Partisan Shift Research Articles

Partisan Politics in the 21st Century South: The Fading Impact of Antebellum Slavery

Acharya, Blackwell, and Sen (2018) argue that antebellum slavery is directly related to racial conservatism and support for the Republican Party in the modern South. Yet during the last two decades, the South has begun a subtle but still very significant partisan shift to the left. Areas where population growth has stagnated (or actually declined) have tended to become more Republican; Democratic support has been bolstered by higher population growth. Significantly, local population growth and historic slave populations are largely unrelated. I examine the extent to which antebellum slavery influences county-level southern White partisanship and racial resentment during the second decade of the 21st century. Over the course of this time period, the impact of antebellum slavery evaporates. Not coincidentally, county-level population growth is strongly associated with increased Democratic identification and more progressive racial attitudes at or near the end of this time frame.

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Authors’ Response

The Partisan Divide in U.S. Congressional Communications After the China Shock

The district-level political implications of trade competition are mitigated by the strategic behavior of incumbent legislators and the constraints placed upon them by party affiliation. In this paper, we examine the partisan difference in congressional communication strategies on China and trade related issues. We find that, even though Chinese import competition impacted both Republican- and Democrat-held districts, Republican politicians engage in more protectionist and anti-China rhetoric and policy proposals. Using press release data from members of Congress, we show that, among districts more exposed to Chinese imports, Republicans are more likely to blame China as the problem. But there is no difference between Republican and Democratic messaging on trade issues in general. We attribute this partisan shift in political communication strategy to the fact that Republican legislators are more constrained by their party platform from advocating for trade protectionism and social welfare relative to Democrats. Blaming the negative externalities of import competition on China rather than on trade policy has allowed Republican incumbents to continue to support their party’s free trade platform without alienating their constituents. This explains why candidate Trump’s protectionist message linking China and trade resonated with the Republican base much more so than proposals that were better grounded in economic realities.

US Political Shocks, Global Banks, and International Financial Markets: Evidence from the 2016 Presidential Election

What are the global financial spillovers from major political shocks in the United States? We analyze the response of international financial markets to the 2016 US presidential election. The surprise election outcome represents an exogenous shock that affords us a unique opportunity to estimate the effect of a partisan shift in the White House on third countries. Given Donald Trump’s unanticipated victory and his promises of financial deregulation, investors revised their return expectations for third countries according to countries’ exposure to the election shock. We argue that countries with dense financial ties to the US benefited from expectations of regulatory reform in Wall Street. We estimate the election effect on foreign equity markets using data on 134 single-country exchange-traded funds (ETFs) covering 48 developed and developing economies. Results show that the election had an overall negative effect on international markets, but countries with close ties to the US banking system fared better. We further test the mechanism with data on US global banks and find support for our hypothesis.

Partisan Change in Southern State Legislatures, 1953–2013

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] You don't have to be historian, political scientist, or even particularly astute political observer to know that the South has moved from one-party Democratic control to competitive and increasingly Republican region. (1) Although this basic storyline is well known by folks on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, the picture becomes good deal muddier from there. There is healthy debate about how quickly this partisan shift occurred, why it occurred, the extent to which it has trickled down to lower offices, the policy implications of partisan changes, and of course, what the future holds for the region's politics. Although we can't answer all of these questions in single essay, we do want to tackle few of them in the context of important, but understudied political institution: the state legislature. State legislators are vitally important political actors who have tremendous power over the lives of their constituents. In addition, partisan change in state legislatures can provide some important clues to help us better understand the past and future of partisan politics in the American South. PARTISAN CHANGE AND THE CASE FOR STUDYING STATE LEGISLATURES The partisan transformation in the South coincided with, and was certainly influenced by, the modern Civil Rights Movement and the substantial increase in African American political participation following the 1965 Voting Rights Act. (2) Likewise, landmark Supreme Court rulings in the 1960s affirming one person, vote helped shift the power in state legislatures away from rural areas toward urban and suburban locales. (3) The rise of the middle class, substantial in-migration from other regions, the increase in partisan independents, and the transformation of an agricultural economy to manufacturing and service-based industries also drove political changes in the region. (4) Lastly, redistricting battles and the formation of majority-minority districts in the South largely benefited black Democrats and Republicans at the expense of white Democrats reliant on biracial coalitions to win electoral majorities. partisan realignment--as related to partisan alignment, which is defined as a dramatic change in the partisan expressions of constituencies and communities (5) --did not take place in single critical election but instead occurred gradually over the last half-century. (6) In fact, many treatments of partisan change in the South follow V. O. Key's notion of (also known as creeping realignment) to suggest that realignments occur slowly, and are not necessarily punctuated by large changes coinciding with single election. Within the secular realignment tradition, evidence suggesting that this slow partisan shift trickles down from higher offices to lower offices is compelling. The logic of this trickle-down realignment suggests that voters first shift their partisan loyalties when voting for president. When casting ballots for lower offices, voters generally know less about the issues and candidates and thus rely more heavily on partisan cues. For this reason it may take decades for voter to shift her partisan loyalties for the lowest, least salient offices. (7) In most southern states, the slow transition of whites away from the Democratic Party began at the presidential level, as voters cast ballots for World War II hero General Dwight Eisenhower. Even when the region had very few Republicans, Peripheral South states Virginia, Tennessee, and Florida supported Eisenhower in 1952. Four years later, Texas and the Deep South state of Louisiana joined Virginia, Tennessee, and Texas to support the Republican nominee. With substantial increases in African American voting following the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the political environment was ripe for Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy, which focused on decreased federal power and states' rights. …

Political polarization, congressional redistricting, and trade liberalization

During the last 50 years, political polarization in the US House of Representatives has intensified. One explanation for this trend emphasizes the importance of congressional redistricting. This paper analyzes the relationship between political polarization and redistricting in the context of two trade liberalization bills. The results of the paper indicate that redistricting has not contributed significantly to party polarization over trade policy although it has produced a partisan shift in favor of trade liberalization. Redistricting does not appear to impact political polarization largely because district-level characteristics currently are dominated by broader, national factors such as party affiliation. The results of the paper clearly demonstrate this point by showing that changes in party affiliation have a much greater impact on voting behavior than changes in district characteristics. The paper also finds, however, that institutional control of the redistricting process at the state level has influenced political polarization with respect to trade policy.

