http://www.jstor.org

Classification of Presidential Elections: An UpdateAuthor(s): Jonathan KnuckeySource: Polity, Vol. 31, No. 4, (Summer, 1999), pp. 639-653Published by: Palgrave Macmillan JournalsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3235239Accessed: 07/07/2008 11:12

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=pal.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the

scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that

promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Research Note

Classification of Presidential Elections: An Update*

Jonathan Knuckey, University of Central Florida

This research note extends Gerald Pomper's 1967 classification of presiden- tial elections through the 1996 election, replicating Pomper's methodology and adding a factor analysis to reveal the structure of presidential elections. That analysis identifies three clusters of presidential elections since 1932: the New Deal era elections of 1936 through 1956, the critical elections of 1960, 1964, and 1968, and a new stable era persisting since the 1972 elec- tion. The continuity among recent presidential elections challenges the wide- spread view that the post-1968 period has been one of "dealignment."

Jonathan Knuckey is an Assistant Professor, Department of Political Sci- ence, University of Central Florida, P.O. Box 161356, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando, FL 32816-1356.

The question "What did this election really mean?" is asked by political sci- entists and journalists alike, and efforts to answer that question inspired the development of the critical election/realignment paradigm to explain the alter- ations of stability and change in U.S. elections. In his seminal article V. O. Key, Jr. posited a dichotomy between "critical" and "normal" (non-critical) elections.' Building on this work Angus Campbell identified three types of election: "maintaining," "deviating," and "realigning."2 Gerald M. Pomper added a fourth type with his notion of a "converting" election.3 All of these classifications rested on a general thesis that there is a loose periodicity to electoral change. Walter Dean Burnham concluded that a "critical election"

*The author would like to thanks Charles D. Hadley and Joshua G. Behr for reading and commenting upon earlier versions of this research note.

1. V. O. Key, Jr., "A Theory of Critical Elections" Journal of Politics 17 (February 1955): 3-18.

2. Angus Campbell, "A Classification of Presidential Elections," in Elections and the Polit- ical Order, Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966), 63-77.

3. Gerald M. Pomper, "Classification of Presidential Elections" Journal of Politics 29 (August 1967): 535-66.

Polity Volume XXXI, Number 4 Summer 1999 Summer 1999 Polity Volume XXXI, Number 4

640 Research Note

indicating realignment of party affiliations should occur approximately every 30 years.4

Despite these efforts to move beyond accounts of the idiosyncratic fea- tures of individual elections, political scientists have not done a good job of interpreting the patterns of US presidential elections since the mid-1960s. Burnham's argument led many to expect considerable electoral upheaval in the mid-1960s. While upheaval was observed, political scientists had not been able to agree on its significance. There is general consensus that the party system created at the time of the New Deal was no more,5 but no agreement on how to classify presidential elections since the 1960s or on whether a new set of stable party alignments had developed to replace those of the New Deal era. Politics in the mid to late 1960s did show many of the characteristics of "protorealignment" phenomena identified by Burnham-ideological polariza- tion, third party activity, increased issue voting, reduced confidence in politi- cal parties, and increasing numbers of voters identifying themselves as inde- pendents-but there was no realignment into a new stable pattern comparable to the partisan transformations of the New Deal era. This inspired the wide discussion of "dealignment" that has continued since the mid-1970s.6 At the same time, the absence of realignment in the 1960s has led some scholars to question the analytic utility of the realignment paradigm.7

4. Walter Dean Burnham, Critical Elections and the Dynamics of American Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, 1970).

5. On the decline of the New Deal party system see Everett Carll Ladd, Jr., and Charles D.

Hadley, Transformations of the American Party System: Party Coalitions from the New Deal to the 1970s (New York: W.W. Norton, 1973); Norman H. Nie, Sidney Verba and John R. Petrocik, The Changing American Voter (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976); Everett Carll Ladd, Jr., Where Have All the Voters Gone? (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978); Ladd, "Like Wait- ing for Godot-The Uselessness of 'Realignment' for Understanding Change in Contemporary American Politics," in The End of Realignment? Interpreting American Electoral Eras, ed. Byron E. Shafer (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991); John R. Petrocik, Party Coalitions:

Realignments and the Decline of the New Deal Party System (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981); Petrocik, "Realignment: New Party Coalitions and the Nationalization of the South" Journal of Politics 49 (May 1987): 347-75.

