Has the US turned to a European style of partisan elections?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Traditionally US elections were based around entrenched incumbents who had little to fear even if things were bad for their party. Look at 1984, the Democrats still easily held the House despite Reagan's landslide, they even did in 1972, and you had many prototypes like the classic Southern Democrats and some Republicans in the Northeast who were completely insulated from the national conditions. Even as recently as last decade you had Democrats holding >60% Bush districts. Plus it was known incumbent turnover used to be extremely low, something frequently mentioned in my college textbooks, one political scientist even noted that while the Soviet Union was around its politboro often had a higher turnover rate than US Congress.

But then came 2006. Most just wrote that off as a wave election...but then 2008, 2010 and now 2014. Now that's a hell of a lot of waves in a relatively short time. I suspect the US has mostly gone partisan now, people have dropped the whole "vote for the person" type attitude that used to be so prevalent and praised. It's much like how in Europe if a government is unpopular, they get crushed at the next election, and people in competitive seats don't survive just based on being entrenched usually. I bet the same thing could happen here now and we'll see a lot more "waves" in the future. The biggest difference is the prevalence of gerrymandering of course, but the days when some guy from the wrong party could survive no problem in a D/R+8 district as long as they were kind of moderate and well entrenched are now long gone.

[Mehmentum]

Every election since 2006 has been a wave.  Its ridiculous.

[tpfkaw]

Not really; gubernatorial elections are generally only partially nationalized, for example. The congressional parties have both become seen as, and actually have become, much more ideologically consistent than they used to be, so it's rarer for Democrats or Republicans to be competitive in districts that strongly favor the other party.

[tpfkaw]

To elaborate on ideological consistency, per DW-Nominate (which is an extremely imperfect measure, but an objective one), there hasn't been a right-of-center Democrat in the House since the '09-'11 term (Bobby Bright and Walt Minnick), or in the Senate since the '03-'05 term (Zell Miller). There hasn't been a left-of-center Republican in the House since the '01-'03 term (Connie Morella), or in the Senate since the '05-'07 term (Lincoln Chafee).

Every Democratic congresscritter has been to the left of every Republican since the '03-'05 term (when Ralph Hall was to the right of Sherry Boehlert and Zell Miller was to the right of Lincoln Chafee, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins).

Congressional Democrats and Republicans are nearly as ideologically consistent nowadays as you see in countries with party-list PR.

[King]

The American people are being overrun with negativity in their media. It's gotten to the point where the worst thing you can do if you want to win elections in this country is win elections. I'd be surprised if this GOP Congress makes it to March before generic ballot shifts into D+5 or higher.

The idea that moderates are disappearing or politicians are changing is a lie. Anyone who truly studies history will see Congressmen are just as corrupt and hard edged as they've always have been.  The problem is that they are no longer allowed to be because well-intentioned but wrong watchdog groups have tied their hands.

Politicians aren't allowed to govern in today's society because people won't let them. Nothing will change until we fix that problem.

It's not a populist opinion but dammit governing is a profession and should be left to professionals.

[Simfan34]

Get the people out of politics, as King said. Simple as that.

[pbrower2a]

Belarus, maybe, by 2016!

[Illuminati Blood Drinker]

Belarus, maybe, by 2016!

This sh[inks] wasn't any funnier when Republicans were saying it on November 8, 2012.

[Person Man]

It's definitely looking like it, isn't it?