A Lesson in Politics: Two Campaign Models and Realigning Elections

American politics and government is a tricky sphere of knowledge, full of twists and turns. Our representative republic was born from fear of monarchy, fear of absolute power, and a desire to lead a better life. The Founding Fathers, albeit problematic for a variety of reasons, created a system so complex that even the chaos of today’s world cannot break it. We think it is slow and inefficient, but that is exactly how it was designed — and if all goes according to their plan, it will save us in the end.

Now more than ever it is crucial to understand the history of the American political system. We act as though this is how it’s always been — Congress has always been slow, politics have always been polarized, the national parties have never been good at unifying the people — but that is far from the truth. In order to better study and understand what is going on today, there are a few realities we must accept:

1. Donald Trump is president. Accept it. Move past the 2016 election. Resist.
2. Understanding the past helps us understand the present.
3. Change only happens when people show up and care about what’s happening. Dig deep inside yourself and give a damn.

This edition of A Lesson in Politics covers two important topics needed to understand American politics going forward: party-centered vs. candidate-centered campaigns and realigning elections.

Party-Centered vs. Candidate-Centered Campaigns

When we think of the political campaigns of modern presidents, we think of those of Barack Obama or Jimmy Carter. They were clearly individuals with their own brand and messaging. They strayed slightly from the party line and had characteristics that defined them more than their agendas (e.g. Obama is a great public speaker or Carter was a “common person”). They gathered their own supporters through people simply liking them as a candidate or through grassroots movements — and they can win support without the full backing of the party. This is the model of a modern presidency, or what we’ll call a Candidate-Centered Campaign.

In the late 1890s, political parties controlled everything about a campaign and an election. Party elites selected a candidate and developed a platform — and party patronage was crucial for the survival of a campaign. While it may seem like we have this system today, party patronage was not a grassroots movement. It was an old boys’ club in the strictest definition. Political machines, party elites, and those who were well connected would trade votes for jobs and other services equivalent to a welfare system. This is what we’ll call the Party-Centered Campaign. This system gave way to the Candidate-Centered Campaign after the Progressive movement sparked electoral change — specifically, the establishment of a direct primary.

Realigning Elections

Every so often, the coalitions that make up political parties go under a drastic change, shifting the way that the party defines itself and its values, and in some cases pushing an older party aside in favor of a newer, more vibrant party. Political scientists call these defining elections realigning elections. They may also be called a critical election or a political realignment. In American political history, we have had five realigning elections: 1800, 1828, 1860, 1898, and 1932. Each of these elections resulted in a new coalition coming to power and changes to the dominant party leaders, focal issues of the party, and the demographics of the supporter base for the parties. These typically follow the election of a new president and must result in the previous minority party or third party taking control of Congress. Most importantly, in order for an election to be considered a realigning election, the change must take place down the ballot — the change in voting patterns must happen from president down to mayor.

Historically, realigning elections have been important because they denoted a shift in the voting patterns of the country. There hasn’t been one since 1932, although scholars have debated whether to consider 1968 as a realigning election (Nixon won, the way the election was carried out led the Democrats to change their party rules to make the nomination process more inclusive, Republicans later adopted the same rules), but control of Congress did not change so it is not usually included. Scholars have also made arguments for the elections of 1964, 1980, 1994, and 2000 however, there is no consensus in the academic community on whether any of these elections were realigning elections.

Here’s an overview of the historical realigning elections:

1800 Presidential Election

• Who was elected? Thomas Jefferson
• Shift to the Democratic Republicans.
• Significance: This election began the First Party System with the turnover from the Federalist Party to the Democratic Republicans (or Jefferson’s Republican Party). The center of political power shifted (both figurative and literally) from New England to the South.

1828 Presidential Election

• Who was elected? Andrew Jackson
• Shift to the Jacksonian Democratic Party
• Significance: Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans split into two parties: The Whig Party and the Democratic Party (but not the Democratic Party of today). Andrew Jackson beat John Quincy Adams, but it was Martin Van Buren who really transformed the party. He wanted a stronger national party and gained party patronage through promises to funnel funding to the local level in exchange for votes. This model increased voter turnout by 30% and was mostly successful.

1860 Presidential Election

• Who was elected? Abraham Lincoln
• Shift to the Republican Party of Lincoln
• Significance: Several third parties — such as the Know Nothings, the Republican Party, and the Opposition Party — existed and made moves to take over the now-fallen Whig Party. Lincoln’s Republican Party added “ending slavery” to their platform

1896 Presidential Election

• Who was elected? William McKinley
• Shift to Republicans… but there was a shift in policies, Republican Party began to look more like it does today.
• Significance: Contributed to the shift in the Candidate-Centered Campaigning model. The gold standard became the defining issue of the election. There is controversy in academic as to whether or not this was a realigning election. We are of the opinion that it was.

1932 Presidential Election

• Who was elected? Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Shift to Democratic Party.
• Significance: Despite the initial excitement around him, Hoover’s economics seemingly failed and lead to the Great Depression. However, Hoover largely won originally due to the three main issues that highlighted the election of 1928: prohibition (people wanted alcohol to be legal again), prejudice (Al Smith, his opponent, was Catholic, and propensity (things were going great up until then… so why change). There was a drastic shift from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party because people believed change was needed to come out of the Great Depression. Roosevelt campaigned on the promise of the New Deal and that won him the election.
• Viewed as the archetypal realigning election

Since 2008, scholars have debated whether we are nearing another realigning election. There have been plenty of think pieces discussing whether Obama’s win in 2008 was a realigning election or whether Trump’s win would lead to a realigning election. Thus far, think pieces seem to agree that the 2016 election does not check off the right boxes to be a realigning election — but that doesn’t mean that 2020 won’t meet the proper criteria. It’s too early to tell, but it’s something to keep an eye on as we get closer and closer to the 2020 presidential election.

Why is all this important?

The truth is that we have either entered into a dealigning period — where voters move away from preferring one party to another and become more independent or non-voting — or we are bound to encounter a dramatic shift in our voting patterns. Understanding the history that accompanies realigning elections of the past will help us understand the political arena in which we are situated and the discourse going forward. Furthermore, understanding the way campaigns have been run historically and how they are run today helps us unpack the tension between candidates and the political parties. We can see where parties used to thrive and how candidates have stepped in to create their own movements — with or without their supporting party.