electoral realignment and critical elections electoral realignment voting patterns are changed by...

Electoral Realignment

and

Critical Elections

Electoral Realignment

Voting patterns are changed by some critical issue, event, or leader and remain changed for an extended period of time (perhaps many decades).

A major shift in political divisions in the country.

Critical ElectionsAn election in which a party is defeated so badly that it disappears or seems that it may disappear.

Issues are often crosscutting, dividing both major parties.

Critical ElectionsCritical Elections

• 1860- Solid South

• 1896- Republican Ascendancy

• 1932- FDR Democrats

Republican PartyRepublican Party

Abraham Abraham LincolnLincoln

The Republican platform opposed

slavery in the territories but upheld the right of slavery in the South.

Lasting Impact: Lasting Impact:

Republican Party becomes a Republican Party becomes a Major PartyMajor Party

The Solid South FormsThe Solid South Forms

Election of 1896Election of 1896

“You shall not press down upon the brow of labor

this crown of thorns, you shall

not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

Central Issues: Tariff, Central Issues: Tariff, Depression, and the Gold Depression, and the Gold

Standard versus an Unlimited Standard versus an Unlimited Coinage of SilverCoinage of Silver

Lasting Impact:

Republican Party AscendancyRepublican Party Ascendancy

Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir on Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley, California, circa 1906

“Bolt” the Ticket and Bolt” the Ticket and Challenge Former PartyChallenge Former Party

Election of 1932Election of 1932

Central Issues: Stock Market Central Issues: Stock Market Crash and the Great Crash and the Great Depression BeginsDepression Begins

Lasting Impact: New Deal Coalition

• Labor

• Middle-Class Liberals

• Southerners (Solid South)

• European Immigrants

• Urban Factory Workers

• Catholics

• Ethnic Minorities

• Jews

• Farmers

A New Party System?

A New System?:

Candidate-centered politics

and Dealignment

DealignmentDealignment