6. For discussions of dealignment in American politics see Burnham, Critical Elections; Nie, Verba and Petrocik, The Changing American Voter; Paul Allen Beck, "The Electoral Cycle and Patterns of American Politics" British Journal of Political Science 9 (April 1979): 129-56; Beck "The Dealignment Era in America," in Electoral Change in Advanced Industrial Democra- cies: Realignment or Dealignment? ed., Russell J. Dalton, Scott Flanagan, and Paul Allen Beck (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 240-66; Helmut Norpoth and Jerrold G. Rusk, "Partisan Dealignment in the American Electorate: Itemizing the Deductions since 1964" Amer- ican Political Science Review 76 (September 1982): 522-37; Martin P. Wattenberg, The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952-1994. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).

7. See, for example, Allan J. Lichtman, "The End of Realignment Theory? Toward a New Research Program for American Political History" Historical Methods 15 (Fall 1982): 170-88; Richard L. McCormick, "The Realignment Synthesis in American History" Journal oflnterdis-

Research Note 641

This research note takes a new look at the question of classifying US pres- idential elections between 1964 and 1996 by using a modification of the method used by Pomper in his 1967 study. Rather than address the theoretical and conceptual issues that arise in efforts to classify elections, it addresses the, in many respects prior, methodological question of how to assess whether a particular election marks a temporary deviation from previous patterns or a more enduring shift into a new pattern. In particular, the empirical findings suggest that there has been more stability at the aggregate level in recent pres- idential elections than the dealignment literature suggests.

I. Identifying Critical Elections: Data and Methods

Whether a critical election or realignment has occurred is, at bottom, an empirical question that should be settled by careful observation. Yet as David H. Nexon noted:

Most studies of realignment have proceeded without much attention being paid to defining realignment in a very precise way, and, more important, the reasons the individual researcher has had for considering particular elections or periods to be examples of realignment have seldom been specified.8

Defining the observable characteristics by which a critical election can be identified is thus the first step in efforts to assess whether any have occurred in recent decades. The operational definition of a "critical election" used here is derived from Key's two principal observations: there is a "sharp alteration of the preexisting cleavage within the electorate" and the new patterns of voting will "persist for several succeeding elections."9 Critical elections are thus discrete events, and realignments the wider process that permits their occurrence.

ciplinary History 13 (Summer 1982): 85-105; Edward G. Carmines and James A. Stimson, Issue Evolution-Race and the Transformation of American Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); Byron E. Shafer, "The Notion of an Electoral Order: The Structure of Electoral Pol- itics at the Accession of George Bush," in The End of Realignment? Interpreting American Elec- toral Eras, ed. Byron E. Shafer. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 37-84; Joel H. Silbey "Beyond Realignment and Realignment Theory-American Political Eras, 1789-1989," in The End of Realignment? Interpreting American Electoral Eras, ed. Byron E. Shafer (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 3-23.

8. David H. Nexon, "Methodological Issues in the Study of Realignment," in Realignment in American Politics: Toward a Theory, ed. Bruce A. Campbell and Richard J. Trilling (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980), 52-65.

9. Key, "A Theory of Critical Elections," 4

642 Research Note

Pomper's use of correlation analysis facilitates the identification of criti- cal elections and realignment. The change indicated by a critical election will result in both a low correlation between that election and preceding ones and-because a critical election identifies the start of a new era of party system stability-a high correlation between it and succeeding ones. A criti- cal election does not simply deviate from earlier patterns; it marks the start of a new pattern.

The observed variable used to compute correlation coefficients is the Democratic percentage of the vote. In elections with only minor third party activity, this percentage is the Democratic share of the two-party vote; in elec- tions featuring a significant third party candidacy (1948, 1968, 1980, 1992 and 1996), this percentage is the Democratic share of the three-party vote, with the exception of 1948. In 1948 the Democratic vote is combined with those cast for States' Rights Democratic candidate Strom Thurmond. This makes sense as most of Thurmond's votes in the South came from the states- Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina-where he was listed as the "official" Democratic presidential candidate.'?

