Some states held high turnout primary elections while others held low turnout caucuses, some events were open only to registered members of the party, some to independents, and some to any voter who chose to participate.

The idea that states should set their own election rules is reflected in the constitutional provision above. Universal white manhood suffrage came to some states before others, so did women's suffrage, and some states charged poll taxes on those wishing to vote while others did not. Congress was given the power to evaluate the differences and make illegal those they found to be unfair. Universal white manhood suffrage came before the Civil War, but black and female suffrage came after, and the poll tax was abolished by the Twenty-fourth Amendment.

Everyone seems to agree that elections should be open and fair. Voters should be allowed to cast a ballot and officials should count all the votes. It is not easy to tell reasonable from unreasonable steps in the electoral process.

The National Conference of State Legislatures tried to help by distinguishing between strict and non-strict voter ID laws. Strict voter ID states require voters who show up at the polls without acceptable ID to cast a provisional ballot and return within a few days with the right ID before the vote is counted. Non-strict states don't require a voter to return with more ID if they don't have an acceptable one. Specific forms of photo identification are required in the strictest states. Texas requires voters to present one of seven forms of photo ID, including a driver's license, election identification certificate, Department of Public Safety personal ID card, military ID, a citizenship certificate, U.S. passport, or a concealed handgun permit. Other states allow a wide range of identification, including a utility bill or paystub.

Proponents of voter ID laws argue that elections are sacrosanct and that it is just common sense to require potential voters to prove they are who they claim to be.

Positive identification, usually a photo ID, is required to board an airplane or check out a library book, and so are not an undue burden on voting, they argue. Democrats argue that voter ID laws are a solution to a problem. There are very few reports of voter impersonation, where a photo ID might stop an illegal vote from being cast. They argue that voter ID laws are meant to exclude the poor, elderly, and ethnic and racial minorities.

The first election after the strict Texas voter ID law came into effect, both candidates for governor, the Republican Greg Abbott and the Democrat Wendy Davis, were required to cast provisional ballots because their names on their driver's licenses and on the voter rolls were slightly different. Jim Wright, a former Democratic congressman and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was denied a Texas voter identification card because his driver's license had expired.

The founding generation was skeptical of what James Madison called "factions" and what we now call interest groups and political parties. The founding fathers believed that statesmen could discover and act upon a public interest and a common good. The nature of the common good and the disagreements within the governing class were reflected in the groups and parties. The clash of political parties was not considered necessary for democracy until the 1830s.

In the 19th century, Americans came to believe that parties could organize, structure, and facilitate democratic politics in ways that made it easier for citizens to participate. Voters must study every candidate on their own. Citizens can choose the party that represents them best, because parties have histories, they have reputations as standing for corporate interests or for the common man, and they have histories as well.

The distinguishing characteristic of a political party is that its candidates compete in elections in the hope of winning executive branch offices and majority control of legislatures. Parties recruit and screen candidates, offer platforms, contest elections, and try to implement their campaign promises if they win. The losing party exposes corruption, criticizes the governing party, and prepares for the next election. Students of political parties agree with E.E. Modern democratic politics are not possible except in terms of parties. There are several key roles played by parties in our democracy.

The 'party as social network' idea is exemplified by CPAC.

The development of new ideas is stimulated by parties.

While the basic goals of American political parties--winning office, controlling public policy, keeping an eye on the opposition--seem clear, scholars disagree about the origins and driving dynamics of parties. Political parties are seen as loose coalitions of like-minded social groups and interests by some scholars. The Democratic tent is mostly liberal to moderate people and interests and the Republican tent is mostly moderate to conservative people and interests. New members and groups can enter the tents with their flaps up. Some of the people and groups that lean toward the other party are attracted by each party's efforts.

The advocates of responsible parties want parties to be clear about what they stand for so voters know what they will get if they vote for them. The big tent and responsible party models are not accepted by some scholars. Party officials, candidates, officeholders, and voters, as well as supportive interest groups, social movements, campaign consultants, donors, and partisan elements of the media, are best seen as "social networks" of party officials, candidates, officeholders, and voters. The effect that the "Tea Party" has had on the Republican Party is one of the perspectives on American parties that we shall see below.

The place of parties in the American political system is now being looked at. We will describe the broad party eras of American political history in terms of the leading figures, principal issues, and relative successes of the major parties. We assess the state of modern political parties in the electorate, as organizations, and in the government.

We looked at the special role that minor parties play in American politics and how they affect the performance of the major parties. We want to know what changes the future holds for American political parties and how we can expect them to respond to those changes.

We want to know if reforms might improve the performance of parties.

Citizens expect the same things from politics and government as they did two hundred years ago, they expect security, opportunity, and progress, they expect that they and their families will be safe and secure, and they will have opportunities to compete fairly for the good things that society has to offer. Government should assist citizens in achieving a better future according to alternative visions offered by political parties.

