Party Leaders and Electoral Realignment: Democratic and Republican Southern Strategies, 1948–1968
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Boris Heersink
Abstract
Political scientists who have studied electoral realignments in the American party system increasingly focus on explaining such changes as the result of major historical developments outside of the control of party leaders. Using both national parties’ approaches to the South in the period 1948–1968, I argue that while party leaders may be unable to cause or prevent a realignment, they do attempt to affect the way in which that process plays out. That is, while the shift of Southern White voters from the Democratic to the Republican Party itself was a largely inevitable process, the timing and context in which it played out was affected by competing strategies from both parties. Specifically, I show that between 1948 and 1964, Democratic leaders hedged their bets between attempting to keep white Southern voters in the party, or expel them in favor of black voters in the Northeast based on their assessments of the party’s electoral position. At the same time, between 1948 and 1968, Republican leaders struggled to balance an appeal to segregationist Southerners and voters in other regions before finding a winning formula in Richard Nixon’s 1968 ‘Southern strategy.’
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©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: The Forum
- Party Leaders and Electoral Realignment: Democratic and Republican Southern Strategies, 1948–1968
- Groups Agendas as the Root of Party Position Change
- Realigning Politics: Electoral Coalitions, Political Change, and the Republican Party from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush
- Prophets of Party in American Political History
- The Meaning, Causes, and Possible Results of the 2016 Presidential Election
- Joining Patterns Across Party Factions in the US Congress
- David Mayhew and the Study of Congress
- Book reviews
- The American Political Pattern: Stability and Change, 1932–2016
- The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality
- The Imprint of Congress
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: The Forum
- Party Leaders and Electoral Realignment: Democratic and Republican Southern Strategies, 1948–1968
- Groups Agendas as the Root of Party Position Change
- Realigning Politics: Electoral Coalitions, Political Change, and the Republican Party from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush
- Prophets of Party in American Political History
- The Meaning, Causes, and Possible Results of the 2016 Presidential Election
- Joining Patterns Across Party Factions in the US Congress
- David Mayhew and the Study of Congress
- Book reviews
- The American Political Pattern: Stability and Change, 1932–2016
- The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality
- The Imprint of Congress
