Regional Variations in the Realignment of American Politics, 1944–2004^*

Abstract

Objective. Perennial questions in electoral studies are what constitutes realignment, and when and where do realignments occur? Using the concepts of critical and secular realignments as a framework, we model change in the end product of realignment, election outcomes. We test for secular and critical changes in partisan strength across six geographic regions of the United States, focusing on officeholding data at both the federal and state legislative level. Methods. Using an interrupted time-series model, we examine evidence for secular realignment and posit five critical interventions that have affected American politics since World War II. Results. Our findings suggest that there are elements of both critical and secular realignments at work with different patterns in each region, and that different regions have been affected by a variety of elections associated with critical events since 1944. Conclusions. The collapse of Republican hegemony in the Northeast and Pacific West has gone largely unnoticed, buried in the intense examination of the growth of the Republican Party in the American South. The 1994 election is the most prominent in terms of its impact on seat holding by the parties at both the state and national level, and constitutes a realigning election.

Racism, Resentment, and Regionalism: The South and the Nation in the 2008 Presidential Election

“…Some scholars find distinctive patterns of office holding and voting when comparing the South to other regions (Bullock et al 2006;Black and Black 2002) while others find that the South's regional patterns of voting are no longer exceptional in congressional (Shafer and Johnston 2006, 189-99) and presidential elections (Aistrup 2010a). The results of the 2008 presidential election underscore this controversy.…”

Explaining Partisan Change among Northeastern Whites

“…This theme is further developed by Sundquist (1983), who views partisan changes in both the North and South as “aftershocks” of the New Deal realignment, and by the analysis of split‐ticket voting in the region by Hadley and Howell (1979). A regional analysis of party office holding by Bullock (1988) and an update by Bullock, Hoffman, and Gaddie (2006) confirm these patterns: the South and the Northeast have both experienced gradual, or what Key (1959) termed as “secular realignment” but have moved in opposite partisan directions; the former becoming more Republican and the latter more Democratic. Partisan change in the Northeast and the increasing importance of the region to Democratic prospects in presidential elections is also emphasized by Judis and Teixeira (2002), who contend that “the Northeast has become to the emerging Democratic majority what the South was to the conservative Republican majority in the 1980s” (88).…”

“…Placing all the “nonsouthern” regions together is unsatisfactory, as patterns of partisan change may exist that render each of the nonsouthern regions distinguishable. For example, the Northeast and Pacific West regions have all trended Democratic, while the Mountain West has moved in a Republican direction (Black and Black 2007; Bullock 1988; Bullock, Hoffman, and Gaddie 2006).…”

Structured Partisan Competition: A Vote Shares Model of Party Alignments and Realignments*

“…2). With the exceptions of Nardulli's interrupted time series approach (, ) and trend‐based studies of the American South (Bullock, ; Bullock, Hoffman, and Gaddie, ), aggregate data analyses fell out of favor in the 1980s, because of the inherit difficulty of classifying election outcomes that ran against the normal vote (Clubb, Flanigan, and Zingale, ; Pomper, )…”