A party needs to do more than win a single election to have the chance to implement its vision. A party must win the presidency, both houses of the national Congress, most of the governorships, and most of the state legislatures, and hold them long enough and by margins large enough to overcome opponents entrenched in the bureaucracy and courts of the land. The American political system has undergone major changes in partisan balance about every thirty-five years. After fifteen years of one-party dominance, the major parties alternated in power, third parties rose to contest new issues, and the government was often divided. The pattern was clear between the 1830s and the 1960s and was preceded by periods of looser and more fluid partisan activity. Partisanship began making a comeback in the 1980's.

There is an extensive literature in political science, called realignment theory or critical realignment theory, describing and explaining this pattern in American political party competition. Lincoln's election in 1860 left the Republican Party in power for a long time.

Franklin Roosevelt's election in 1932 and his response to the Great Depression and World War II produced Democratic dominance for a generation. Voters loosen their commitment to the established party system when there are new issues and party competition becomes less predictable.

When George W. was president, there was talk of realignment around many presidential elections.

The Democrats swept to power in 2008. David Mayhew, a political scientist at Yale, argues that change occurs in all elections and that some elections are not obvious. The electoral volatility of the last two decades is the new normal according to them. Table 7.2 highlights an intriguing electoral pattern and is a good teaching and learning tool. The argument that the elections of 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, and 1932 were important turning points in the nation's party history does not need to be 888-276-5932 888-276-5932 888-276-5932 888-276-5932.

The author updated it.

The founding generation believed that politics could be organized to place the best men in the community in an institutional setting where reasoned debate and inquiry could discover the public interest. They believed that political parties make it more difficult to find the public interest and that they reflect and aggravate unhealthy divisions within the public.

The men who wrote the federal Constitution intended to make a stable and conservative national government that was managed by the leading citizens of the new nation. Even as early as the last part of President Washington's first term, there was a group of people in the cabinet and Congress who disagreed with each other. Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury and President Washington's closest adviser, proposed an economic program that envisioned a powerful national government oriented toward northern commercial and manufacturing interests. Although most of the northern congressmen supported Hamilton's programs, a loose opposition made up mostly of representatives of southern interests began to form around James Madison.

Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson opposed Hamilton in the cabinet until it became clear that Washington preferred Hamilton's counsel. Jefferson went back to Virginia.

President Washington's second term was shorter than the period of Federalist ascendancy. Although John Adams was chosen to be Washington's successor, Thomas Jefferson ran second and became vice president under the rules of that time.

Jeffersonian Republicans versus the Federalists. Both the Jeffersonian Republicans and the Federalists assumed that the political conversation was held within the elite, despite the fact that the divisions in Congress deepened and 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611 888-270-6611

They explained to the common man that he lacked the necessary experience, stability, and judgment to play a full role in the political life of his community.

The northern, urban, and commercial interests of the country made the Federalists strong. The strength of the Democrats was derived from the interests of the South and West. The Democrats had an advantage in a nation with more than 90 percent of small farmers. Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe were 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 After 1812, the Federalists were not competitive outside of New England. The Democrats were skeptical of parties even in this moment of one-party dominance. They believed it was necessary for their party to oppose the agenda. The Jeffersonians could govern in the interest of the whole community now that the Federalists have been defeated.

Jacksonian Democrats versus Whigs. Political parties came into being in the 1830s because of the popular election of state executives and presidential electors. Monroe's retirement from the presidency in 1824 caused a political scramble. Andrew Jackson did not have a majority of votes. The decision was thrown into the House of Representatives, where Speaker Henry Clay maneuvered to deliver the victory to John Quincy Adams. Adams immediately named Clay to the coveted office of secretary of state, and the charges of a "corrupt bargain" filled the air.

Whigs hold an election rally. The incumbent Democratic president was defeated by Harrison.

Martin Van Buren of New York was one of the supporters of Andrew Jackson. The positive case for parties was made by Van Buren and others in the Jackson movement. They argued that the political party was a vehicle for common citizens to take control of government and make their political views law. If the spoils of politics, in the form of offices, contracts, and various other opportunities, fell to the party faithful, so much the better, Andrew Jackson stood for an expanded and democratized Jeffersonian vision of limited government. The watchwords were small government, low taxes and individual freedom. Between 1828 and 1856, Democratic candidates for the presidency won six out of eight elections.

Others sought opportunities on a grander, national and even international scale.

Four people were arguing for the same policies. The Whigs had no choice but to match the Democrats' party organization and electoral techniques if they were to compete with them.

The Whigs won twenty governorships by 1840, and they won the presidency in 1840 and 1848. From 1840 to the eve of the Civil War, the Democrats and Whigs were evenly balanced.

The Whigs were destroyed, the Democrats were reduced to a predominantly southern party, and the Republican Party rose in the North because of the contest over slavery. The Republican Party of the late 1850s stood for free soil, meaning cheap family farms in the Midwest, and against the expansion of slavery. By 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected the first Republican president, his party had majority control of both houses of the national Congress and the governorship of every northern state. The voter turnout in the presidential contest of 1860 was the second highest in American history.

