Tag: politics

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

The recent mid-terms were, by all accounts, very bad for Democrats. They lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives and 6 seats in the Senate. In many ways things were worse than in 1994, when Republicans won landslide victory.

There is another analogy to 1994, however, which will probably make Democrats happier. President Bill Clinton, after devastating mid-term losses, went on to win a comfortable re-election campaign. Can Mr. Obama do the same?

The book “The Keys to the White House,” by Professor Allan J. Lichtman provides a fascinating answer. Mr. Lichtman argues that the results of a presidential election can be predicted months or years beforehand by a series of thirteen “keys.” According to this theory, if the incumbent party or current president captures a certain number of “keys”, it will win the election. Otherwise it will lose.

More below.

This can readily be applied to the 2012 presidential election. Here are Mr. Lichtman’s exact words:

The Keys to the White House are stated as conditions that favor reelection of the incumbent party. When five or fewer statements are false, the incumbent party wins. When six or more are false, the incumbent party loses.

Key 1: Incumbent-party mandate – After the midterms the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm elections.

Key 2: Nomination-contest – There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination.

Key 3: Incumbency – The incumbent-party candidate is the sitting president.

Key 4: Third party – There is no significant third-party or independent campaign.

Key 5:  Short-term economy – The economy is not in recession during the election campaign

Key 6: Long-term economy – Real annual per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

Key 7: Policy change – The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

Key 8: Social unrest – There is no sustained social unrest during the term.

Key 9: Scandal – The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

Key 10: Foreign or military failure – The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

Key 11: Foreign or military success – The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

Key 12: Incumbent charisma – The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

Key 13: Challenger charisma – The challenging-party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

A year before the 2008 presidential election, Mr. Lichtman used these keys to confidently predict that Democrats would win the coming election. Seven of the keys – the incumbent-party mandate, the nomination contest, incumbency, policy change, foreign/military failure, foreign/military success, and incumbent charisma – were going against the Republican Party at that point. As the election went on, three other keys turned against them: short-term economy, long-term economy, and challenger charisma. The Republican Party thus went into the 2008 presidential election with ten of the thirteen keys turned against them. In this context, it is not surprising that Senator John McCain lost.

Let’s take a look at how the keys are stacking up in 2012:

Key 1: Incumbent-party mandate – After the midterms the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S.  House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm  elections.

Democrats would have had to lose twenty-three or less seats for this statement to be true. That definitely did not happen. This statement is FALSE.

___________________

Key 2: Nomination-contest – There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination.

Nobody has the stature to contest Mr. Obama in the Democratic primary, even with recent liberal unrest over his tax cut deal. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 3: Incumbency – The incumbent-party candidate is the sitting president.

The Democratic candidate is indeed the sitting president. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 4: Third party – There is no significant third-party or independent campaign.

Ralph Nadar and 2000 effectively killed-off third-party candidacies for a generation. At the moment, 2012 isn’t looking any different. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 5:  Short-term economy – The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.

This is a tough one – the economy probably won’t be in recession in 2012, but it certainly could feel like a recession. Given that so much of Democratic troubles stem from the short-term economy, for the moment this statement will be FALSE.

___________________

Key 6: Long-term economy – Real annual per-capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

This particular statistic is also tough to find, but we can certainly infer some things from just looking at real GDP. According to my calculations, Mr. Bush averaged 2.0% real GDP growth (the relevant websites are here and here). That’s pretty low, but real GDP growth was – 2.6% in 2009 because of the recession. The first quarter of 2010 was 3.7%. The second quarter was 1.6%. The third is estimated to be 1.5%. So real GDP growth under Mr. Obama has been something like an average – 0.5%. Over the eight quarters left until November 2012, real GDP would have to grow by something like an average 4.2% for Democrats to win this key. That’s just within the conceivable bounds of possibility, although it’s quite unlikely. This statement is UNKNOWN – LEANING FALSE.

___________________

Key 7: Policy change – The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

Health care definitely was a major change in national policy. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 8: Social unrest – There is no sustained social unrest during the term.

Tea Party shenanigans don’t count as “sustained social unrest.” This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 9: Scandal – The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

The Obama administration has not yet had a major scandal. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 10: Foreign or military failure – The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

Likewise, Mr. Obama hasn’t suffered a major failure overseas yet. (Although Afghanistan is not looking too good these days.) This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 11: Foreign or military success – The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

But neither has Mr. Obama achieved a major success overseas. This statement is FALSE.

