The Democratic Party, founded in 1828, is the oldest active political party in the U.S. and has long rivaled the Republican Party. Originating from the Democratic-Republican Party, it initially supported Jacksonian democracy and opposed a national bank. Under FDR, the party formed a broad coalition through the New Deal, including workers, African Americans, and religious groups. Since the civil rights movement, its base shifted toward urban, younger, and diverse voters, advocating for abortion rights, LGBT rights, and climate action. Economically, it supports healthcare reform and workers’ rights, while favoring liberal internationalism in foreign policy.
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Sep 29 2021History
Main article: History of the Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party officials often trace its origins to the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other influential opponents of the conservative Federalists in 1792.2021 That party died out before the modern Democratic Party was organized;22 the Jeffersonian party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans.23 Historians argue that the modern Democratic Party was first organized in the late 1820s with the election of war hero Andrew Jackson24 of Tennessee, making it the world's oldest active political party.252627 It was predominately built by Martin Van Buren, who assembled a wide cadre of politicians in every state behind Jackson.2829
Since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues. Democrats have been more liberal on civil rights since 1948, although conservative factions within the Democratic Party that opposed them persisted in the South until the 1960s. On foreign policy, both parties have changed positions several times.30
Background
The Democratic Party evolved from the Jeffersonian Republican or Democratic-Republican Party organized by Jefferson and Madison in opposition to the Federalist Party.31 The Democratic-Republican Party favored republicanism, a weak federal government, states' rights, agrarian interests (especially Southern planters), and strict adherence to the Constitution. The party opposed a national bank and Great Britain.32 After the War of 1812, the Federalists virtually disappeared and the only national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans, which was prone to splinter along regional lines.33 The era of one-party rule in the United States, known as the Era of Good Feelings, lasted from 1816 until 1828, when Andrew Jackson became president. Jackson and Martin Van Buren worked with allies in each state to form a new Democratic Party on a national basis. In the 1830s, the Whig Party coalesced into the main rival to the Democrats.
When exactly the Democratic party formed is still debated among Historians, with many putting forth the 1828 date of the creation of a federal structure for the various Jacksonian movements as the foundation date, however, it could also be argued that the foundation of these Jacksonian groups could be the foundation date. In that case the Democratic Party would be formed on December 23, 1823 when the Greensburg Committee read the Greensburg Resolution outside the Westmoreland County courthouse in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. The committee consisted of five of Greensburg's most prominent political figures, the brothers Jacob M. Wise (state senator), John H. Wise (state representative and brigadier general), and Frederick A. Wise (owner and editor of the Westmoreland Republican), alongside David Marchand (state representative), and James Clarke (state representative). The Greensburg Resolution was the first published call for Jackson to run for President the 'origin' of the Jackson movement that turned into the Democratic party.34
The event that transformed the Jacksonians from just another faction of the Democratic-Republican party into a divergent political force would be the so-called "corrupt bargain" of 1824, where, despite winning the most popular and electoral votes, the House of Representatives did not confirm Jackson as the newly elected president, instead Henry Clay, who was both a candidate and the speaker of the house, whipped his supporters in congress to vote for the runner-up, John Quincy Adams, in exchange for Adams naming Clay the Secretary of State. Jackson and his followers began to more seriously coalesce into a structured party for the next election in 1828.