Analysis of this data proceeds in four stages. The first three follow Pomper, while the fourth is an additional step employing factor analysis. First, successive elections are compared. This is achieved by comparing a state's Democratic vote percentage in one election with that of the previous election. From this state-by-state analysis, the Pearson's r correlation coefficient is

generated. A low value indicates disruption to the existing structure of elec- toral patterns, and a high value denotes continuity across elections. Second, the Democratic percentage vote is correlated with the mean Democratic vote in the preceding four elections to compensate for the short-term factors that mean there are always differences between two elections. As Angus Campbell noted "in some way each election is unique. New candidates, contemporary issues, the changing tides of domestic and international affairs-all these con- tribute to its individuality."" This second step avoids identifying an election as "critical" solely as a function of such short-term factors. Third, a correla- tion matrix is generated. This allows the identification of eras of electoral sta- bility. As Pomper noted: "When a stable persistent voter coalition is estab- lished, the vote in non-successive elections will be highly correlated."' For an election to be considered in a stable era, it will correlate highly not only with those elections prior to and/or following it, but with all other elections in the

10. For a discussion of the "Dixiecrat" movement and their attempt to appropriate the Democratic label in each southern state, see V. O. Key, Jr. Southern Politics in State and Nation

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949), 329-44. 11. Campbell, "A Classification of Presidential Elections," 63. 12. Pomper, "Classification of Presidential Elections," 544.

Research Note 643

same stable era. Fourth, factor analysis of the correlation matrix is performed to discern the regularity and order of presidential elections and to empirically identify distinct patterns. If there was partisan change, one would expect to find a series of elections clustering together and loading on one factor, while elections after the change should cluster together and load on one-or more- different factors.

The results of these four steps are used to classify presidential elections since 1936. While the classification overlaps that of Pomper's for the years 1936-1964, the classification scheme here differs in that it is trichotomous: it uses the terms "maintaining" and "deviating" elections, but treats "realigning" and "converting" elections as simply "critical" elections. Thus, one is inter- ested primarily in identifying electoral change resulting in new stable align- ments, not whether these alignments result in the ascendancy of a new major- ity party.13

II. Results: Presidential Election Patterns, 1932-1996

Correlation Analysis of State-by-State Results

The correlation of state-by-state results in successive elections and between an election with its four-election average in the period 1936-1996 is presented in Figure 1. For the 1936-1964 period the analysis replicates the findings of Pomper. The stability of the New Deal era (1936-1948) is apparent, with no correlation between successive elections lower than .93. The first sign of dete- rioration of the New Deal party system is apparent in the correlation of the Eisenhower elections of 1952 (r = .78) and 1956 (r = .84). Inspection of the correlation coefficients between an election and its four-election average also finds a similar pattern: stability in the 1932-1948 period and a break in 1952 (r =.77) and 1956 (r = .73).

Overall, though, the real break occurred in 1960 and 1964. The low cor- relation between 1956 and 1960 (r = .37) was, until 1964, the second lowest correlation of successive elections since 1836.'4 This also is the case when one examines the correlation for 1960 with its four election average (r = .36). The apparent disruption to electoral patterns was even more dramatic in 1964, which had a low correlation with 1960 (r = .32) and a negative coefficient (r = -.48) with the preceding four-election average.

The 1964 presidential election was the last contest for which Pomper had data; thus he only could speculate as to the meaning of the low coefficients in

13. Identifying the majority party is, however, important after the critical election so one can identify maintaining or deviating elections.

14. See Pomper, "Classification of Presidential Elections," Table 5, 565.

644 Research Note

Figure 1. Corretation of State-by-State Democratic Presidential Vote, 1936-1996

1.0

.8

.6

< .2- 'I

I I I

CLI~~ '~-.~2 \iCorrelation with 4 lI

-.4V previous election -.6- -

-8! Correlation with -.81

-1.0 j 4-election average 1936 1944 1952 1960 1968 1976 1984 1992

1940 1948 1956 1964 1972 1980 1988 1996

Presidential Election

1960 and 1964. However, the social and political upheaval of the time did lead him to surmise that the disruption in the electoral pattern would not be tempo- rary. The correlation between 1964/1968 (r = .86) and 1968/1972 (r - .86) sug- gests stability after the break in 1960/64. This also is demonstrated by the high correlation between the 1972 election and the 1956-1968 average (r = .79).

