- but had it acted differently or had less of a turkey of a President to drag it down, it might not have crashed and burned in 2006.

I look at the 1930 elections (failing economy that repudiated the extant paradigm of political life in 1920s America) and 2006 (culture of corruption) as the real realignments that made the rises of FDR and Obama more relevant or likely. Those Congressional midterm elections gave FDR and Obama opportunities that they might otherwise not have had.

Realignment may come in stages. Some Congressional seats are very solid; some aren't. Roughly one third of the Senate is up for re-election in every second year, so should the GOP lose two or three Senate seats in 2010, which election -- 2006, 2008, or 2010 -- is the real realignment election?

I can't be sure that 2008  represents a realignment in Presidential politics.  The 2008 election demonstrates no obvious and permanent re-alignment of the States from 1992:

In deference to Leip's use of "red" for Democrats and "blue" for Republicans, one finds a clear group of states that have not voted for a Democratic nominee for President since 1988 and one that has never voted for the Republican candidate for President since 1988. In that one finds that the Democrats lead 248-95 (that includes the District of Columbia for the Democrats but excludes NE-02, greater Omaha, which voted for a Democrat in 2008 from the solid-Republican areas, and makes no allowance for reapportionment of electoral votes in elections after 2010). This could be a secularist-fundamentalist divide, or a reflection of the reality that Catholics, Jews, and African-American Protestants vote very differently from Christian Protestant fundamentalists and Mormons. All of the states colored red voted for Obama by double-digit margins, some of those margins very large.

It would take a very strong Republican candidate to pick off even one of those states -- someone like Ronald Reagan, a conservative from California, or perhaps a moderate Republican able to allay liberal fears. Does anyone see any such political figure? I don't. It is not enough to have someone who continues Reagan's ideology without having Reagan's political skills; Obama has Reagan's skills, if not the ideology. Dubya had much of the ideology, but few of Reagan's skills (and few otehr positive attibutes) 

Green reflects the states that have voted only once for a Republican candidate in those years -- New Hampshire,  Iowa, and New Mexico -- in one of the two really-close elections, 2000 and 2004. These are tough states for Republican nominees to win -- and they were close in 2000 and 2004.  Some might contend that because Dubya came close to winning Wisconsin in 2004 it belongs in this category... but Wisconsin looks like a tough state for a Republican nominee to win. States in this category account for 264 electoral votes; that leaves five to tie in electoral votes and six to win for a Democrat.

Yellow, in contrast, is for states that might go Democratic for a southern centrist Democrat (like Carter or Clinton) but not for a northern liberal or barely went for Obama in 2008. West Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and North Carolina went for Clinton twice, but all went decisively for Dubya -- or for Indiana and NE-02 that, although going for Obama went for narrow margins, show themselves more Republican-leaning than the nation as a whole. Clinton never won Indiana, and never got close even though all states surrounding Indiana voted for him. Obama actively campaigned in Indiana, had an unusually-strong campaign and is from a neighboring state (Illinois); the Republicans neglected the state and Indiana started to feel economic distress similar to that in Michigan and Ohio. Obama wins Indiana only in a 400-vote landslide in 2012; he won't be actively campaigning in Indiana in 2012 even if he is in political trouble. Those states account for 66 electoral votes and can't be ruled out as part of a Republican firewall in 2012 -- yet. Because the Democratic nominee for President will NOT be a southern centrist, Obama has little chance at those that Clinton or Carter carried in the South except for Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida.   

White is for two states (Florida, Ohio) that were close in 2000, 2004, and 2008, and that Republicans must both win to win the Presidency. If the Democrat wins either of these two states, he wins the Presidency in 2012. Clinton won both states both times, and Obama won both once. 

Gray is for the others -- states that voted for Clinton or Obama from two or three times altogether and were close to going for Obama in 2008 or went for him in 2008 -- and Virginia, which went for Obama by about 7 points. Clinton never won Virginia, but Virginia has been drifting toward the Democrats as it has lost many of its Southern characteristics.

2008 may be a realignment year in Presidential politics... if Virginia has become a part of the political North, if Indiana is no longer a lock for the GOP in all but Democratic blowouts, and if the double-digit Obama win in 2008 in Nevada reflects a permanent tendency. Colorado? It might be in the same category as Virginia, except that it did vote for Clinton twice. I might be more convinced that 2008 was a re-alignment year if Obama had won Colorado or Virginia with a double-digit lead as he won Nevada and New Mexico.

Obama's win in 2008 looks much like one of Clinton's wins -- with Virginia and Indiana instead of Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Tennessee. That's no obvious re-alignment.

A landslide is not itself a realignment; three consecutive landslides (such as 1980, 1984, and 1988)  mask demographic shifts and grass-roots reorganization of political life that allow political life to emerge very different from what it had been.
     