Before 1860, the Democratic Party supported expansive presidential power,35 the interests of slave states,36 agrarianism,37 and expansionism,38 while opposing a national bank and high tariffs.39
19th century
Jacksonian Era
Further information: Second Party System and Third Party System
The Democratic-Republican Party split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe.40 The faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the modern Democratic Party.41 Historian Mary Beth Norton explains the transformation in 1828:
Jacksonians believed the people's will had finally prevailed. Through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president. The Democrats became the nation's first well-organized national party ... and tight party organization became the hallmark of nineteenth-century American politics.42
Behind the platforms issued by state and national parties stood a widely shared political outlook that characterized the Democrats:
The Democrats represented a wide range of views but shared a fundamental commitment to the Jeffersonian concept of an agrarian society. They viewed the central government as the enemy of individual liberty. The 1824 "corrupt bargain" had strengthened their suspicion of Washington politics. ... Jacksonians feared the concentration of economic and political power. They believed that government intervention in the economy benefited special-interest groups and created corporate monopolies that favored the rich. They sought to restore the independence of the individual—the artisan and the ordinary farmer—by ending federal support of banks and corporations and restricting the use of paper currency, which they distrusted. Their definition of the proper role of government tended to be negative, and Jackson's political power was largely expressed in negative acts. He exercised the veto more than all previous presidents combined. ... Nor did Jackson share reformers' humanitarian concerns. He had no sympathy for American Indians, initiating the removal of the Cherokees along the Trail of Tears.43
Opposing factions led by Henry Clay helped form the Whig Party. The Democratic Party had a small yet decisive advantage over the Whigs until the 1850s when the Whigs fell apart over the issue of slavery. In 1854, angry with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, anti-slavery Democrats left the party and joined Northern Whigs to form the Republican Party.4445 Martin van Buren also helped found the Free Soil Party to oppose the spread of slavery, running as its candidate in the 1848 presidential election, before returning to the Democratic Party and staying loyal to the Union.46
U.S. Civil War
The Democrats split over slavery, with Northern and Southern tickets in the election of 1860, in which the Republican Party gained ascendancy.47 The radical pro-slavery Fire-Eaters led walkouts at the two conventions when the delegates would not adopt a resolution supporting the extension of slavery into territories even if the voters of those territories did not want it. These Southern Democrats nominated the pro-slavery incumbent vice president, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, for president and General Joseph Lane, of Oregon, for vice president. The Northern Democrats nominated Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois for president and former Georgia Governor Herschel V. Johnson for vice president. This fracturing of the Democrats led to a Republican victory and Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States.48
As the American Civil War broke out, Northern Democrats were divided into War Democrats and Peace Democrats. The Confederate States of America deliberately avoided organized political parties. Most War Democrats rallied to Republican President Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans' National Union Party in the election of 1864, which featured Andrew Johnson on the Union ticket to attract fellow Democrats. Johnson replaced Lincoln in 1865, but he stayed independent of both parties.49
Reconstruction and Redemption
The Democrats benefited from white Southerners' resentment of Reconstruction after the war and consequent hostility to the Republican Party. After Redeemers ended Reconstruction in the 1870s and following the often extremely violent disenfranchisement of African Americans led by such white supremacist Democratic politicians as Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina in the 1880s and 1890s, the South, voting Democratic, became known as the "Solid South". Although Republicans won all but two presidential elections, the Democrats remained competitive. The party was dominated by pro-business Bourbon Democrats led by Samuel J. Tilden and Grover Cleveland, who represented mercantile, banking, and railroad interests; opposed imperialism and overseas expansion; fought for the gold standard; opposed bimetallism; and crusaded against corruption, high taxes and tariffs. Cleveland was elected to non-consecutive presidential terms in 1884 and 1892.50
20th century
Further information: Fourth Party System, Fifth Party System, and Sixth Party System
Progressive era
Agrarian Democrats demanding free silver, drawing on Populist ideas, overthrew the Bourbon Democrats in 1896 and nominated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency (a nomination repeated by Democrats in 1900 and 1908). Bryan waged a vigorous campaign attacking Eastern moneyed interests, but he lost to Republican William McKinley.51
The Democrats took control of the House in 1910, and Woodrow Wilson won election as president in 1912 (when the Republicans split) and 1916. Wilson effectively led Congress to put to rest the issues of tariffs, money, and antitrust, which had dominated politics for 40 years, with new progressive laws. He failed to secure Senate passage of the Versailles Treaty (ending the war with Germany and joining the League of Nations).52 The weakened party was deeply divided by issues such as the KKK and prohibition in the 1920s. However, it did organize new ethnic voters in Northern cities.53
After World War I ended and continuing through the Great Depression, the Democratic and Republican Parties both largely believed in American exceptionalism over European monarchies and state socialism that existed elsewhere in the world.54