The elections after 1972 also suggest the emergence of stability in presi- dential election patterns, the one exception being 1976. The correlation between the 1972 and 1976 elections (r =. 08) was the lowest of any succes- sive elections in the series, indicating the impact of the candidacy of Jimmy Carter and specifically his success in bringing the South back into the Demo- cratic column.'5 Since 1968 the average correlation between successive elec- tions was .73. If one excludes the 1976 election, then the average is .82. The

stability in recent presidential elections is further demonstrated by the high correlation of the last four elections with their four-election averages: .90 in 1984; .75 in 1988; .97 in 1992 and .83 in 1996. One must return to the New Deal era to find successive positive coefficients of this magnitude.

15. The 1976, and to a lesser extent the 1980 elections are also distinguished from the other

post-1968 contests by the fact that they had modest positive correlations with the New Deal era elections.

Research Note 645

Correlation Matrix

Complementing the above analysis is an examination of the correlation matrix for the Democratic vote in paired elections from 1936 through 1996 (Table 1). Again the New Deal era is clearly apparent. In the period 1936-1948 there is no coefficient in the matrix below .84, and the mean correlation coefficient for all elections in this period is .91. Inspection of the correlation matrix further demonstrates how the 1952 and 1956 elections represent a departure from the New Deal party system, but without any dramatic disruption to electoral pat- terns. If the 1952 or 1956 presidential elections had represented critical elec- tions, one would have expected to see relatively low correlations with prior elections and high correlations with subsequent elections. This is not the case. The correlation between 1952 and each of the New Deal elections is modest, but are overall stronger than the correlation for 1952 with any election since 1960. Excluding the correlation between 1952 and 1956, only those between 1952 and 1976 (r = .72) and 1952 and 1980 (r = .73) are larger than the correlation of 1952 with any New Deal election. This pattern also holds for 1956. Thus, there is a case to be made that, while 1952 and 1956 did represent the first stirrings of electoral change, these elections are associated more with the New Deal party system than with any subsequent party system or electoral order.

The dramatic change is apparent in the correlation matrix for 1960 and sub- sequent elections. The 1960 presidential election does not correlate strongly with any of the New Deal elections, the highest coefficient being .30 with 1944. However, none of the coefficients between 1960 and any subsequent election is particularly strong, the highest coefficient being with 1996 (r = .51). Presidential elections after 1960-with the exceptions of 1976 and 1980-are distinguished by mostly negative correlations with the New Deal elections. Thus, does the period since 1964 represent a stable era or discrete party system? If one inspects the correlation coefficients between 1964 and every election after it, and likewise 1968 and every election after it, there is no con- sistent pattern of strong coefficients-an expectation if these elections were the beginning of a stable era. While the 1964 presidential balloting has a high cor- relation with 1968 and 1972, the correlations between 1964 and any election after 1972 are modest-the highest being with 1988 (r = .58). The 1968 bal- loting also correlates highly with 1972 but the correlation coefficients with subsequent elections drop off, the highest coefficient being .71 with 1988.

Not until 1972 can one speak of a stable era. Except for the low correla- tions between balloting in the 1972 and 1976 presidential elections (r = .08) and in the 1972 and 1980 elections (r =.07), again suggestive of the impact of the Carter candidacies, the period 1972 to 1996 is marked by modest to high correlations. Additionally, the stability of this era appears to have strength- ened over time. For example the 1996 presidential election shows modest-to-

Table 1. Correlation Matrix of State-by-State Democratic Vote Percentage in Presidential Elections, 1932-1996

