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Following the 2020 presidential election Donald Trump claimed that the election had been stolen and that fraud was widespread. His voter base widely accepted that and that has prompted numerous state legislatures to enact laws creating hurdles that make voting more difficult. The presumption of most reactions to these laws is that they are directed at reducing non-white voting. This study suggests that they may also affect the white working class. The party needs their votes and they have a historical record of not voting at high levels. More hurdles may diminish their turnout. The analysis draws on voting patterns from 1952–2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conventional wisdom is that class divisions once prevailed but in recent decades have gradually declined. Indeed, many now suggest that the working class has been voting Republican since the 1980s. The historical evidence on voting in presidential elections does not indicate that there was a decline since the 1950s. If anything, the well-off and more educated have moved somewhat more Democratic, lessening class divisions. There has, however, been a change since the 2008 election, with the working class - whether only whites or all - moving away from the Democrats. This may not mean a decline of the working class voting their interests. It may be that the economic recovery of recent years has done little to help the working class and they have taken a gamble that a businessman will help their job prospects more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partisan success in House districts is significantly influenced by the composition of districts and the resulting partisan voting inclinations. Districts that are largely White and have lower population density vote Republican and those that are highly urban and dominated by non-Whites vote Democratic. That continued to play out in 2014. Although the 2014 House elections produced the highest number of Republican seats since 1928, the changes from 2012 to 2014 look less dramatic when assessed by district composition and partisan voting tendencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forming party strategy is never easy because of the uncertainty of how the electorate will react. In 2009 and 2010, Democrats sought to address two major problems — the economy and health insurance — and hoped they would get credit for responding effectively. Quite the opposite occurred. Forming party strategy remains an art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Despite the scope of U.S. social spending, we know little about cumulative program usage among individuals or how it may influence their political attitudes or behavior. This article examines program usage among citizens and probes the association of usage with program assessment and the likelihood of voting. Methods. We examine these issues using the 2005 Maxwell Poll, which uniquely asked respondents about both usage of 18 social programs as well as attitudes about such programs and rates of political involvement. Results. The data indicate that direct experience of social programs is fairly common and widespread across the population, but beneficiaries of programs differ in their assessments compared to nonbeneficiaries. Most significant, after controlling for various demographic factors, we find that the greater the number of universal programs citizens have used, the greater the likelihood that they vote; conversely, the greater the number of means-tested programs they have used, the lower their likelihood of voting. Conclusion. Experiences of social programs may influence voter turnout and may help explain why young and less advantaged citizens vote less than older citizens. Trends in social provision may be fostering inequality of political voice, particularly among younger generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the nation's first century, states used their concurrent constitutional right to schedule presidential and House elections at widely varying times. Senators were also elected within the states at diverse times. This study examines the gradual establishment of uniform election dates and offers an explanation of why Congress felt it appropriate to override state autonomy to eventually establish uniformity of state practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review of Who Really Cares challenges its central findings about the ideological character of personal contributions of time and money to charitable causes. The analysis is fundamentally flawed in claiming that conservatives give and care more than liberals because it hinges on a definition of caring that excludes collective action efforts through government that liberals tend to support. The review also raises concerns about how the author defines liberalism, and argues that the book misses an opportunity to explore the different ways in which Americans conceive of expressing their concern and why those differences exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thomas Frank argues that Republicans are able to use cultural issues to suppress class divisions. They appeal to religiously conservative working class voters by opposing abortion and homosexuality. The difficulty is that the evidence of the last 40 years shows a growing class division in American politics, with less affluent whites more supportive of Democrats now than 20 - 30 years ago. Indeed, even in Kansas less affluent legislative districts are much more supportive of Democrats than affluent districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The election of 1896 is regarded as a critical one in which a significant and enduring shift in party electoral fortunes occurred. This evidence is so important because it supports the more general argument that critical realignments are the way that significant electoral changes occur. Change is seen as abrupt, with new alignments persisting for decades. Voters are seen as detached, briefly attentive, and then relatively stable in a new alignment. In this view, the political process is not seen as one in which there is continuous political debate, electoral attention, and secular electoral change. This analysis reexamines the evidence for the occurrence of a critical realignment in 1896, using results for presidential and House elections. The data do not indicate that an abrupt change occurred in 1896. The changes that occurred were gradual, with most occurring after 1896. The evidence suggests that secular change and gradual electoral shifts should receive much more attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Democratic Party in the South has experienced a major loss of white voters in recent decades. Two major hypotheses have been proposed to explain this change. The dominant explanation in recent years has been that race issues have driven whites from the Democratic Party in the South. In this view, defections from the Democratic Party have occurred because whites oppose the party's positions on race issues. In contrast, others have suggested that class divisions have emerged as important, with affluent whites increasingly supportive of the Republican Party because they find its positions more compatible with their interests. Using NES data, this article assesses the evidence for these hypotheses, examining the impact of income position and race issues on partisan behavior since 1952. While both factors affect partisan support, income has come to have a relatively greater effect on partisan support than race issues. The evidence clearly indicates that class divisions in the South have steadily increased and that affluent whites have steadily shifted to the Republican Party. The implications are significant for understanding the dramatic changes in the South in recent decades. Much has been made of the tensions over race issues, and the findings presented here lend further support to the importance of race issues in southern electoral politics. However, these findings also suggest that class divisions are a steadily increasing source of political cleavage in this region. The current state of electoral politics in the South cannot be properly understood unless both of these factors are taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses how the Democratic Party managed to survive since the 1960s as the majority party in the United States Congress, even while it was losing the South. Increased support outside the South; Whom the Democrats attracted over time; Presumed alienation of the white, working class; Analyses that asses class voting using self-identified class.

