Fifth Party System

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The Fifth Party System refers to the era of American national politics that began with the New Deal in 1933. This era emerged from the realignment of the voting blocs and interest groupssupporting the Democratic Party into the New Deal Coalition following the Great Depression. For this reason it is sometimes called the New Deal Party System. It followed the Fourth Party System, usually called the Progressive Era. Experts debate whether it ended in the mid-1960s (as the New Deal coalition did), the early 1980s (when the Moral Majority was formed), the mid-1990s, or continues to the present. The System was heavily Democratic through 1964 and mostly Republican at the presidential level since 1968, with the Senate switching back and forth after 1980. The Democrats usually controlled the House of Representatives except that the Republicans won in 1946, 1952, 19942004, 2010, and 2012 elections. Both chambers went Democratic in 2006. Of the twenty presidential elections since 1932, the Democrats won 7 of the first 9 (through 1964), with Democratic control of Congress as the norm; while the Republicans won 7 of the 12 since 1968, with divided government as the norm. With Republicans losing support because of the Great Depression, the four consecutive elections, 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944, of Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the Democrats dominance, though in domestic issues the conservative coalition generally controlled Congress from 1938 to 1964. The activist New Deal promoted American liberalism, anchored in a New Deal Coalition of specific liberal groupsespecially ethno-religious constituencies (Catholics, Jews, African Americans)white Southerners, well-organized labor unions, urban machines, progressive intellectuals, and populist farm groups. Opposition Republicans were split between a conservative wing, led by Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft, and a more successful moderate wing exemplified by the politics of Northeastern leaders such as Nelson Rockefeller, George W. Romney, William Scranton and Henry Cabot Lodge. The Democratic coalition divided in 1948 and 1968, in the latter election allowing the Republican candidate Richard Nixon to take the White House. Republicans gained support from the formation of the Reagan coalition in the 1980s. Democrats kept control of the House of Representatives until the 1994 election. For the next twelve years the GOP was in control with small majorities, until the Democrats recaptured the chamber with the 2006 election and the 110th Congress. The Democrats held the Senate until 1980; after 1980, the two parties traded control of the Senate back and forth with small majorities, until the Democrats briefly held a supermajority in 2009. In the midterm elections of 2010, the Republican Party gained 63 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, recapturing the majority, and making it the largest seat change since 1948.
Contents
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1 Current state 2 Group voting patterns 19481964 3 See also 4 Further reading 5 Notes

Current state[edit]
The party system model with its numbering and demarcation of the historical systems was introduced in 1967.[1] Much of the work published on the subject has been by political scientists explaining the events of their time as either the imminent breakup of the Fifth Party System, and the installation of a new one or that this transition took place some time ago.[2] The notion of an end to the Fifth Party system was particularly popular in the 1970s, with some specifying a culminating date as early as 1960.[3] However, no clear disciplinary consensus has been forged on an electoral event responsible for shifting presidential and congressional control post the US Great Depression.[4] Other current writing on the Fifth Party System expresses admiration of its longevity: the first four systems lasted about 30 to 40 years each, which would have implied that the early twenty-first century should see a Sixth Party System.[3] It is also possible, as argued in (Jensen 1981) and elsewhere, that the party system has given way, not to a new party system, but to a period of dealignment in politics. Previous party systems ended with the dominant party losing two consecutive House elections by large margins, with a presidential election coinciding with or immediately following (in 1896) the second house electiondecisive electoral evidence of political realignment. This took place in 20068 in favor of the Democrats, but the Republicans won the elections of 2010 by their biggest landslide since 1946.

Group voting patterns 19481964[edit]

The emergence of public opinion polls gave the candidates detailed information about how well they were doing in different constituencies, and historians have relied on them for explaining what swings among voters accounted for the results. Probably the best-known national poll was the Gallup Poll.[5][6]

% Democratic vote in major groups, presidency 19481964

1948 1952 1956 1960 1964

all voters

50

45

42

50

61

White

50

43

41

49

59

Black

50

79

61

68

94

College

22

34

31

39

52

High School

51

45

42

52

62

Grade School

64

52

50

55

66

Professional & Business

19

36

32

42

54

White Collar

47

40

37

48

57

Manual worker

66

55

50

60

71

Farmer

60

33

46

48

53

Union member

76

51

62

77

Not union

42

35

44

56

Protestant

43

37

37

38

55

Catholic

62

56

51

78

76

Republican

20

Independent

35

30

43

56

Democrat

77

85

84

87

East

48

45

40

53

68

Midwest

50

42

41

48

61

West

49

42

43

49

60

South

53

51

49

51

52