___________________

Key 12: Incumbent charisma – The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

Mr. Obama certainly fits the definition of “charisma” to the word. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

Key 13: Challenger charisma – The challenging-party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

Although this could change, the current crop of Republican candidates doesn’t look very charismatic. This statement is TRUE.

___________________

All in all, the Democrats end up holding nine keys out of thirteen (they need seven to win). Four statements are false or unknown; nine are true. Under Mr. Lichtman’s system, then, Mr. Obama looks set to win re-election in 2012.

Of course things might change and get worse for Democrats. The Republicans might nominate somebody like Senator Scott Brown, who is readily equipped with charisma – winning the “challenger charisma” key. Afghanistan might turn into Mr. Obama’s military failure, making him lose that key. The Obama administration might become engulfed in scandal and lose another key.

On the other hand, things might also get better. The economy might be growing steadily come 2012, for instance winning Democrats that key. Mr. Obama might miraculously create peace between Israel and Palestine, winning another key.

But whatever changes happen, Mr. Lichtman’s system gives Democrats surprisingly bright prospects in the 2012 presidential election. Democrats are quite gloomy nowadays, but come November 2012 their spirits may be a bit brighter.

A long time ago, I posted a series of posts analyzing the swing state Pennsylvania. One section of this series focused specifically on the city of Philadelphia. This section analyzed Philadelphia’s vote by precinct results and mapped out the results of several previous elections.

Of particular interest was the difference between the results of the 2008 presidential election and the 2008 Democratic primary, which illustrated a political divide not seen in presidential elections: between Democratic-leaning white Catholics in the northeast and Democratic-voting blacks in the west.

Here is Philadelphia in the 2008 Democratic primary. Take a note at the region the question mark points to, which this post will discuss:

More below.

(Note: Both images are taken from a website which maps historical Philadelphia election results.)

Here is Philadelphia in the 2008 presidential election:

Most of the different voting patterns between these two elections is fairly easy to explain: blacks in west Philadelphia voted for  Barack Obama both times, while white Catholics in the northeast voted strongly for Hillary Clinton in the primary and then lukewarmly Barack Obama in the general election. There is generally a scaling relationship between the two groups: as an area gets more white and less black, its support for Mr. Obama decreases in both elections.

There was, however, a group of precincts in Philadelphia which did not follow this model. These precincts are marked by the question mark in both maps. This group behaved quite strangely. It gave incredibly strong support to Ms. Clinton in the primary and then even stronger support to Mr. Obama in the general election. In the map of the 2008 primary, a number of these precincts cast more than 70% of their ballot to Ms. Clinton. All of them then vote more than 90% Democratic in the general election.

This behavior was quite puzzling, and something that the model did not explain. Initially this author hypothesized that these voters were white liberals in gentrifying areas of Philadelphia and then eventually forgot about the mystery.

The answer, as it turns out, was not white liberals. Here it is:

The mysterious precincts were Hispanic!

The above image was created using Daves Redistricting Application. Due to the tremendous efforts of David  Bradlee, one can map the ethnic composition of every state in incredibly detail.

This provides some interesting insight into the behavior of Hispanics in inner-cities. If what holds for Philadelphia also holds for other cities (which is not a 100% certainty), inner-city Hispanics strongly supported both Hillary Clinton and then Barack Obama.

It is an insight provided by Daves Application which can be extended to many other areas and groups.

–Inoljt

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

In little more than a year several months, the great city of Chicago will select its next mayor. Following the retirement of Mayor Richard Daley, the field is wide open.

Enter Rahm Emanuel. A powerful Democrat and President Barack Obama’s former chief-of-staff, Mr. Emanuel currently looks like the front-runner for the office. With many strong candidates declining to run and his potential opposition divided, things look good for Mr. Emanuel.

And yet one shouldn’t overestimate Mr. Emanuel’s chances as media-anointed front-runner. Mr. Emanuel has a number of hidden weaknesses that may combine to badly damage his campaign.

More below.

A strong attack, for instance, could be levied against Mr. Emanuel as a Washington insider who doesn’t care for the little man. This attack is all the more damaging because its first portion is completely true: it is hard to find a politician more immersed in Washington than Mr. Emanuel.