Presents information on a study which described the extent of polarized class reactions to the United States Democratic Party's policy proposals which resulted in the landslide victory of the Republicans in the House of Representatives in 1994. Approaches in explaining the landslide victory of the Republicans; Emergence of class divisions; Analysis of voting patterns in the elections.

Assesses the relationship of district income to partisan outcomes across states in the U.S. Utilization of district data from The Almanac of State Legislatures and a file of winners of legislative elections; Effect of diversity within states; Uniqueness on patterns of partisan cleavages of each state.

Focuses on income composition of the United States House districts from 1962 to 1996 and how partisan outcomes are related to these variations. Income and political divisions; District-level analyses; Political conditions, party positions and public images of parties; Income, party and the importance of region; Diversity of districts over time; Race, income and party outcomes.

The 1970's mark a significant transition in American national-state fiscal relations. By 1978, federal aid for state governments and direct and indirect aid for local governments started to decline. By the mid 1980's, federal aid had declined even further. This has clear consequences for the relative role of the states as sources of tax revenue within the state-local mix. Since 1979, states have become somewhat more significant as revenue raisers among subnational governments.

Political battles about state taxation efforts regularly revolve around the argument that greater state effort will produce fiscal centralization. When fiscal centralization is examined, the focus is usually upon the degree of state dominance in directly providing services. This is the most visible form of centralization, and it is usually expressed as the state's proportion of total direct state-local expenditure, or the division of labor" in a state. Fiscal centralization is increasing in the states, though they retain considerable diversity in their actual paths of change.

Presents information on the percentage of state legislative seats won by the Democrats since World War II in the United States, focusing on the arguments by Morris P. Fiorina in 1994. Analysis of flaws in Fiorina's arguments; Implications of empirical analyses which have been proposed.

Presents an assessment of the literature on state politics. Call for a methodological shift from correlation to case study and comparative case study; Emergence of empirical state politics research; Systematic limitations; Cultivating alternative approaches.

The condition of state party organizations is unclear. Some argue they are declining, whereas others argue they are making a comeback. Some of the ambiguity stems from incomplete information, but some of it stems from changes in the organization of the “state party.” New organizations have emerged and our organizational assessments have not incorporated the changing reality. The traditional state party committees have been joined by legislative party campaign committees, and party resources have become more dispersed. The state party organization is no longer defined by just the traditional state party organization. This article presents a comprehensive case study of these changes. It examines the condition and growth of all state party organizations m New York across three election cycles. The legislative party committees are better financed than the traditional state party committees, and they play a major role in financing state legislative candidates. The focus, it appears, should be as much on the legislative party campaign committees as on the traditional state party committees when trying to understand the condition of state party organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to an article on nationalization of electoral responses in the March 1984 issue is presented.

This article reports on the issue of differences in party voting in the U.S. House. Differences in party voting are on the rise in the U.S. House, with the increase generally regarded as beginning somewhere in the 1970's. Polarization may be measured as the percentage of party votes and party cohesion. Regardless of the measurement, polarization between the parties in the House is increasing. After the 1970's, Democrats have become more liberal and Republicans somewhat more conservative, resulting in a growing difference between the two parties across the 1980's and 1990's.