   

[pbrower2a]

1800: Democratic-Republicans take over, power shifts from New England to the South, and spells the end of the first two-party system as the Federalists never again regain either the presidency or Congress, and towards the end of this period, the latter shall dissolve entirely after the end of the War of 1812.  Also known as the period of the 'Virginia dynasty'.

1828: Andrew Jackson's presidency heralds the beginning of a more democratic era in American politics, and the second period of a two-party system as the Democratic and Whig parties battle it out. 

1860: With the dissolving of the Whig Party over slavery in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Dred Scott decision, a new political era opens with the beginning of the third (and current) period of a two-party system as Republicans first begin to establish their ascendancy as they battle it out with Democrats during and after the Civil War.

1896: As Civil War-era issues begin to fade, a new paradigm is set as the industrial revolution and the Gilded Age shape a new era.  Democrats decisively side with populists with the candidacy of William Jennings Bryan, and Republicans under William McKinley and Mark Hanna side with business interests, and triumph twice decisively, marking the beginning of a period of Republican dominance in which all but eight of those years were presided over by a Republican president. 

1932: The Great Depression brings a sudden end to Republican ascendance, and the beginning of an era of Democratic dominance with the New Deal coalition brought together by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  It is during this era that organized labor is at its strongest and most influential. 

1968: Richard Nixon wins and holds on to his presidency with a Southern Strategy that involved eventually turning the South Republican as the Republican Party turned more conservative to cater to disaffected Dixiecrats.  It marks the beginning of a period of conservative dominance, marked later on with the victory of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and the Republican Revolution in 1994, and the final full flowering of the conservative Republican coalition with President George W. Bush's re-election in 2004, and final Republican consolidation in the South. 

2008: Regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination, the grinding quagmire of the Iraq War, the implosion of the conservative Republican coalition that had held together for forty years, a growing insecurity among Americans with and as a result of globalization (and free trade in particular), and the disaffection of the American people (particularly the Millennial generation as it grows older) with conservatism and the Republican Party in general will mark the beginning of another period of Democratic dominance as Americans turn once more to the left.  For their efforts to fight illegal immigration Republicans, rightly or wrongly, will be seen by Latinos as a den of nativists and xenophobes and generally unwelcoming to ethnic minorities.  As with blacks during the 1964 Goldwater campaign, the GOP will decisively cede the Latino vote as a whole to Democrats for at least a generation.  With the GOP so closely associated with the South and the Religious Right in the minds of most Americans, Democrats will find their greatest chance for expanding their power throughout the Rocky Mountain West, especially in the Southwest. 

The only way 2008 will be a realignment is that if Democrats not only win the White House, but also pick up at least a dozen seats in the House and five in the Senate.  Without that happening, the Democratic President will not be able to implement any progressive reforms(i.e. Clinton in 1993-1994).

What do you think now?

2008 does not look like one of the biggest realignments of all time. 1992 was far bigger, and one can explain the 2008 election as having many patterns from 1992 and 1996. The only obvious differences are that Obama picks up three states that Clinton never won (VA, NC, and IN) and recognize that Obama loses several states that a Southern moderate populist like Clinton could win (AR, LA, KY, TN, WV, GA) but a Northern liberal Democrat does not win. If Obama wins Missouri instead of North Carolina (possible except for third-party candidates that took votes away from the loser from the same side of the political spectrum), then the difference between 2008 and 1992/1996 is the sort of candidate running as President.
Obama could conceivably pick up Missouri, Montana, and Arizona in 2012 in addition to what he won in 2008, and that would not suggest a realignment; Missouri and Montana were close in 2008, and a win of Arizona would show that the Republicans would not have won the state with anyone other than John McCain.  The Dakotas? Roughly the same thing.

But what happens if Obama picks up a raft of states in that Clinton won in the South but Obama got clobbered in, or Texas? Those would indicate a huge change in the political scene, one in which southern states can vote for a northern liberal. That would also signal at the least an Eisenhower-scale landslide that forces an electoral realignment of some kind -- either the Republican Party re-inventing itself or the eventual split of the Democratic Party after the GOP dies.

[pbrower2a]

(EV counts are for 1992 -- not 1976)


Here is the Presidential election of 1992:

Sure, there was a strong third-party candidate in 1992, which makes the 1992 results "paler" with candidates winning states with as little as 38% of the vote.  But note the similarities between 1976 and 1992:

1. Both Ford and GHWB were successors of Presidents as VPs.

2. Ideologically, Carter and Clinton were nearly identical.

3. Both Carter and Clinton were from the South  (Arkansas and Georgia aren't that different)

4. Both Ford and GHWB were from the North.

It looks as if in 1976, most of the North would not vote for a Southern populist; in 1992 enough of the North could. In 1980 Carter's 1976 Southern support largely turned away from him after a less-than-stellar Presidency... but in 1996 Clinton won almost the same states that he won in 1992:

Note that the wins are more decisive for both Clinton and Dole due to the weakening of support for Ross Perot.