There are other variations on this theme. There is the geography version: Mr. Emanuel is a carpet-bagger who hasn’t lived in Chicago and doesn’t care about it. There is the populist version: the Washington elite may have already declared Mr. Emanuel the winner, but Chicago doesn’t have to listen to what the elite say. There is the class version: Mr. Emanuel is one of the rich elite who don’t understand the concerns of the working-class. There is the race version: Mr. Emanuel is one of the white elite who don’t understand the concerns of Chicago’s minorities.

None of this possibilities has yet been tried out, or turned into a coherent critique of Mr. Emanuel. It is too early in the game for that. But already there are signs that Mr. Emanuel has limited appeal amongst Chicago’s poor and its minorities (who compose a majority of the city’s population).

Mr. Emanuel does have a lot of things going for him, more than for any other single candidate. He has the support of most of Chicago’s machine, the business community, the politically influential North Side, and probably President Barack Obama (although most pundits probably overrate the importance of an Obama endorsement). Other candidates would probably love to be in his position.

On the other hand, Harold Washington had all this interests aligned against him when he campaigned for mayor. Yet Mr. Washington – the first and to date only black mayor of Chicago – still won consecutive elections on the back of minority support.

Chicago has a run-off system, in which if nobody gets more than 50% of the vote, then the first two winners go on to a second-round.  Most experts expect Mr. Emanuel to get in the somewhere in the 40s, if not an outright majority of the vote.

But it’s also quite conceivable that Mr. Emanuel polls in the low 30s come election day, if he fails to attract the working-class and minority votes that he needs to win in a place like Chicago.

This is the second part of two posts analyzing in more detail the 1928 presidential election.

The Great Realignment

The previous post noted that:

In 1928 the Democratic Party nominated Governor Al Smith of New York. Mr. Smith was nominated as a Catholic Irish-American New Yorker  who directly represented Democratic-voting white ethnics. Mr. Smith’s  Catholicism, however, constituted an affront to Democratic-voting white  Southerners, who at the time were the most important part of the party’s  base.

The 1928 presidential election thus saw a mass movement of white  Southerners away from the Democrats, corresponding with a mass movement  of white ethnics towards the Democrats. This was the beginning of the  great realignment of the South to the Republican Party and the Northeast  to the Democratic Party.

This change can be illustrated with a map detailing the state-by-state shift from the 1924 presidential election to the 1928 presidential election:

There are a number of things that stand out with this map.

More below.

The first, as has been previously noted, is the degree to which the shift replicates the current electoral map.

This is not all, however. Two other things are very, very out-of-whack here. To get a hint at what these are, it is useful to compare the 1924 to 1928 state-by-state voting shift to that of different elections.

One example is the change from 2004 to 2008.

In 2008 President Barack Obama improved by 9.7% from the performance of the previous Democratic candidate, Senator John Kerry. In 1928 Governor Al Smith improved by 7.8% from the performance of Democratic candidate John Davis. The shift from 1924 to 1928 is therefore roughly comparable to the shift from 2004 to 2008.

Here is a map of that shift:

Although both Democratic candidates improved by roughly the same percentage from the previous election, where and how they improved look completely different.

In 2008, Mr. Obama generally improved everywhere. In only five states does he do worse than Mr. Kerry. This is the famous Appalachian corridor with which Mr. Obama was so weak.

Moreover, the degree of movement is generally modest. Only two states – Hawaii and Indiana – have more than a 20-point shift from how they voted in 2004. No state shifts more than 40 points (although Hawaii certainly comes close, going from a 8.7% Democratic margin to a 45.3% Democratic margin).

These two patterns: uniform and moderate movement (i.e. when a candidate does better in the popular vote, said candidate does better in almost every state, and states generally do not have wild swings from how they voted from the previous election) are not just confined to 2008. Here is the shift from 2000 to 2004, when President George W. Bush improved by 2.9% from his performance four years earlier:

One again we see that the national shift right brought most of the states with them, and that only three states shifted more than 10% from 2000.

Let’s take another look at 1928 to finish:

Here neither pattern is present. In 1928, the country moved 7.8% more Democratic from 1924. Despite this, Democratic candidate Al Smith did worse in 23 out of 48 states. Three states – Florida, Georgia, and Texas – voted more than 40% more Republican than they did in the previous election. In Texas, Republicans went from 19.8% of the vote in 1924 to 51.8% of the vote in 1928. Fifteen states voted more than 10% more Republican than they did in 1924.

In comparison, in 2008 only one state – Arkansas – voted more than 10% more Republican than it did in 2004 (and it did so by the barest of margins: 10.1%). This was despite Mr. Obama’s improvement from 2004 being roughly equivalent to Mr. Smith’s improvement from 1924.