The Republicans held the presidency and both houses of Congress from 1860 to 1874. Between 1874 and 1896, Democrats and Republicans competed evenhandedly, with Democrats winning two of five presidential elections and controlling the House for sixteen years. The Senate was held by the Republicans for eighteen years.

The Whig programs of aggressive economic development were developed by the Republicans after the end of Reconstruction. The Republicans combined subsidies to support economic development, high tariffs for commerce and industry, and free homesteads for those who wished to establish family farms in the Midwest, with open immigration to ensure an adequate supply of labor for the factory and the farm. The party stood up for the interests of corporate capital when Republican tariffs and currency policies were more focused on the nation's farmers.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, there were massive torchlight parades, picnics, and rallies to which people would flock by the thousands to hear candidates engage in day-long debates or in speeches that would go on for hours. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of patronage jobs, contracts, and related opportunities were controlled by the parties in cities and counties across the country. The parties in Congress were as militant as they have ever been. The voter turnout was higher than any other time in American history.

The fourteen-year period of majority party dominance, followed by a period of conservatism and drift, was remarkably similar to those of earlier party systems. It was a decisive election because of the different programs offered by the major parties. William McKinley was offered by the Republicans. William Jennings Bryan was offered by the Democrats to protect farmers and other small interests in the South and West from the power of commerce and industry.

More than 80% of eligible voters cast their votes. In 1896, McKinley and the Republicans took the presidency and both houses of Congress, but the Democrats took control of the House in 1910. The Democrats won the presidential elections of 1912 and 1916, although they only gained partial control of the House and Senate during the first six years of Wilson's presidency. The Republicans held sway until the Democrats broke through in the House elections of 1930.

Between 1900 and 1920, the American party system was changed by progressive revolts. Civil service reform was enacted to organize and regulate federal government employment. In the years that followed, voter registration requirements, the Australian secret ballot, and opportunities for split-ticket voting were adopted. The reforms were designed to make the political parties less powerful. Other reforms followed. In 1903, Wisconsin adopted a party primary system of nomination for office, whereby all of the voters affiliated with the party, not just party bosses and insiders, voted in an election to pick the party's nominee. The primary system was used by twenty-six states by 1916.

The role of the individual citizen and voter was further enhanced by the wide-spread adoption of initiative, referendum, and recall provisions. Initiative allows voters to put questions on the ballot, referendum allows state and local governments to put questions on the ballot, and recall allows voters to remove offensive officeholders before their terms end.

Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats swept to power in 1932 after the stock market crash of October 1929 and the start of the Depression. The nation faced a lot of problems. The gross national product fell from $104 billion in 1929 to $74 billion in 1933, and the unemployment rate went from 5 percent to 25 percent.

Roosevelt attacked the Depression with federal activity. The federal government was made the employer of last resort to combat unemployment. Hundreds of thousands of young people were employed by the Works Progress Administration.

A number of agencies were created or expanded by Roosevelt. The Federal Reserve was supplemented by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Banking Act of 1935. The period of Democratic ascendancy was interrupted by the Eisenhower years and ended with President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society initiatives. The Johnson administration expanded federal government responsibility for poverty programs, education, housing, health care, and civil rights.

The traditional pattern of American party politics has passed. The American political parties in the post-Vietnam and post-Watergate period seemed too weak and diffuse to implement coherent programs like they did in the preparty period. The 1980s and 1990s saw a resurgence of parties.

During the period from 1968 to 1992 voters wanted Republicans in the White House and Democrats in the Congress. Republicans won five of seven presidential elections, whereas Democrats only held the Congress for a short time. That pattern was turned upside down by the 1990s. The Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in 1994 after Bill Clinton narrowly won the presidency in 1992.

Clinton was reelected in 1996. Voters were willing to try almost any variation on divided government.

Although Al Gore won the popular vote by more than half a million votes over George W. Bush, Bush narrowly prevailed in the Electoral College. The United States Senate divided evenly, fifty Democrats and fifty Republicans, and the House Republican majority shrunk to a mere handful.

In 2004, George W. Bush won the popular vote by 3.5 million votes, 59.5 million to Kerry's 56 million, and he won the Electoral College by a margin of 286 to 252.

Republicans gained seats in both the House and the Senate to establish margins of 233 to 202 in the House and 55 to 44 in the Senate. One independent member in the House and Senate usually sided with the Democrats. Republicans believed they had established long-term majority control of the national government after the 2004 elections.

As the 2006 mid-term election approached, Bush's popularity fell through the 40s and into the 30s. Support for the war in Iraq fell below 30 percent with Americans opposing the Republican president and Congress's handling of the war. Most middle and working class Americans didn't feel any benefit from the economy.

Democrats took control of both the House and Senate, with 30 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate. Democrats had a 233 to 202 advantage in the House and a 51 to 49 advantage in the Senate when the Congress met in 2007.

The advance of the Democratic Party was very strong.

Barack Obama, the first black nominee of a major party, won the presidency over John McCain. Nine states that the Republicans had won in 2004 were carried by Obama. Since 1964, the biggest win for a Democrat has been Lyndon Baines Johnson's victory over Barry Goldwater.

