The fundamental voter: American electoral democracy, 1952-2020
This book asks three questions. How have American national elections changed in the last seventy years? Why have they changed as they did? What are the consequences of these changes for democracy in America? Chapter 1 shows that elections up through 1984 differed dramatically from those after 1984. Landslide presidential elections were once common, but over the last forty years they have converged to become increasingly closely contended elections. Congressional elections become ever more incumbent centered before 1984 and decreasingly so afterward. These changes reflect the changing nature of fundamental forces that shape the public's electoral opinions and voting behavior. From a single such fundamental, partisan identification, 70 years ago, the electorate now rests on five such fundamentals: partisanship, ideology, issues, racial attitudes, and economic evaluations. Since 1984 each has grown increasingly important in orienting the voter to elections, and they have become more closely aligned, such that the public, by 2020, was aligned in one of two camps based on all five fundamentals. Also since 1984, not only have these two become not just separate camps that disagree over the substance and increasingly the emotions associated with electoral politics; the division is best understood as a broad and deep cleavage. The result is that the number of crosscutting interests that made majorities hard to maintain have been replaced by a cleavage that threatens to undermine the stability of democratic institutions in the United States.