A lot of interest has gone into Mr. Obama’s weakness in Appalachia. But Mr. Smith’s Southern problem in 1928 (i.e. the fact that he was a Catholic) makes Mr. Obama’s Appalachian problem look puny.

If Mr. Smith improved by 7.8% from the performance of his Democratic predecessor with so much weakness in the South, the shift in the states that voted more Democratic must have been huge. And indeed, the New Yorker gained more than 20-point shifts in nine states. In Massachusetts, Democrats went from 24.9% of the vote in 1924 to 50.2% in 1928.

All in all, the 1928 presidential election was the scene of some enormous movement on a state-by-state basis. In 2008 only two states shifted more than 20 points from 2004, as Mr. Obama did 9.7% better than Mr. Kerry. In 1928, on the other hand, sixteen states shifted more than 20 points from 1928, as Mr. Smith did 7.8% better than the previous Democratic candidate.

This is what a realigning election looks like – extreme movement on from one state to the next, enormous differences by region, and a powerful correlation between which states shift Democratic and which states are voting Democratic almost a century later.

P.S. For those interested, here is a table of the state-by-state voting shift from the 1924 presidential election to the 1928 presidential election:

State	1928 Republican   Margin	1924 Republican   Margin	Change
Alabama	-2.84%	–40.80%	37.96%
Arizona	15.34%	5.79%	9.55%
Arkansas	-20.96%	-31.93%	10.97%
California	30.50%	48.97%	-18.47%
Colorado	30.78%	35.04%	-4.26%
Connecticut	8.06%	34.01%	-25.95%
Delaware	30.42%	20.90%	9.52%
Florida	16.72%	-28.82%	45.54%
Georgia	-13.19%	-55.77%	42.58%
Idaho	29.30%	30.76%	-1.46%
Illinois	14.65%	35.48%	-20.83%
Indiana	20.09%	16.56%	3.53%
Iowa	24.20%	38.39%	-14.19%
Kansas	44.96%	37.94%	7.02%
Kentucky	18.82%	2.95%	15.87%
Louisiana	-52.58%	-56.21%	3.63%
Maine	37.66%	50.20%	-12.54%
Maryland	14.74%	4.00%	10.74%
Massachusetts	-1.09%	37.40%	-38.49%
Michigan	41.44%	62.24%	-20.80%
Minnesota	16.94%	44.38%	-27.44%
Mississippi	-64.20%	-81.79%	17.59%
Missouri	11.43%	5.79%	5.64%
Montana	17.89%	23.12%	-5.23%
Nebraska	27.01%	17.51%	9.50%
Nevada	13.07%	19.81%	-6.74%
New Hampshire	17.63%	25.11%	-7.48%
New Jersey	19.97%	34.76%	-14.79%
New Mexico	18.16%	5.50%	12.66%
New York	2.35%	26.63%	-24.28%
North Carolina	9.87%	-19.16%	29.03%
North Dakota	10.34%	40.72%	-30.38%
Ohio	30.43%	34.63%	-4.20%
Oklahoma	28.28%	-5.59%	33.87%
Oregon	30.04%	26.83%	3.21%
Pennsylvania	31.35%	46.26%	-14.91%
Rhode Island	-0.61%	23.17%	-23.78%
South Carolina	-82.85%	-94.35%	11.50%
South Dakota	20.98%	36.34%	-15.36%
Tennessee	7.72%	-9.21%	16.93%
Texas	3.67%	-53.92%	57.59%
Utah	7.72%	19.32%	-11.60%
Vermont	34.00%	62.55%	-28.55%
Virginia	8.01%	-29.69%	37.70%
Washington	35.75%	42.08%	-6.33%
West Virginia	17.39%	5.38%	12.01%
Wisconsin	9.24%	28.96%	-19.72%
Wyoming	28.31%	36.28%	-7.97%
Total	25.22%	17.42%	-7.80%

–Inoljt

This is the first part of two posts analyzing in detail the 1928 presidential election.

The second post can be found here.

The Context

In a previous post, part of a series analyzing the Democratic Party during the 1920s, I spoke of how the 1928 presidential election constituted a realigning election.

The 1928 presidential election marked the beginning of a great shift in American politics. It was when the Democratic Party started changing from a minority and fundamentally conservative organization into the  party that would nominate Senator Barack Obama for president.