1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996

1932 .93 .86 .84 .89 .58

1936 - .93 .91 .90 .66

1940 - .99 .94 .78

1944 - .94 .81

1948 .78

1952-

1956-

1960

1964

1968-

1972

1976

1980

1984- -

1988-

1992-

.64

.66

.64

.67

.71

.84

.09 -.73 -.69

.15 -.74 -.68

.27 -.67 -.60

.30 -.68 -.55

.21 -.68 -.57

.56 -.39 -.33

.37 -.48 -.42

.32 .32

.86

CD

Z o

Cr

t3. fo-

-.60 .43 .31 -.20 -.36 -.03 -.23

-.62 .36 .30 -.18 -.40 -.02 -.24

-.60 .48 .47 -.09 -.38 .14 -.04

-.56 .49 .49 -.04 -.33 .15 .00

-.56 .54 .51 -.06 -.29 .12 -.08

-.33 .72 .73 .26 -.06 .45 .23

-.31 .66 .57 .19 -.04 .29 -.02

.34 .57 .49 .48 .32 .49 .51

.75 -.02 -.03 .40 .58 .28 .47

.86 -.02 .04 .55 .71 .32 .59

.08 .07 .65 .76 .41 .60

.88 .61 .36 .72 .55 - - - .71 .43 .77 .60

- - .- - .87 .83 .81 - - - - .- .66 .71

- . - . .- - .88

Research Note 647

Table 2. Factor Analysis (with Oblique Rotation) of State-by-State Democratic Vote Percentage, 1932-1996

FACTORS

I n POST-NEW DEAL

NEW DEAL ELECTIONS ELECTIONS

.954

.952

.944

.934

.910

.807

.775

-.403 .476

.516 -678

-.776 -.727

III

CRITICAL ELECTIONS

.320

.944

.932

.837

.819

.782

.676

.382

.962

.474

.425

Eigenvalues Percent Variance

7.989 47.0

5.896 34.7

.849 5.0

Notes: N =50; Cumulative percentage variation = 86.7 Cell entries are pattern matrix coefficients

high correlations with every election since 1972, with the three highest corre- lations for the three elections immediately prior: 1984 (r = .81); 1988 (r = .71) and 1992 (r= .88).

The correlation matrix thus suggests that: (1) a stable party system existed in the period 1936 through 1956; (2) the presidential elections of 1960, 1964 and 1968 are transitional elections; and (3) elections since 1972 form another stable era.

A factor analysis confirms this hypothesized structuring of presidential elections since 1936. Factor analysis rests on the assumption that there are underlying factors responsible for the covariation among the observed vari- ables. From the results of the correlation matrix, one can hypothesize a priori that there should be three factors extracted. One also can hypothesize that the factors extracted should be oblique, that is a relationship should exist between

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

1948 1940 1944 1936 1932 1952 1956

1984 1992 1988 1980 1996 1976 1972

1960 1964 1968

648 Research Note

the New Deal era elections and the transitional elections, and between the tran- sitional elections and the series of elections since 1972. Thus oblique rotation is employed in the factor analysis to derive a terminal three-factor solution.

A first-order factor analysis with oblique rotation is presented in Table 2. Pattern matrix coefficients are reported because these loadings best show what variables, i.e., elections, are highly involved in what factors. For ease of pres- entation, factor loadings below .30 are not reported. The three-factor solution explains 87 percent of the cumulative variation among the variables.'6 The clus- tering of presidential elections since 1936 confirms the hypothesized pattern. Every election from 1936 through 1956 has high loadings on the first factor. That the elections of 1952 and 1956 load on this factor also confirms that they should be treated as part of the New Deal era, albeit elections that marked the end of the New Deal era. Thus this factor is labeled "New Deal Elections."

The 1972 through 1996 elections load on a second factor. Each of these elections has significant loadings on this factor with the exception of 1972, which has a high negative loading on the New Deal factor. This negative load- ing only indicates that 1972 is related to the New Deal factor but in the oppo- site direction from the other New Deal elections. Substantively, this makes little sense. Thus, the fact that 1972 has a loading on the second factor is used as the criterion for placing it in this second cluster. This second factor is labeled "Post-New Deal Elections."

