Forget everything you know. This is a realigning election. (user search)
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  Forget everything you know. This is a realigning election. (search mode)
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Author Topic: Forget everything you know. This is a realigning election.  (Read 810 times)
Virginiá
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« on: May 19, 2016, 02:56:54 PM »
« edited: May 19, 2016, 02:59:16 PM by Virginia »

I'm still not sure what a "realigning election" is.

It's an election where coalitions of voters change somewhat substantially and lead to a party rising or falling from dominance. FDR's 1932 election ushered in generations of Democratic control, while arguably 1968 was the beginning of Republican dominance at the presidential level until 1992, where their success soon trickled down to Congressional races in 1994 (albeit after they lost their presidential dominance). 1992 I believe was sort of the start of a realignment towards Democrats, but wouldn't become apparent until 1996 - 2008, when demographics and an entire generation (Millennials) that is overwhelmingly Democratic, like, FDR-levels, finally asserted their electoral power. A lot of this is due to Millennials being heavily diverse and overall much more liberal lots of issues.

If you want my personal take - I don't believe single elections tend to cause a real realignment. FDR/1932 was an aberration due to the depression, and FDR's New Deal cemented their power. I believe realignments take place over many years, and the major elections we see are just the manifestation of the realignment. It is simply the result of long-changing public attitudes and/or demographic changes that modify party coalitions. Realignments don't always cause the newly-dominant party to control all branches of government, either. In Democrats case right now, we have a coalition that is heavily influential and formidable at the presidential level, which could give us several more elections before Republicans break it, but because our coalition's power comes from 18 - 40 year olds and almost unanimous support from minorities, both of which have poor midterm turnout rates, we won't see Congressional dominance until the 2020s, most likely. This is very similar to how Republicans dominated presidential races from 1968 - 1992, but not Congress. As soon as their presidential dominance ended, their voters grew old enough where they started voting more in midterms, and finally overpowered Democrats downballot.

I love this subject, and I could go on even more, but I won't Tongue

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