1930s–1960s and the rise of the New Deal coalition
The Great Depression in 1929 that began under Republican President Herbert Hoover and the Republican Congress set the stage for a more liberal government as the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives nearly uninterrupted from 1930 until 1994, the Senate for 44 of 48 years from 1930, and won most presidential elections until 1968. Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected to the presidency in 1932, came forth with federal government programs called the New Deal. New Deal liberalism meant the regulation of business (especially finance and banking) and the promotion of labor unions as well as federal spending to aid the unemployed, help distressed farmers and undertake large-scale public works projects. It marked the start of the American welfare state.55 The opponents, who stressed opposition to unions, support for business and low taxes, started calling themselves "conservatives".56
Until the 1980s, the Democratic Party was a coalition of two parties divided by the Mason–Dixon line: liberal Democrats in the North and culturally conservative voters in the South, who though benefitting from many of the New Deal public works projects, opposed increasing civil rights initiatives advocated by northeastern liberals. The polarization grew stronger after Roosevelt died. Southern Democrats formed a key part of the bipartisan conservative coalition in an alliance with most of the Midwestern Republicans. The economically activist philosophy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which has strongly influenced American liberalism, shaped much of the party's economic agenda after 1932.57 From the 1930s to the mid-1960s, the liberal New Deal coalition usually controlled the presidency while the conservative coalition usually controlled Congress.58
1960s–1980s and the collapse of the New Deal coalition
See also: Civil Rights Movement
Issues facing parties and the United States after World War II included the Cold War and the civil rights movement. Republicans attracted conservatives and, after the 1960s, white Southerners from the Democratic coalition with their use of the Southern strategy and resistance to New Deal and Great Society liberalism. Until the 1950s, African Americans had traditionally supported the Republican Party because of its anti-slavery civil rights policies. Following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Southern states became more reliably Republican in presidential politics, while Northeastern states became more reliably Democratic.59606162 Studies show that Southern whites, which were a core constituency in the Democratic Party, shifted to the Republican Party due to racial backlash and social conservatism.636465
The election of President John F. Kennedy from Massachusetts in 1960 partially reflected this shift. In the campaign, Kennedy attracted a new generation of younger voters. In his agenda dubbed the New Frontier, Kennedy introduced a host of social programs and public works projects, along with enhanced support of the space program, proposing a crewed spacecraft trip to the moon by the end of the decade. He pushed for civil rights initiatives and proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but with his assassination in November 1963, he was not able to see its passage.66
Kennedy's successor Lyndon B. Johnson was able to persuade the largely conservative Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and with a more progressive Congress in 1965 passed much of the Great Society, including Medicare and Medicaid, which consisted of an array of social programs designed to help the poor, sick, and elderly. Kennedy and Johnson's advocacy of civil rights further solidified black support for the Democrats but had the effect of alienating Southern whites who would eventually gravitate toward the Republican Party, particularly after the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980. Many conservative Southern Democrats defected to the Republican Party, beginning with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the general leftward shift of the party.67686970
The United States' involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s was another divisive issue that further fractured the fault lines of the Democrats' coalition. After the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, President Johnson committed a large contingency of combat troops to Vietnam, but the escalation failed to drive the Viet Cong from South Vietnam, resulting in an increasing quagmire, which by 1968 had become the subject of widespread anti-war protests in the United States and elsewhere. With increasing casualties and nightly news reports bringing home troubling images from Vietnam, the costly military engagement became increasingly unpopular, alienating many of the kinds of young voters that the Democrats had attracted in the early 1960s. The protests that year along with assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Democratic presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy (younger brother of John F. Kennedy) climaxed in turbulence at the hotly-contested Democratic National Convention that summer in Chicago (which amongst the ensuing turmoil inside and outside of the convention hall nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey) in a series of events that proved to mark a significant turning point in the decline of the Democratic Party's broad coalition.71
Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon was able to capitalize on the confusion of the Democrats that year, and won the 1968 election to become the 37th president. He won re-election in a landslide in 1972 against Democratic nominee George McGovern, who like Robert F. Kennedy, reached out to the younger anti-war and counterculture voters, but unlike Kennedy, was not able to appeal to the party's more traditional white working-class constituencies. During Nixon's second term, his presidency was rocked by the Watergate scandal, which forced him to resign in 1974. He was succeeded by vice president Gerald Ford, who served a brief tenure.