The elections of 1960, 1964 and 1968 load on a third factor. The unique- ness of the 1960 presidential election is demonstrated by the fact that it loads highly on the third factor, and on this factor alone. The elections of 1964 and 1968 also have high negative loadings on the New Deal factor. As with the case of the 1972 presidential election, however, these negative loadings convey limited substantive information. Thus, the 1964 and 1968 elections are grouped with 1960 to form a third cluster of elections. This cluster is labeled "Critical Elections" because they mark the break between the New Deal and Post-New Deal Party systems.

III. Classifying Presidential Elections, 1936-1996

The results of the correlation and factor analyses presented above facilitate the empirical identification of electoral patterns in presidential elections since 1932. The electoral "break" in the 1960s has been identified, but understand-

16. This third factor has an eigenvalue less than one. Though the general rule-of-thumb in factor analysis is to extract only those factors that have eigenvalues greater than one, the third factor is close enough to one to warrant employing the "scree-test." This test involves plotting the

eigenvalues and stopping extraction of factors when their eigenvalues begin to level off forming a straight line with an almost horizontal slope. Application of this decision rule confirms that a three-factor solution is appropriate.

Research Note 649

Table 3. A Classification of Presidential Elections, 1932-1996

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

1932 1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996

CLASSIFICATION

Critical

Maintaining Maintaining Maintaining

Maintaining Deviating Deviating Critical Critical Critical

Maintaining Deviating

Maintaining Maintaining Maintaining Deviating Deviating

Note: This classification parallels that of Pomper from 1932 through 1964, except the classifica- tion "critical" is used to apply to Pomper's "realigning" and "converting" elections.

ing its substantive meaning requires classifying the elections and identifying the changed party system that arose.

In classifying presidential elections, three categories of election are used: "maintaining," "deviating" and "critical." The first two categories include elections where there is no disruption to electoral patterns; the third category covers those elections that mark a change in electoral patterns. Table 3 pres- ents a classification of presidential elections since 1936.

Following Pomper's own classification, elections after the 1932 critical election that ushered in the new Democratic majority were "maintaining" elections. The election and reelection of Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 marked classic deviating elections: the minority party won the presidency but with little or no disruption to the existing electoral order.

The 1960, 1964 and 1968 constitute a series of critical elections or a "crit- ical era." These critical elections are of interest for a number of reasons. This classification confirms the assertion of many scholars that the 1960s marked the end of the New Deal party system.'7 The fact that this partisan change took

17. See, for example, see Kevin P. Phillips, The Emerging Republican Majority (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1969); Richard M. Scammon and Ben J. Wattenberg, The Real Majority (New York: Coward, McCann and Georghegan, 1971); Ladd and Hadley, Transforma-

650 Research Note

place across a series of elections also confirms a number of analyses asserting that partisan change should not be confined to a single critical election.'8

This classification of elections through 1968 does not depart from most of the conventional wisdom concerning the party system. Explaining and classi-

fying patterns since 1968, however, is more problematic. First, as demon- strated, a stable era has existed at the presidential level since the critical elec- tions of the 1960s, a conclusion at odds with the dealignment literature- Second, it is difficult to determine which party was the "majority party" in this

period. Although the Republicans dominated presidential elections, limited

subpresidential success and the fact that the GOP remained behind the Democrats in terms of levels of partisan identification meant that the Repub- licans could never claim "majority" status. Likewise, though the Democrats retained a lead in partisanship, usually controlled Congress-especially the House of Representatives-and enjoyed a stronger position in the states, its claim to be the majority party must be tempered by the poor performance of its presidential candidates.

Attempting to identify "the" majority party since 1968 requires assuming that a majority will exist at all levels of electoral politics. However, a number of authors have posited that this need not be the case.'9 They claim that the

post-1968 period has been characterized by a "split-level" alignment or party system with the existence of a Republican presidential majority, but at the same time a Democratic congressional majority. This interpretation is

arguably superior to some alternative interpretations of post-1968 party and electoral politics. One alternative perspective is that there is no majority party, weak political parties and a more candidate-centered politics.20 The corollary of this proposition is that there should be no systematic pattern to electoral

tions; Burnham, Critical Elections; Burham, "Critical Realignment-Dead or Alive?" in The End of Realignment? Interpreting American Electoral Eras, ed. Byron E. Shafer (Madison: Uni-

versity of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 101-29; John H. Aldrich, Why Parties? The Origin and Trans-

formation of Party Politics in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995); Warren E. Miller and J. Merrill Shanks, The New American Voter (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).