Democrats won 21 new House seats and eight new Senate seats to take control of the House. Success is not guaranteed by unified government and large congressional majorities.

The U.S. economy teeters on the edge of collapse as President Barack Obama entered office. The Democrats immediately passed an economic recovery bill and then passed a major health care bill that had been a party priority since the 1930s. The Democrats lost 6 seats in the Senate and the Republicans took a huge majority in the House. Voters were willing to punish whoever was in charge if they didn't get results.

In 2012 President Obama won reelection with 51 percent of the vote to Romney's 48.6 percent, and Democrats picked up two seats in the Senate and seven in the House. Few voters believed that the status quo election results would produce the kind of change they wanted. Presidents who were fortunate enough to win a second term, like President Bush in 2004 and President Obama in 2012 have been in front of the American people for a long time, they have tried most of their good ideas, and voters, especially voter of the other party, have tired of them. A reelected president's midterm election, Bush's 2006 midterm and Obama's 2014) tend to be rough. With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, the U.S. economy recovering, but wages stagnant and inequality increasing, Democrats lost nine Senate seats and control of that body and thirteen House seats. President Obama faced a Republican Senate with 54 seats to 46 and a Republican House with 188 seats. The Republican House majority was large.

The Republican Party might have a slight advantage in the 2016 election because of their opposition to a third Obama term for Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump's nomination promised great change while Hillary Clinton's signaled more of the same rather than change. A slow but steady economic recovery on the Obama watch left many voters uneasy and skeptical.

Both major party candidates were unpopular and two minor party candidates, the Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party'sJill Stein, drew off 5 to 10 percent of the vote even in the waning days of the campaign.

Trump showed strength in the traditionally Democratic upper Midwest on election night. Clinton narrowly won the popular vote, but Trump won the electoral college. Republicans held both the House and the Senate. The Senate had 52 Republicans, 46 Democrats, and 2 Independents after the election. The House was in Republican hands.

In looking at party in the electorate, we want to know how long the commitment of voters has been in recent decades and how broad and firm it is today. In looking at party organization, we want to know how the parties are structured and what kinds of services they deliver to the voters and officeholders associated with them. How committed are officeholders to the party labels and programs that they were elected to? We will see that the parties are stronger among the voters, stronger in government, and stronger as state and local organizations.

According to Harvard political scientist and historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., American elections have evolved from labor-intensive enterprises to capital-intensive enterprises. The same point is made by both of them. When it came to elections, the party that put its troops on the street during the campaign was the one that got its voters to the polls. Parties and candidates have had to learn a new set of skills as a result of these party activities. As campaigns evolved from labor-intensive to capital-intensive and from partycentered to candidate, elections now turn on which candidates can raise the money required to run a state-of-the-art media campaign and get-out-the-vote effort. Voters have returned to the parties due to increased partisanship in government and more ideological media.

There are two main descriptions of how citizens change their partisan preferences. Few defections from one party to the other are common, but few jump from one party to the other and stay. An alternative view, offered by Morris Fiorina, sees partisanship as more of a calculation than a commitment. partisanship is a running tally of positive and negative evaluations of party candidates and policies. If evidence shifts, a voter's tally may look like they have made a "standing decision" for one party, but if evidence stays the same, the voter's identification may change. Both views offer insights and should be kept in mind as we think about how voters interact with political parties. Voters who consider themselves stronger and weaker with one or the other of the major parties, independents who lean toward one of the major parties, and pure independents are different from voters who consider themselves stronger and weaker with one or the other of the major parties. There are two scales to report findings in, a seven-point scale and a simpler three-point scale.

The seven-point scale is the first thing we look at. There are a few straightforward points that need to be made about the distribution of party identification over the past sixty years. The Democrats' "Roosevelt coalition" continued through the mid-1960s. Democrats claimed 45 to 50 percent of the electorate, compared to the Republicans who claimed less than 30 percent, and independents who remained around 23 percent.

Lyndon Johnson's victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964, the Watergate scandal in 1973, and the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1973, pushed Republican Party identification under 25 percent. The turmoil of the late 1960s and early 1970s including the Vietnam War, social unrest, and economic stagnation shaved a full 10 percent off the Democratic base.

The proportion of voters who identified themselves as independents rose from 23 percent in 1964, to 30 percent in 1968, and to 37 percent in 1976, where it has remained ever since. According to recent figures, 44 percent of voters are independents, whereas only 33 percent are Democrats and 24 percent are Republicans. These developments are often presented as evidence that the electorate has become less partisan, more willing to look at candidates from both major parties, and that American elections are decided by a large, floating, independent vote.

Over the past four decades, more Americans have come to call themselves independents than Democrats or Republicans. As we move beyond partisan self-identification to consider partisan behavior, a somewhat different story emerges.