In 1928, the Democratic Party nominated Governor Al Smith of New York. Mr. Smith was nominated as a Catholic Irish-American New Yorker who directly represented Democratic-voting white ethnics. Mr. Smith’s Catholicism, however, constituted an affront to Democratic-voting white Southerners, who at the time were the most important part of the party’s base.

The 1928 presidential election thus saw a mass movement of white Southerners away from the Democrats, corresponding with a mass movement of white ethnics towards the Democrats. This was the beginning of the great realignment of the South to the Republican Party and the Northeast to the Democratic Party.

Several maps illustrate this point succinctly. Here is the 1924 presidential election:

Here is the 1928 presidential election:

As one can tell, there is quite a bit of change from the one presidential election to the next. Democratic strength in the Solid South weakens considerably, while the Republican Midwest and Northeast become much less red.

However, it is somewhat difficult to go further into detail just by comparing the two maps. One can sense that a lot is changing, and that certain regions of the country are moving in diametrically opposed directions. But it is all rather vague.

I therefore decided, out of curiosity, to create an actual map of the shift from 1924 to 1928. Here it is:

This is quite the interesting map. One can see the outlines of the current Democratic electoral map here. In some cases the correlation is quite tight. For instance, Indiana is the only state in the Midwest to vote more Republican in 1928 – and what do you know, today Indiana votes the most Republican out of all the states in that region.

In general the relationship is very strong in the eastern half of the country. The only “wrong” states are today’s Democratic strongholds of Maryland and Delaware. Also, the degree of shift does not perfectly correlate to Republican strength in some of the Southern states. But these are small details; in the East, states that moved Democratic in 1928 vote Democratic today, while states that moved Republican in 1928 vote Republican today.

West of Minnesota, however, the relationship breaks down. In more than a third of the states in the West, the way they shifted in 1928 is opposite of how they vote today. The most obvious outlier is Utah, today a rock-solid Republican stronghold that moved sharply Democratic in 1928.

There are two other very interesting and strange things that are happening in this map. They will be the subject of the next post.

–Inoljt

So the starting point for this diary was another diary, which I can’t seem to find, but which I remember from the heady days of early 2009, when Dems seemed poised to pull a 1934 (at least in the Senate) and gain seats for the third cycle in a row. This diarist made the point that with such candidates as Katherine Sebelius in Kansas, Janet Napolitano in Arizona, Robin Carnahan in Missouri, Jennifer Brunner in Ohio and Christy Vilsack in Iowa, 2010 was poised to be a true year of the woman in politics, and particularly Democratic woman.

Yeah, well, that didn’t happen.

So how’d women do in 2010. Well, Democratic women did terribly in general, but for women overall, there was the (kinda) good, the bad, and the ugly. Let’s review.  

The (kinda) good – the Governors

The Governors races were a mixed bag for women, which qualifies as good. The three losses were all due to retirements (Jodi Rell, Jennifer Granholm and Linda Lingle) and were balanced by three wins – Mary Fallin in Oklahoma, Susana Martinez in New Mexico and Nikki Haley in South Carolina. The later two are women of color, and regardless of your view of politics it’s kind of cool to see a woman of Indian descent governing the state where the civil war started. Of course, all these were Republicans. There were some big losses for women as well, notably Meg Whitman in California, Karen Handel in Georgia and (from my perspective, the most heartbreaking), Alex Sink in Florida. Still, women held their own, and given there wasn’t a huge amount of potential for women beyond the California, Georgia and Florida’s races, I’m going to label the governor’s results good.

The Bad – the Senate

Women held their own in the Senate – there will still be 17 Senators in the next session of Congress, with Kelly Ayotte replacing Blanche Lincoln. But given the potential: Robin Carnahan in Missouri, Elaine Marshall in North Carolina, Jennifer Brunner in Ohio, Roxanne Conlin in Iowa, Sharon Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Jane Norton in Colorado as well as earlier in the cycle, Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, not to mention the candidates who didn’t run, holding their own was certainly not a good result. Women can take comfort from some of major retentions: Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray, Kirsten Gillibrand and probably the biggest win other than Ayotte, Lisa Murkowski (possibly the most gratifying win considering what a major ass**** Joe Miller turned out to be). But overall, the results were bad, considering the optimism that people had two years ago for this cycle.