Issues, Ideology, and the Rise of Republican Identification Among Southern Whites, 1982-2000

The South’s partisan shift from solidly Democratic to leaning Republican is one of the biggest transformations in American political history. This paper explores four explanations for this change: ideological self-identification and issue positions, changes in the ideological makeup of the parties, white southerners becoming more conservative, and conservative racial attitudes. The paper provides strong support for an ideological based realignment and little support for the alternative explanations. Overall, attitudes about the size of government and opinions about defense spending were the issues most highly correlated with partisan identification.

Republican Gainsinthe Houseinthe 1994 Elections: Class Polarization in American Politics

In November 1994, the American political landscape shifted in historic fashion.1 Voters gave Republicans control of both houses of Congress, breaking the Democrats' forty-year hold on the House of Representatives. Divided government once again reigned. The partisan shift in congressional control structured America's political debate, which since then has largely been an ongoing struggle between the Republican-held Congress and the Democratic president. The policy differences have been significant, as illustrated by the passage of a conservative welfare reform bill and the fierce battles between the 104th Congress and the president over government spending and tax cuts. Given this dramatic shift of congressional control and its impact on American politics, scholars have devoted considerable attention to explaining what happened in the 1994 elections and what separated that election from those that preceded it. While many insightful explanations of the 1994 elections have been offered, we argue that they only address parts of the puzzle and have missed the important element that connects those pieces. What has been missed

High Costs of Winning—And Losing

The shift from party-centered campaigns to candidate-centered campaigns has contributed to the escalation of the costs of running for elective office in the United States. In the modern era, heavy use of television, radio, and direct mail has emerged as the primary means with which to communicate with voters.(1) As political scientist Frank Sorauf observed, Nothing characterizes the new era as vividly as the increase in sheer sums of money spent in campaigns for public office.(2) Nowhere is cost escalation more evident than in gubernatorial elections in the southern states. But candidate-centered campaigns have long been a hallmark of southern politics, especially when the Democratic Party dominated the region. With the increase in successful Republican runs for governor, southern gubernatorial politics has merely shifted from one-party candidate-centered politics to two-party candidate-centered politics. It is not clear that all the money spent in these high-cost campaigns is well spent. One southern political consultant observed: Everyone knows that half the money spent in a political campaign is wasted. The trouble is that no one knows which half!(3) Unfortunately, there are few data on the costs of campaigns prior to 1977, the time when most states began to collect campaign finance data. It is possible, however, to examine the costs over the two decades since that year, as I have done below. In order to draw comparisons across the twenty-one-year span, I have converted the costs of each state's gubernatorial election into 1996 dollars.(4) TWENTY-ONE YEARS IN THE SOUTH The graph below presents the total costs of gubernatorial elections in fourteen southern states between 1977 and 1997, with the costs of these elections grouped by four election years. The earliest point (77-80) is the total spent in the 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980 elections; the second point (78-81) represents the total spent in the 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981 elections; and the last point (94-97) represents the total spent in the 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997 elections. The costs of southern gubernatorial elections have changed dramatically over the twenty-one-year period. The first six points in the graph, representing the 1977-1985 elections, cluster closely in the $180 to $195 million range. The 1986 and 1990 elections jump into the $240 to $260 million range. In the mid-1990s, the costs of gubernatorial elections have been backing off to the $200 million to $217 million range, as indicated in the final four points in the figure. Clearly, modern candidate-centered, high-cost campaign strategies entered the scene in the South in the mid-1980s. What is it about those election years that drove the costs of these campaigns up? The 1986 gubernatorial elections in just a few states shed some light on this question. In Florida the costs of the 1986 gubernatorial election approached 560 percent of the 1982 election costs; eighteen candidates spent more than $44 million seeking the open seat vacated by Bob Graham. The Alabama election cost over 150 percent more than it had in 1982; seven candidates spent over $14 million competing for retiring George Wallace's seat. In Tennessee, election costs jumped by 85 percent over 1982's costs as eight candidates spent more than $20 million wing for the open seat vacated by Lamar Alexander. The cost of the Texas gubernatorial election increased by nearly one-third over that of the 1982 election as an incumbent governor was voted out of office. Two aspects of these 1986 elections stand out: there were open seats in three of the four states, and in each state the election resulted in a partisan shift in the governor's office. The 1990 elections were similar in some states. In Georgia, for instance, ten candidates spent nearly $30 million wing for the seat vacated by Joe Frank Harris--nearly seventeen times more than was spent in 1986. …

Voting Change in Congress: Some Dynamic Perspectives on an Evolutionary Process

This article presents and tests an evolutionary model of congressional change that is based on the legislator following his voting history on an issue until changing circumstances force a change. Issue evolution, membership replacement, and partisan shift in control of the presidency are identified as three sources of change. House votes from 1949 to 1972 on debt ceiling, foreign aid, school construction, and civil rights are examined to assess the effects of the three sources of change. In general, there is considerable stability in congressional roll-call over time with the change that does occur tending to be gradual rather than dramatic.