According to an extensive literature, the broad category of "Independent" is more structured and connected to the party than is commonly understood. Weak partisans are less loyal to their party's candidates than strong partisans. Independent leaners tend to act like the weakest link in the party that they lean to. They are just as loyal and turn out at the same rates. Only pure independents split their votes between the major parties, and they turn out at lower rates than partisans and leaners. Only pure independents are allocated to the Independent category. Between 1952 and 1976, the number of pure independents went from 5 percent to 15 percent, but then went back to 10 percent from 1980 onward. Since the mid-1960s, the Democratic numbers have fallen 10 or 15 points. The Republicans didn't make much headway until the early 1980s. Ronald Reagan's reelection victory in 1984 expanded the Republican Party to about 40 percent of the electorate, where it has stayed in recent years.

The Democrats need a lead to stay even. Republicans would have an advantage. Republicans were five to ten percentage points more likely to stick with the candidates of their party until 1996, when they were five to six percentage points more likely to turn out.

Democrats are more liberal and Republicans are more conservative now that conservative white southerners have left the Democratic Party. Both Democrats and Republicans vote for their party's nominee. The best way to win an election is to get the most votes. The best way to get the most votes in an election is to do well among large blocs of voters.

Clinton did best among women, minorities, the poor, the young, liberals, and the lightly churched according to Table 7.5. Among men, whites, the comfortable, older voters, conservatives, and regular churchgoers, Trump did best. Clinton won because traditional Democratic groups are expanding. Winning elections is not easy.

The author compiled the exit polls and analyses.

Clinton won among women by a margin of 54 percent to 42 percent. Republicans usually carry men, as Trump did less than 50 percent of the vote. Whites voted 70 percent of the time and Trump won among them. Clinton carried blacks 88 percent to 8 percent and Hispanics and Asians by more than 2 to 1.

Clinton did better with those with less income than with those with more, while Trump did better with the middle class. The less well educated, voters over 40, conservatives, and those who attend church at least weekly were some of the groups that voted for Trump. Clinton won among the young, well educated, liberals, and moderates.

Immigrants are one group that the parties have had trouble addressing. Most of the Asians and Latinos in the U.S. are immigrants. Immigrants arrive in the U.S. with little knowledge of politics, parties, issues, or practices. Even American-born children of immigrants might not see the relevance of the Democratic and Republican parties to the problems they face.

Our capital-intensive, candidate-centered parties are just as likely to ignore as to court immigrants.

The traditional party organization was conceived as a pyramid rising from a broad base of local precincts through a series of intermediate layers to the national committees and convention of both parties. Half a million party officials and volunteers are involved in fully staffed party organizations for only the two major parties in the United States.

The influence within the party organizations was closer to the base than the tip of the pyramid. The parties organized to contest the campaigns as they evolved. The focus is now on developing and managing partisan social networks that will identify, train, and support candidates in winning office and taking policy control of government. The movement was joined by party organizations. They reinvented themselves for the twenty-first century by abandoning much of what they had been in the past.

On either side of the beginning of the twentieth century, the heyday of local party organization took place. Hundreds and even thousands of patronage jobs and lucrative city and county contracts were controlled by some local party organizations. The organizations were able to reward the party faithful with offices and opportunities because they controlled the voters.

Blacks have given 90 percent of their votes to Democratic candidates for president and Congress for half a century. Blacks have been the most devoted to the Democratic Party over the other major parties.

The connection between blacks and the Democratic Party is very strange. The Democratic Party was the party of the South during the Civil War and the party most associated with southern racial segregation into the 1960s. The Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, fought a great civil war to end slavery and came into existence in the 1850s.

Black citizens were especially pleased by the connection between the Kennedy brothers and King. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, and the whole package of Great Society initiatives--in education, housing, welfare, health care, and job training-- firmly attached blacks to what they took to be a new Democratic Party committed to equal rights.

The following are among the pluses. The Democratic Party has been responsive to the needs and interests of blacks.

The American welfare state and affirmative action were created by the Democratic Party. The Democrats have been receptive to blacks with political ambitions.

Barack Obama was elected President of the United States in 2008 and 2012. Most of the black members of Congress are Democrats.

The following are among the minuses. Democrats have been reluctant to have their campaigns too close to the black community for fear of scaring away white voters. The fact that both major parties know that most blacks will vote Democrat means there is no bidding for their votes.

When Republicans win, the commitment of blacks to the Democratic Party means that they are almost completely without access.

The Chicago Democratic organization was run by the formidable Richard J. Daley from 1955 until his death in 1976.

He won his sixth term as mayor in 2007, but did not stand for a seventh term in 2011. The machine still controls about 37,000 patronage jobs in Chicago and Cook County, though it has lost much of its clout in statewide and congressional elections.

Several powerful trends hollowed out most local party organizations over the course of the twentieth century. Civil service regulation was the first to bring government jobs under it.

The movement towards nonpartisan local elections was the second. The idea was that citizens suffer when local politics is a partisan scramble for patronage and that a more efficient and business-like approach to local problems is possible if candidates remove their party labels and run on issues and expertise. Most of the local elections in the United States are nonpartisan.

Technology was the third trend. Presidential candidates used television to reach voters in their homes by 1960. By 1980, all candidates for statewide offices and many at the local level were using television as the central component of their campaigns. Each Mayor left a mark on the city.