The Ugly – The House

Here’s all you need to know: according to the Center for American Women in Politics, the number of women in the House will drop for the first time since 1979. That’s right: while nine Republican women won (and no incumbent Republican women lost House races), 10 Democratic women lost. The number of women in the House goes from 73 to 72. In addition to that, Nancy Pelosi, the highest ranking woman in the U.S. government, will lose her position come January.

http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/pr…

So, yeech, right? Beyond the ugly numbers, there were a couple of interesting victories. Vicky Hartzler took out the reigning chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Ike Skelton, scoring one of the bigger upsets of the cycle (and I’m a progressive, but does anyone think this would have gotten more publicity if the parties were reversed?). Jaime Herrera was the first Republican woman of Latino heritage elected outside of Florida. Renee Ellmers took out a seven term Dem Rep in North Carolina. And Colleen Hanabusa not only became the only Democratice women to oust a Republican incumbent, but made Hawaii the first state with more than one seat to have an all woman House delegation.

But still, yeech.

The future – 2012

For the governors races in 2012, things don’t look great. Bev Purdue in North Carolina is one of the more unpopular incumbents, and Christine Gregorie is in a little better shape but has not announced whether she will run for a third term in Washington.

The good news about the Senate is that only two female incumbents, Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Kay Bailey Hutchinson in Texas look to be in any sort of trouble, and the latter will likely retire. Feel free to speculate who might be some potential female challengers for the Senate.

We can only hope the House elections go better in 2012. Certainly quality candidates like Ann Kuster in New Hampshire are likely to run again and hopefully win. It feels like it can’t get worse than this year.  

This is the last part of three posts analyzing the Democratic Party’s  struggles  during the 1920s, when it lost three consecutive presidential  elections  by landslide margins. This will focus upon the 1928  presidential election, when the  Democratic Party began to change into what it is today.

The 1928 Presidential Election

The 1928 presidential election marked the beginning of a great shift in American politics. It was when the Democratic Party started changing from a minority and fundamentally conservative organization into the party that would nominate Senator Barack Obama for president.

More below.

All this was quite far off in 1928, however. All Democrats knew was that they had just lost two landslide elections. In 1920 and 1924, the Democratic Party had won the votes of white Southerners – and nobody else. Their last candidate had won barely more than one-fourth of the vote.

In 1928 the Democratic Party tried a different strategy. It nominated Governor Al Smith of New York, the candidate of its white ethnic constituency. In the 1920 and 1924 these voters had sat out the first election, and then voted for a third-party candidate. Mr. Smith was a Tammany Hall-bred politician and a life-long New Yorker who identified as an Irish-American.

There was just one problem: Mr. Smith was not a Christian. Rather, he was a Roman Catholic who many feared would take orders from the Pope himself.

White ethnics had abandoned the Democratic Party in the two previous presidential elections. This time it was the turn of white Southerners, who voted Republican in unprecedented numbers:

White Southerners may have been willing to vote for a yellow dog for  president, but many drew the line at voting for a Catholic (especially  one who wanted to condemn the Klu Klux Klan and supported anti-lynching  legislation).

It was Republican candidate Herbert Hoover who benefited from this. Riding a strong economy and a wave of personal popularity, Mr. Hoover defeated Mr. Smith by 17.2% – a landslide on par with President Ronald Reagan’s pummeling of Democratic candidate Walter Mondale, or Mr. Hoover’s own defeat four years later.

The Transformation of the Democratic Party

The 1928 presidential election was the first time white Southerners had abandoned the Democratic Party since the Civil War, and it signaled the beginning of a sea change in American politics.

Amidst all the Republican celebration of a third massive Republican landslide, there was one disquieting sign: Democrats won more than 50% of the vote in Massachusetts, for the first time in history. Irish-American support also gained Mr. Smith more than 50% in Rhode Island (for the first time since 1852). In New York Democrats lost by less than three percent.

Thus, while white Southerners voted more Republican than ever before in the history of the Republican Party, white ethnics in the Northeast and Midwest supported their fellow Catholic in unprecedented numbers. In 1928, both Mississippi and Massachusetts voted Democratic, as the party lost by a landslide.

In the ensuing decades, the Democratic Party’s power base would shift in a slow but sure tide towards Massachusetts and away from Mississippi. 1928 was the first time Democrats relinquished much of the White Southerner vote, but it would not be the last. President Franklin D. Roosevelt stopped the trend for a generation, but after him it would resume. Democrats would become the party of Massachusetts, not the party of Mississippi.

