Is Texas becoming a battleground state a sign the 6th party system is over

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Hegar should not be underestimated, Cruz lucked out and beat Beto, due to Greg Abbott.  Abbott isnt on ballot and Trump isnt as popular as Abbott. Hegar carrying the day for Biden is probable, with Ds winning Congressional seats in TX

[Roronoa D. Law]

Honestly, I think there's some pretty sound data which suggests the sixth party system has been over for a while, if you define it as starting in 1968. I like to think of 1968 to 1988 as an "era", and 1992 to present as another era. Others consider 68 to 88 as a "dealignment period" before the sixth era, which started in 1992. The really woke people (and Wikipedia) think the sixth era started in 1968 and still continues today. We might have a better idea in twenty years.

I think the period between 1992-1994 is likely when we entered a seventh party system. One based on urban vs rural. As much as people like to talk about 2016 it was really 1992 when Democrat flipped suburban counties like Ventura, Bucks, and Westchester. 1994 was when Republicans started eating in to Democratic rural areas specifically in Appalachia and white voters in the black belt region.

That really didnt happen till 2000.House races in Appalachia in 94 were Democratic




Even look at the seante race in PA in 1994


or VA

When I said Republicans were eating into Appalachia I was talking about margins. Wofford and Robb underperformed Dukkakis in Appalachia. And in Robb case he actually won VA while Dukkais lost it by 20 points.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

I have a theory of party systems, based on my own research and observations, which I will lay out here. Since 1896, the start of a new party system has signified a period of dominance for one or the other party. I say 1896 because though the third party system was full of Republican Presidents, elections in the Gilded Age were highly competitive and extremely close. By contrast, the fourth party system was a period of massive Republican landslides, and the only Democrat to win did so against a divided opposition. The fifth party system, the era of the New Deal coalition, saw the Democrats become the natural governing party. The sixth, starting in 1968, was the era of "the emerging Republican majority", the fall of the Keynesian post-war consensus, and the rise of neoliberalism. This was an era where Republicans won historic landslides like 1972 and 1984. Even the most successful Democratic President of the period, Bill Clinton, failed to win majorities in the popular vote and arguably would not have won at all without the campaigns of Ross Perot.

Each party system began with a backlash against the previous party, which was perceived as having misgoverned and led the nation into a crisis. In 1896, reeling from the Panic of 1893 blamed on the unpopular Cleveland Administration, the nation gave control to the Republicans for the next 35 years. The catastrophe of the Great Depression ended this period and ushered in Democratic rule for another three and half decades. In 1968, against the backdrop of riots at home, rising crime and inflation, and most importantly the disaster that was the War in Vietnam, another backlash ensued, this time against the Democrats.  

So, why bring all this up? I have a suspicion that the sixth party system ended in 2008, caused by public anger against the failed Bush Administration for the Iraq War and Great Recession. The outsider victories of 1976 and 2016 were aberrations, the latter soon to be corrected by a return to the norm of Democratic control. Demographics are not on the Republicans' side, and I just don't see a path forward for them in this seventh party system. The rising Democratic strength in Texas is just one of many factors indicating we have entered the period of the emerging Democratic majority. For the Republicans, it is adapt or die. But this is all just a theory, so ask again in 20 years.