The late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century trends changed political parties in many ways, but one key change was to elevate "purists" over "pragmatists" in party business. Through the 1960s, party officials and officeholders found it pragmatic to share the spoils, bargain with elements of their coalition, and to select candidates that could win.

Purists care more about issues and ideology than about party and the compromises that are required to win elections. The former U.S. House Speaker, a pragmatist, had to deal with the "Tea Party" element of the House Republican caucus.

Each of the fifty states has a Democratic and a Republican central committee.

The traditional responsibilities of the state committees included organizing the state party caucuses and convention, drafting the state party platform, allocating campaign funds, and selecting the state party's national convention and national committee delegates.

Few state parties still run large patronage operations or organize and support slates of candidates for statewide office. The focus of state party organizations has shifted to campaign management. Technical advice to candidates, campaign managers, and workers is now offered by state party organizations. The state parties train activists to manage voter lists, run phone banks, do mass mailings, organize election-day turnout, and raise, manage, and account for funds as required by state and federal law.

The Republican and Democratic National Committees, as well as the House and Senate Republican and Democratic campaign committees, are more active than ever before. The campaign committees give campaign services to their members of the House and Senate. The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms slowed "soft money" contributions to the national parties and campaign committees, but they are still more vibrant and capable than in the past.

The modern national committees expand and contract their operations with the election cycle, but still engage in continuous party support and development activity. They recruit and train candidates and their staffs and pay for polling and issues research, media production, fundraising, and the ongoing administrative expenses of the operation. Candidates rely on the services provided by the national committees.

Party in government is made up of both elected and partisan officials who have been associated with the party label. During election campaigns, parties try to create alternative programs for the public to use. This means the president's program, but it can also mean the program of the majority party in Congress.

The President's Program is being promoted. The idea of the president presenting a program to Congress is new. Prior to the New Deal, the majority party's program was more likely to come from the Congress than from the White House.

Democratic presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Obama, as well as Republican President George W. Bush, were successful more than 80 percent of the time, according to Congressional voting records.

Republican presidents Nixon, Ford, and George H.W. found both houses of the Congress controlled by the other party. In their final two years, George W. Bush and Barack Obama only achieved success 60 percent of the time.

In his first two years in office, the president's success rate averaged 88 percent, the highest since Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964. His success scores were close to 80 percent from 2003 to 2006 Bush's popularity fell to all-time lows in November of 2006 as Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress. His 2007 success score was 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465, which was 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 for the worst presidential success scores of the past 50 years. In 2008 it recovered to 48 percent.

Barack Obama had a 97 percent success rate in his first year in office. It's the highest on record, higher than Clinton's in 1993 and 1994 and George W. Bush's in 2001 and 2002. Presidents do best in their first couple of years because of the political gravity of difficult problems and partial solutions. In 2010, Obama's success rate was 86 percent, but since Republicans took control of the House in 2011, it has fallen to 50 percent. It fell to just 46 percent in 2015.

The leaders of the Congress that does not control the presidency have the responsibility of loyal opposition.

Republicans were able to change parts of the president's program in 2009, and in 2010, if the opposition holds together. Republicans were able to negotiate with the president on his program if they held a majority in one house of Congress. The party may be able to offer a program of its own if it holds a majority in both houses of Congress.

In the first year of Clinton's term, the proportion of partisan votes in the House and Senate were all-time highs.

The Clinton impeachment saga of late 1998 and early 1999 caused the Congress to become more partisan.

Initially, President George W. Bush's determination to change the tone in Washington seemed to work. Partisan voting fell to 40 percent in the House and 55 percent in the Senate in 2001, and then to 43 percent in the House and 45 percent in the Senate in 2002. In the House and Senate, partisanship went up in 2003 to 52 percent and 67 percent, respectively. In the House and Senate, party unity averaged more than 50 percent from 2004 to 2008.

Party unity in the House remained in its traditional range of 51 percent and 40 percent, while Senate party unity shot to all-time highs. Both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate were unified because the Democrats only had 60 votes and the Republicans only needed 40 to break a filibuster and block the Democrats. Republicans took control of the House in November of 2010 while Democrats lost control of the Senate. The House party unity scores went to an all-time high of 76 percent after the Republicans blocked the Democratic agenda and offered their own alternatives. 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans in the Senate were forced into compromise, which caused party unity to slip back to 51 percent.

Duverger's law is one of the most important theoretical and empirical insights in political science. There is a direct connection between electoral systems, party systems, and national politics. One set of electoral rules produced two-party politics and another produced multiparty politics, according to Duverger. A single-member district is a geographical district that chooses a single member to public office. Plurality winners are those that get the most votes. A majority winner needs to win a majority of the votes. Both plurality and majority systems are often referred to as first-past-the-post systems.

Europe favors another electoral system with multimember electoral districts or list systems. Parties draw up lists of candidates based on the number of seats to be filled. The number of seats that each party gets and how many candidates on the list get to fill them are determined by the proportion of the total vote won by each party. The table shows countries that use mixed systems to get the best of proportional and majoritarian systems.