This trend started in 1928. A comparison of the 1924 and 1928 presidential elections is revealing. In 1924, Democrats still held a lock on the South, while Republicans held a lock everywhere else:

In 1928 this began changing. Democratic strength began to move away from the South, and towards the Northeast and Midwest:

This change continues to this very day.

Conclusions

In 1928, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Democrats were consigned to permanent minority status. They had just lost three presidential landslide elections in a row. They had not controlled a House of Congress for more than a decade.

Indeed, aside from 1912 (when two Republicans split the vote), the Democratic Party had won exactly one presidential election since 1892. They had won more than 50% of the vote just one time since the Civil War; Republicans had done so nine times during the same period.

In 1928, the Democratic Party really did seem trapped as a regional-based party which had great trouble competing outside the South. Again and again, Democratic candidates were pummeled outside the former Confederacy. When they had attempted to reach out to white ethnics in 1928, White Southerners had refused to go along.

It was a terrible Catch-22, a problem Democrats had failed to surmount for almost two generations. In the end, it would take a Great Depression for them to do so.

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

This is the second part of three posts analyzing the Democratic Party’s struggles  during the 1920s, when it lost three consecutive presidential elections  by landslide margins. This will focus upon the 1920 and 1924 presidential election, when white ethnic immigrants abandoned the Democratic Party.

The last part can be found here.

The 1920 Presidential Election

The Democratic Party of the early twentieth century was composed of  two bases (both of which no longer vote Democratic). These were Southern  whites and immigrant, often Catholic, whites from places such as  Ireland and Italy. Southern whites voted Democratic due to the memory of  the Civil War and could be reliably whipped up with race-baiting  appeals. Immigrant ethnic whites, on the other hand, saw the Democratic  Party as a vehicle of defense against the dominant, Republican-voting  WASP majority in the Northeast and Midwest.

The two groups had precious little in common, save distrust of the  dominant Republican Party. One of the constituencies would often  only lukewarmly support the national Democratic candidate (this was  usually the immigrant  camp, because without Southern whites the  Democratic Party was nothing).

In 1920, ethnic whites walked out of the Democratic Party.

More below.

The city  machines at Tammany Hall and others did not just fail to fully back  Democratic candidate James M. Cox; they outright refused to support him.

This was entirely the fault of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. The previous year, Mr. Wilson had delicately stated that:

…there is an organized propaganda against the League of  Nations and against the treaty proceeding from exactly the same sources  that the organized propaganda proceeded from which threatened this  country here and there with disloyalty, and I want to say — I cannot  say too often — any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a  dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic  whenever he gets ready.

If I can catch any man with a hyphen in this great contest I will know that I have got an enemy of the Republic.

The political stupidity of this quote cannot be overstated. The “man  with a hyphen” was not just a politically influential constituency; in  states like New York, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin he was the Democratic Party.

This, along with Mr. Wilson making the 1920 election a referendum on his extremely unpopular League of Nations, led to the result in the map above.

Democratic candidate James M. Cox lost everywhere outside the Solid South. He got barely one-fourth of the vote in New York City, less than one-fourth in Chicago, less than one-fifth in Detroit, and so on throughout all the great non-Southern cities. In the “hyphen-heavy” states of Wisconsin, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, Mr. Cox failed to break the 20% mark. Even in the Solid South, Republicans broke 30% of the vote – for the first time since 1908, when disenfranchisement of blacks was complete.

All in all, Democratic candidate James M. Cox lost by 26.2% – the greatest defeat in the popular vote, ever.

The 1924 Presidential Election

In 1924, the Democratic Party nominated a man with the distinction of being more conservative than the Republican.

Little known John W. Davis was not just a social conservative who endorsed segregation – that was true for all Southern Democrats at the time – but also an economic conservative. Mr. Davis believed in small government, states rights, and would go on to oppose President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Mr. Davis was nominated as a compromise candidate after one of the longest and nastiest Democratic conventions in history – a bitter fight with immigrant whites from big cities against Southern and Western rural whites. By the time the convention had ended, it was clear that Democrats didn’t stand a chance of winning the 1924 presidential election. After Mr. Davis’s nomination, ethnic whites walked out once again.

In 1924, Democrats lost big again. They lost by more than Walter Mondale against Ronald Reagan. They lost by more than Herbert Hoover against FDR. All in all, the Democratic candidate lost by the second greatest popular margin in American history, right after 1920.

Mr. Davis won between one-fourth and one-third of the votes. Southern whites stayed loyal; indeed, he did a quite bit better than Mr. Cox in 1920 in the Solid South.

