Realigning elections (user search)
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  Realigning elections (search mode)
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Author Topic: Realigning elections  (Read 78993 times)
RJ
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Posts: 793
« on: August 16, 2005, 04:32:42 PM »

Every election to some point is a realigning election. Certainly 1976 doesn't quite fit the mold as far as how elections have gone since 1968. The entire south broke Carter's way(except VA) which is what won him the election. The midwest was split about 50-50, the Northeast went to Carter by a wide margin and every other major area went to Ford. We haven't seen anything like that since. That's just 1 example. Clinton's victories didn't shape up quite the way traditional successful Democrats had, either. It's a little hard to tell what election trends have developed from Nixon's reelection or Reagan's two landslides, but lessons exist from them. Today, we can supposedly draw a red or blue circle around 35-40 states that will go into each party's column while the other 10-15 are contested, but who knows. Suppose the candidates are Bayh-Romney. How many southern states would Romney win? Would Bayh sweep the northeast? If they were Clinton-Owens or Warner-Jeb Bush, how would the map look different from today? What "solid" states would flip?

I do, however, consider the 1968 and 1932 elections to be realigning, but for a reason people don't generally consider. Both times, the winning party was really down on its luck heading into it and managed to turn things around dramatically. They used issues detramental at that point in time to sell their agenda and even changed it to meet the current circumstances. The net result of each of these two is that one party really established a dominance over the other. Think about it: the GOP couldn't run a hard right winger and get away with it between 1932-68. In an election between two moderate appearing candidates, the Democrats seemed to have the upper hand for the most part. The house and senate were heavily in favor of the Dems. Since 68', it's been the opposite. No Northeastern liberals have managed a win since then, the home of the party's left wing. The Senate has spent the majority of the time with the Republicans. Congress was finally wrestled away from the Democrats in 1994 and probably won't go anywhere soon. The list goes on. I'd concede that the urban rural split may have happened before 1932 or the Democrats lost control of the South before 1968, but these two elections really shaped the way political makeup is today IMO.
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RJ
Jr. Member
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Posts: 793
« Reply #1 on: August 19, 2005, 10:57:20 PM »

the Northeast went to Carter by a wide margin

Is that really true?  Ford won New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, while Carter won New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  It seems as if Ford and Carter more or less split the northeast.  It was not the way it is today.

I guess that would depend on whether or not you consider Pennsylvania, Maryland, or Delaware northeastern states. If you do, Carter took them by a count of 99EV's to just 36 for Ford. If you don't, it's 59-36. Others consider Maryland as a Southern state and Pennsylvania as a Midwestern/Mid Atlantic/whatever; I think voting patterns in these states are more similar to the Northeast than anywhere else.
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