18. For example, see Duncan McRae, and James A. Meldrum, "Critical Elections in Illinois: 1888-1958" American Political Science Review 54 (September 1960): 669-83; Campbell, "A Classification of Presidential Elections"; Pomper, "Classification of Presidential Elections."

19. See Phillips, The Emerging Republican Majority; Thomas E. Cavanagh and James L.

Sundquist "The New Two-Party System," in The New Directions in American Politics, ed. John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1985), 33-68; Everett Carll Ladd, Jr., "The 1988 Elections: Continuation of the Post-New Deal System" Political Sci- ence Quarterly 104 (Spring 1989): 1-18; Shafer, "The Notion of an Electoral Order."

20. Everett Carll Ladd, Jr., "1996 Vote: The 'No Majority' Realignment Continues" Politi- cal Science Quarterly 112 (Spring 1997): 1-28.

Research Note 651

outcomes;2' yet randomness has not characterized post-1968 electoral out- comes, with the Republicans usually winning the presidency and the Democ- rats usually controlling Congress. A second alternative is that Republican presidential victories have been deviations from a normal majority Democra- tic system produced by short-term forces more favorable to the GOP. While this interpretation may be a satisfactory explanation for one or two elections, a more convincing one is that expressed by James E. Campbell, who argued that explaining five Republican victories out of the last eight presidential elec- tions as "deviations" appears less plausible than explaining the three Democ- ratic victories since 1968 in this way.22

One reason for caution in accepting the notion of a split-level party system is that the literature that developed this perspective suggested that the Ameri- can politics was characterized by an era of Republican dominance of the pres- idency and Democratic control of Congress. The result of the 1994 midterm elections, in which the Republican party took control of Congress, and of the 1996 and 1998 elections when they maintained that control raises doubts about that characterization. Perhaps, a new Republican congressional major- ity has been ushered in, although it is still too premature to make this claim, especially in light of loses suffered by the GOP in the 1998 midterm elections. If the Republicans have become a majority at the congressional level then it would appear that the party has begun to match its performance at the presi- dential level. A classification of congressional elections is not undertaken in this paper, and, consequently, this assertion cannot be empirically supported. On a more theoretical level one can ask what a Republican congressional majority would mean for the split-level alignment argument. As noted this argument was developed to explain a particular pattern of divided govern- ment-Republican control of the presidency and Democratic control of Con- gress. However, it also builds on a notion that different issues were central to presidential elections than to congressional elections." The issues important in congressional elections may now favor the Republican party and its candi- dates. In the aggregate this produces a party system where there is a conso- nance between the presidential and congressional majorities. This situation may not last if voters begin to associate new issues with the presidency that favor Democratic candidates. The 1992 and 1996 presidential election results may indicate such a development; a Democratic win in 2000 would severely undermine the notion of a Republican presidential majority. However, as will

21. Shafer, "The Notion of an Electoral Order," 64 22. James E. Campbell, "The Presidential Pulse and the 1994 Midterm Election" Journal of

Politics 59 (August 1997): 830-57. 23. See Petrocik, Party Coalitions; GaryC Jacobson, The Electoral Origins of Divided Gov-

ernment: Competition in U.S. House Elections, 1946-1988 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990).

652 Research Note

be discussed below, a more accurate interpretation of the 1992 and 1996 Clin- ton victories is that they were produced by short-term forces and thus are deviations from a normally Republican presidential system.