White ethnics did not. In 1920 white immigrants had sat out the election. This time they voted for Governor Senator Robert La Follette, who was the only liberal candidate in the race. Mr. La Follette did better than the Democratic candidate in a dozen states.

Everybody else voted for Republican candidate Calvin Coolidge. Mr. Davis lost almost every single non-Southern city, including all five boroughs of New York (the last time a Democratic presidential candidate would lose New York). In Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Francisco the Democratic candidate got less than 10% of the vote.

All in all, Mr. Davis failed to break 30% in more than half the states:

In the aftermath of this election – a second disastrous election in a row for Democrats – it was clear that a change in strategy was needed. For two elections in a row, Democrats had won Southern whites and nobody else.

In 1928, therefore, the Democratic Party nominated the candidate of the white ethnics to run for president. This time it was the turn of the Southern whites to walk out.

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

This is the first part of three posts analyzing the Democratic Party’s struggles during the 1920s, when it lost three consecutive presidential elections by landslide margins.

The second part can be found here.

A Regional Party Limited to the South

The biggest presidential landslides are two elections you’ve probably never heard of: the 1920  presidential election, and the 1924 presidential election.

More below.

In the 1920 presidential election, Democratic candidate James M. Cox lost by 26.2% to Republican candidate Warren G. Harding. Four years later, Democratic candidate John Davis would get barely more than one-fourth the vote in another landslide defeat. These two elections constitute the biggest victories in the popular vote in the history of American presidential elections.

In the aftermath of President Barack Obama’s victory, Democratic strategists liked to boast that the Republican Party was becoming a regional party restricted to the South. This meme has become less popular in light of Republican gains during the 2010 mid-terms, in which Republicans did quite outside the South (especially in the Midwest).

Yet during the 1920s, the Democratic Party really was a regional, Southern-based party that had great difficulty competing outside the South. It was a party that was completely unrecognizable today: a proudly racist, white supremacist organization in which its two main constituencies refused to back the same candidate not for one, not for two, but for three consecutive elections.

The story begins with World War I and President Woodrow Wilson.

— Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

This is the last part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Colorado.

Conclusions

Colorado is much like the previous state analyzed in this series: Virginia. Both states were seen until recently as Republican strongholds and rightfully so; President George W. Bush handily won both states in 2004 and 2000.

Yet in 2004, both states showed signs of shifting Democratic. Virginia barely moved Democratic even as the South swung heavily against Senator John Kerry. As for Colorado – it actually shifted 3.7% more Democratic, against the national tide. Indeed, in 2004 Mr. Kerry performed better in Colorado than he did in Florida.

More below.

This shift cumulated in the 2008 presidential election, which showed both Colorado and Virginia as influential swing states. Colorado has thus turned from a red state into a purple state. In doing so, the Democratic Party has carved out the following coalition:

Democratic gains since 1992 follow the “C” pattern that was also present in the actual 2008 county results. This is a pattern that is present in other parts of the country, as previous posts have observed. Democrats have generally improved along the Front Range, and especially in the Denver metropolis. They have also gained in two Republican strongholds: Colorado Springs and neighboring Douglas County.

On the other hand, Republicans have gained in several historically Democratic-voting Hispanic counties near Pueblo. They have also improved in the thinly populated rural stretches of east and west Colorado.

All in all, these changes have benefited Democrats more. This is because their gains have been in the more populated areas of Colorado:

The heart of Colorado is therefore in the Denver metropolis, as the map indicates. Since 1992 Democrats have improved in all but one of the orange and red counties. In 2000 Mr. Bush won seven of the eleven highlighted counties. In 2008 Mr. Obama won seven of them. This is responsible for Colorado’s 17.3% leftward shift from 2000 to 2008.

This leftward shift has not turned Colorado into a blue state, but rather into a vitally important swing state. Say, for instance, that Mr. Obama had tied Senator John McCain in the popular vote. North Carolina and Indiana would have immediately flipped Republican. This would be followed by the traditional swing states Florida and then Ohio. Virginia would flip Republican next; Mr. Obama would lose by less than a percent. At this point Mr. McCain would have 262 electoral votes.

And there he would remain. In a tied election, Colorado would go by 1.7% to Mr. Obama, handing the senator 278 electoral votes and the presidency.

In the 2008 presidential election, therefore, Colorado was the most important state to win. It may remain thus in 2012.

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/