The relative openness and diversity of the party and political system that each fosters is the key difference between first-past-the-post systems and pr systems. The first-past-the-post system encourages two major parties by giving seats to the top vote-getters in each district. In a two-party contest, one party would get 51 percent of the vote in every district and the other party would get 49 percent in every district. In a first-past-the-post system, the party with 51 percent would win every seat and the party with 49 percent would not. In a pr system, each party would win legislative seats in proportion to its share of the vote. According to the data in the table, pr systems encourage a larger number of major parties and make room for minor parties and new social groups.

As opposed to winner-takes-all systems, proportional representation systems promote turnout. In the next chapter, we will see how electoral rules affect voter behavior. Consider the different incentives to a minority party voter in a pr system where her party will win seats even if they don't run first and a similar voter in a winner-takes-all system where no candidates will be elected unless they run first. The incentive for minor party voters to stay home is great. Research shows that supporters of losing parties are happier with the political system.

Republicans gained control of the Senate and the House in the 2012 election, which meant they could challenge the president for political and policy control of the government. Party unity in the House averaged 73 percent during Obama's second term, while in the Senate it averaged 69 percent.

The United States is often described as a two-party system. The Democratic and Republican parties have been at odds since before the Civil War. They win most of the elections. The United States as a two-party democracy is only one part of the story. In this section, we define minor parties, describe their traditional role in American politics, describe the barriers that the major parties throw up against them, and assess the recent history and future prospects of minor parties in American politics.

The Democrats and Republicans have the best chances of winning elections, organizing the government, and making public policy. Minor parties seek support, stake out issue positions, and run candidates for election, but they have little chance of winning and everyone knows it. Sometimes a third party can get enough attention and votes to change the course of an election.

Minor parties are common in American politics. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were two of 26 candidates who appeared on at least one state's ballot for president.

Most of the parties represented by these candidates were irrelevant to the conduct or outcome of the election, but in 2000 the Green Party's Ralph Nader was an important factor in the election and did affect the outcome. He probably changed the outcome from a probable Al Gore win to a George W. Bush win.

Their main goal is to raise issues that the major parties fear.

Sometimes they catch fire and force a reaction from the political system. The rise of a third party is usually explained by three factors. The major parties would prefer to ignore a critical issue if the third party was well positioned. This can be an economic issue, but it can also be a governance, moral, or cultural issue. It must have an intriguing leader like a Ross Perot. The deck is stacked against it.

Others have come close. Theodore Roosevelt ran second in 1912, and Ross Perot ran third in 1992 after briefly leading the presidential contest. In a presidential race, third parties get trampled.

The rules and laws governing elections in the United States were written by both parties. The rules governing who gets to run and what it takes to win were written by Democrats and Republicans. Democratic and Republican elected officials have designed the American electoral system to favor them and make life difficult for those who would challenge them.

The major parties have different levels of defense against third party challenges. Most American elections are conducted in individual districts where the person with the most votes wins. Minor parties got 1.5 percent of the presidential vote.

Most election rules are state rules. The major parties have easy access to the ballot in the states. The number of valid voter signatures needed to get a minor party candidate on the ballot is very high. partisan election officials disqualify signatures for technical reasons at the end of the process. The top-of-the-ballot positions are usually reserved for the two major parties when third party candidates make it onto the ballot. Each election cycle the petition process has to be changed.

There are higher hurdles for a third party candidate. To get on the ballot in all fifty states, a candidate must comply with each state's rules. The ability of third party candidates to raise money is less than that of the two major party candidates. Third party candidates are not allowed to participate in presidential debates if their support in the national polls is less than 15 percent. In a general election, the major party candidates raise hundreds of millions of dollars or receive tens of millions of dollars in public funds to run their campaigns, but third party candidates get nothing unless their parties achieved at least 5 percent of the vote in the last election.

The Tea Party isn't a major party like the Republicans.

Minor parties are often ignored by the major parties. Major parties react if a minor party starts to build steam.

They attempt to drain off the emotion that is fueling the third party. One or both of the major parties will adopt one or more of the third party's key issue positions if that fails. During the recent presidential election cycles, third party actions and major party reactions were on full display as they challenged the supremacy of the two major parties in American politics.

There were more minor party candidates on the ballot in 2016 than there have been since the Great Depression. The Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson was on the ballot in 50 states and the District of Columbia, the Green Party's Stein was on the ballot in 45 states, and the Constitution Party's Castle was on 23 state ballots.

Life for the third parties is not easy, as anyone who watched the 2016 election saw. Gary Johnson was the Libertarian Party candidate in 2012 and again in 2016 Republicans were worried that Johnson might snatch votes from Trump, and he did garner almost 1.2 million votes, more than double any other minor party candidate, but neither he nor all of the minor party candidates polled enough votes to affect the outcome. The presence of third parties was felt.

Twenty-one others not listed here received votes for president.

