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