Realignment of Presidential politics happened while the Democrats were losing Presidential elections in landslides. It would seem that some regions of the country became disgruntled with the GOP. Parties can rarely hold contradictory interests together -- hawks and doves, big business and big labor, environmentalists and environmental ravagers, or as in the South since 1964, blacks and whites.   

Now what can we say of the shift from 1992/96 to 2008? (Ignore shades as they are irrelevant in 2008 as they are from 1992 -- and I am still using 1992 electoral vote counts ):

Green: Clinton won these states at least once, but Obama got clobbered in them.

Yellow: Clinton lost these both times, and Obama has won them.

Gray:  Clinton won these both times or once, but Obama came close to winning them or would have won except for a Favorite Son effect worth about ten percentage points.

Orange: Obama picked off an electoral vote in Nebraska, which is otherwise in the blue category.

The green and yellow categories say more about who was running than about long-term political support for Parties. Obama got clobbered in Arkansas and West Virginia despite the states having two Democratic senators and a Democratic governor, suggesting that whatever his strengths as a politician, Obama was the wrong sort of candidate to win Arkansas or West Virginia -- or any other state in green.   Gray? Just luck. Obama probably beats any imaginable GOP candidate except John McCain in Arizona in 2008, and Montana and Missouri were really close.

If Obama should win any of the states in gray or lose any of the states in yellow in 2012, then that says little about the political realities on the grand scale. If he picks up any of the states in blue (except perhaps the Dakotas) or green, then that says more about Obama as President. Should some Yankee liberal like Evan Bayh pick up essentially the same states that Obama won in 2008 and get clobbered in the states in green in 2016, then that says that 1992 really set political realities in Presidential elections in stone.



 

 

[pbrower2a]

Here's my fresh pick for a Realigning Election -- 1952. Ignore electoral votes, as those shown are for 2012. As I show, 2012 and 2008 will be relevant.

Eisenhower won a bunch of states that Republican nominees just did not win in those days -- but that they won consistently after that. It may be hard to believe that such states as Arizona, Idaho, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming used to vote for Democrats except in Republican blowouts -- but each one of those states has voted once each for a Democratic nominee for President. Virginia was in that category until 2008. (Indiana was close for Truman in 1948 and was in that category until 2008).

As is to be expected in a 442-89 landslide, Eisenhower won several states that usually went Democratic before and since. Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Rhode Island went twice for Eisenhower, but since 1960 they have gone at most three times for Republican nominees -- Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1980, or Reagan in 1984.

Red -- Truman 1948, Stevenson 1952
Blue -- Dewey 1948, Eisenhower 1952
Green -- Thurmond 1948, Stevenson 1952
Gray -- Truman 1948, Eisenhower 1952
White -- Did not vote for President in 1948 or 1952

Oddly this map has some bearing on 2008 and 2012 -- exactly sixty years after "Dewey Defeats Truman*" and "I Like Ike, Part I". In  2008 Barack Obama won every state in blue or  gray to the east of the Mississippi River except Tennessee, only one state in red (North Carolina -- barely), and none in green -- and in 2012 he won every state east of the Mississippi in blue or gray except Indiana and Tennessee. I have no idea how Alaska, DC, or Hawaii would have voted in 1948 or 1952, so I shall remain silent about them. But I can graft on yellow to mark states that went Truman '48 - Eisenhower '52 - Obama '08/'12 to spare some verbiage:

Red -- Truman 1948, Stevenson 1952
Blue -- Dewey 1948, Eisenhower 1952
Green -- Thurmond 1948, Stevenson 1952
Gray -- Truman 1948, Eisenhower 1952, McCain 2008, Romney 2012
White -- Did not vote for President in 1948 or 1952
Yellow -- Truman 1948, Eisenhower 1952, Obama both 2008 and 2012

*Contrary to myth, the 1948 Presidential election wasn't all that close. Truman beat Dewey by about 4% of the popular vote and 114 electoral votes.


So why is 1952 a realigning election? Just look at the 31 (2012 count of electoral votes)   electoral votes that used to go reliably D in Presidential elections that went reliably R in Presidential elections (AZ, ID, OK, UT, WY) for at least sixty more years and  another 13 (VA) for fifty more years. 44 electoral votes is the equivalent now of 4/5 of those of California,  six more than Texas, one more than New York and Michigan together (or Georgia and Florida), four of Arizona or Indiana, or the combination PA-NJ-MD. That is six more than the five states that Clinton won twice but Obama lost by 10% or more (Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, and West Virginia) twice.  An election that swings 44 electoral votes (again, 2012 count) for 50 years, a period much longer than all but the longest political careers, is a huge realignment.