Minor parties have long odds against them. There is no reason to believe that the major parties and their elected officeholders will allow the electoral system to change in the near future. Social, political, and technological developments should open the door to continued growth for third parties. The citizens and voters are more secure than ever. The defection of only a few voters to minor parties can have important consequences. Democrats are vulnerable to defections to the Green Party and Republicans to the Libertarian and Constitution parties. It's hard to say, but one should look to the fertile ground between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, where Ross Perot, Jesse Ventura, andRalph Nader found enough economic conservatives and social liberals to roil the political system in recent elections.

Questions about party reform have arisen from recent presidential contests.

In each election cycle, more states crowd to the front of the presidential nomination process, close to the traditional first events in Iowa and New Hampshire, to assure that their voters get to weigh in before the nominations were locked up. The DNC and RNC try to establish rules about which states can go first and when. Sometimes rogue states will jump the line to make sure that their voters have a say in the nomination.

In 2016 there was concern over how the national and state parties awarded delegates. If Clinton won a state with 60 percent of the vote, the state's delegates to the Democratic National Convention would be divided by 40%.

On a winner-take-all basis, the Republicans awarded delegates proportionally until March 15.

Rules govern how third party and independent candidates get on the ballot, whether they remain eligible from one election to the next, and where they appear on the ballot. According to common sense, we need these rules. We don't want a lot of people running for president.

Congress and the states can write the rules, but they have to be written by Democrats and Republicans.

Major and minor political parties were discussed in chapter 6. The three institutional mechanisms are used to bring together interests, ideas, and goals of citizens. The major parties are likely to remain strong and the interest groups and minor parties are likely to grow because of the freedoms of speech, press, and association in a society like ours. Americans will be able to join with like-minded fellow citizens to make their views known to the government.

As our political world gets more complicated, we need to remember what can and cannot be done. Interest groups generally press their members' views on government if the political party in control of government at the time. Minor parties rarely win office and almost never win the top offices in government, but they do challenge the major parties and raise issues that might not otherwise get a hearing. Minor parties spend their energy on educating and organizing the public while interest groups focus their attention on influencing government. Major parties offer candidates for all or most offices from the local to the national level in the hope of winning executive offices and legislative majorities so that they can run the government and make policy.

Interest groups and political parties complement each other in critical ways because they compete for a limited supply of political talent, energy, and money.

When government is being organized, political parties play a dominant role. During legislative hearings, program design, and bureaucratic rule-making and policy implementation, interest groups are at their most influential. Interest groups shape the details of the broad public agenda in ways that are beneficial to them.

Interest groups may be large or small, they may focus on inside or outside lobbying, but they generally focus on a limited range of issues. Political parties link citizens to their government and the political realm more generally. The goal of minor parties is to rise to major party status and to contest for control of the nation's political institutions.

The founding generation was wary of interest groups and political parties because they saw them as representing self-interested differences over the nature of the public interest or the common good. The two-party system was a part of the American political system by the 1830s. Most voters still orient themselves toward politics through their partisanship despite the political reforms of the twentieth century.

The major parties in the electorate were analyzed in this chapter. The identification of voters with parties weakened over the course of the twentieth century. Voters were able to analyze complex issues on their own because of rising wealth and education. A close partisan balance in Washington, an evenly divided electorate, and more explicitly ideological and partisan media have brought many back to parties. More than 90 percent of voters vote for major party candidates, two-thirds of voters claim partisan labels, and the emotional attachment of voters to the major parties is stronger than it has been in decades.

Party organizations at the state and national levels are providing high-tech campaign-related services to candidates and their staffs in response to the move to capital-intensive, candidate-centered campaigns. The national parties have become more efficient at raising money. As a result of closer connections between candidates and party organizations, parties have become more cohesive and consistent forces in government.

The interests of most citizens are served by the standard democratic politics of groups and parties. Increasing numbers of people conclude that the political system is unwilling or incapable of dealing with critical issues about which they feel deeply, which leads to minor parties and protest movements. Minor parties demand new solutions to old issues. They run candidates but have little chance of winning. Sometimes they gain enough attention to change the course of an election and demand that the major parties respond.

John H. Aldrich wrote "Why Parties Form". Ambitious politicians realized that a stable, coherent party apparatus would help them win elections and policy battles more consistently than they could otherwise.

The reasons immigrants and minorities don't connect to the major parties are explored.

The leading textbook on American political parties describes the parties as organizations and in government.

There is a division within the Republican Party between small government libertarians and evangelicals who want government involved in issues like abortion, school prayer, and gay marriage.

The means that the dominant parties use to block third parties and the potential benefits that third parties offer to parties are analyzed.

The Tea Party has pushed the Republican Party to the right.

This is the official website of the Democratic National Committee. There is information on how to become involved in the party. Legislative and issue positions are topics of discussion.

The party is dedicated to environmental and social issues. There are profiles on party candidates. It gives information on how to become involved.

The official website of the Libertarian Party has been around for a long time. The site gives insight into Libertarian principles and state-by-state information.

There is information on how to become involved with the GOP. There is information on organizations and profiles of elected officials.