A final problem with the split-level argument is that it challenges the "classic" interpretation of realignment as a situation in which the previously ascendant majority party becomes a minority party, and the formerly minor- ity party in turn becomes the new majority at every level. However, there is little theoretical or historical reason for accepting consistency at all levels as a necessary result of a critical election or of realignment. The type of partisan change that would qualify as "realigning" according to this "classical" inter-

pretation has only occurred once in the entire history of the United States, during the Great Depression/New Deal era. The two other periods that have been identified as realigning-the Civil War era and the late 1890s-resulted respectively in the collapse of one major party (the Whigs) and its replace- ment by a new party (the Republicans), and in a shift from a narrow to large advantage for the Republican party. As Samuel T. McSeveney noted, "gener- alizations regarding electoral-political realignment have run the risk of

obscuring very real differences among the realignments themselves."24 Thus, scholars who look for evidence of realignment in terms of the emergence of a new majority party at every level are perhaps guilty of "overgeneralizing from a unique historical circumstance."2

Accepting the notion that the two-tiered party system described above sustained a Republican presidential majority, permits classifying the presi- dential elections since 1968. The elections of 1972, 1980, 1984 and 1988 are all maintaining elections. The majority party at the presidential level-the

Republicans-won, and usually won easily. The elections of 1976, 1992 and 1996 are deviating, as the majority party lost but without a disruption of the electoral patterns established since 1972. These deviations fit the pattern of short-term forces inducing a defeat for the majority party. The Carter 1976

victory came in the aftermath of Watergate; the Clinton 1992 victory was attributable to the rejection of an unpopular incumbent and the presence of a

third-party candidate. The Clinton reelection in 1996 was more a personal vic-

tory for the incumbent president than an endorsement of the Democratic party since the Republicans were able to maintain control of Congress. It should be noted that none of these Democratic victories were particularly convincing in terms of the popular vote. Even Clinton's reelection in 1996 did not match the landslide victories of the other reelected presidents-Eisenhower, Nixon and

24. Samuel T. McSeveney, "No More 'Waiting for Godot'-Comments on the Putative 'End of Realignment'," in The End of Realignment? Interpreting American Electoral Eras, ed. Byron E. Shafer (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 95.

25. Ladd, "Like Waiting for Godot," 29.

Research Note 653

Reagan-in the post-World War II period. Only one other president, Woodrow Wilson in 1916, was reelected with less than 50 percent of the pop- ular vote. Indeed, in many ways the Clinton 1992 and 1996 deviating elec- tions parallel the Wilson 1912 and 1916 deviating elections. Thus, ceteris paribus, the Republican party should recapture the presidency in the 2000 election, just as it did in 1920 following a Democratic interlude.

IV. Conclusions: Critical Elections and Future Realignment Research

This note presents a four-fold method for examining and empirically identi- fying aggregate electoral change, and offers a classification of presidential elections. This classification should be regarded as a point of departure for further and more explicit hypothesis testing. For example, critical elections could be used as a baseline from which individual level data can be employed to demonstrate the differential rates of change of distinctive groups in the electorate. Moreover, the methodology used here permits examining patterns in congressional or subpresidential elections.

Although this note is concerned principally with a methodological ques- tion, it generates broader theoretical refinements. Specifically, one should make the conceptual distinction between a "critical election" and "realign- ment," rather than treat them as synonymous with one another, as implied by the terms "realigning election and "critical realignment." By focussing upon critical elections, one narrows the research focus to partisan and electoral change. Realignment, on the other hand, extends the research question beyond this to encompass changes in elite behavior, policy outputs and ultimately shifts in the "system" or "regime."26 This is not to deny that the study of the institutionalization of partisan and electoral change through government policy and outputs remains of importance. Rather, a critical election is a more useful heuristic for examining partisan change because-unlike realign- ment-it can be defined and given empirical referent. Indeed, the identifica- tion of critical elections helps in the study of understanding the dynamics of realignment by defining a discrete era of party competition that possesses empirically identifiable beginning and end points. Thus, critical elections should be employed as a tool to describe and understand partisan change not just in the post-1968 period but throughout American electoral history.

26. For analyses that move the research question beyond electoral and partisan realignment see Walter Dean Bunham , Jerome M. Clubb and William H. Flanigan "Partisan Realignment: A Sys- temic Perspective," in The History ofAmerican Electoral Behavior, ed.Joel H. Silbey, Allan G. Bogue, and William H. Flanigan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 45-77; Jerome M. Clubb, William H. Flanigan and Nancy H. Zingale. Partisan Realignment: Voters, Parties and Government inAmerican History (Beverly Hills, CA.: Sage 1980); Bruce A. Campbell and Richard J. Trilling, eds. Realignment in American Politics: Toward a Theory (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980).