Watergate offered the Democrats an opportunity to recoup, and their nominee Jimmy Carter won the 1976 presidential election. With the initial support of evangelical Christian voters in the South, Carter was temporarily able to reunite the disparate factions within the party, but inflation and the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979–1980 took their toll, resulting in a landslide victory for Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan in 1980, which shifted the political landscape in favor of the Republicans for years to come. The influx of conservative Democrats into the Republican Party is often cited as a reason for the Republican Party's shift further to the right during the late 20th century as well as the shift of its base from the Northeast and Midwest to the South.7273
1990s and Third Way centrism
With the ascendancy of the Republicans under Ronald Reagan, the Democrats searched for ways to respond yet were unable to succeed by running traditional candidates, such as former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who lost to Reagan and George H.W. Bush in the 1984 and 1988 presidential elections, respectively. Many Democrats attached their hopes to the future star of Gary Hart, who had challenged Mondale in the 1984 primaries running on a theme of "New Ideas"; and in the subsequent 1988 primaries became the de facto front-runner and virtual "shoo-in" for the Democratic presidential nomination before a sex scandal ended his campaign. The party nevertheless began to seek out a younger generation of leaders, who like Hart had been inspired by the pragmatic idealism of John F. Kennedy.74
Arkansas governor Bill Clinton was one such figure, who was elected president in 1992 as the Democratic nominee. The Democratic Leadership Council was a campaign organization connected to Clinton that advocated a realignment and triangulation under the re-branded "New Democrat" label.757677 The party adopted a synthesis of neoliberal economic policies with cultural liberalism, with the voter base after Reagan having shifted considerably to the right.78 In an effort to appeal both to liberals and to fiscal conservatives, Democrats began to advocate for a balanced budget and market economy tempered by government intervention (mixed economy), along with a continued emphasis on social justice and affirmative action. The economic policy adopted by the Democratic Party, including the former Clinton administration, has been referred to as "Third Way".
The Democrats lost control of Congress in the 1994 elections to the Republicans, however, in 1996 Clinton was re-elected, becoming the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term.79 Clinton's vice president Al Gore ran to succeed him as president, and won the popular vote, but after a controversial election dispute over a Florida recount settled by the U.S. Supreme Court (which ruled 5–4 in favor of Bush), he lost the 2000 election to Republican opponent George W. Bush in the Electoral College.80
21st century
In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as well as the growing concern over global warming, some of the party's key issues in the early 21st century have included combating terrorism while preserving human rights, expanding access to health care, labor rights, and environmental protection. Democrats regained majority control of both the House and the Senate in the 2006 elections. Barack Obama won the Democratic Party's nomination and was elected as the first African American president in 2008. Under the Obama presidency, the party moved forward reforms including an economic stimulus package, the Dodd–Frank financial reform act, and the Affordable Care Act.8182
2010s and the Obama era
In the 2010 midterm elections, the Democratic Party lost control of the House as well as its majorities in several state legislatures and governorships. The 2010 elections also marked the end of the Democratic Party's electoral dominance in the Southern United States.83
In the 2012 elections, President Obama was re-elected, but the party remained in the minority in the House of Representatives and lost control of the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections. After the 2016 election of Donald Trump, who lost the popular vote to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party transitioned into the role of an opposition party and held neither the presidency nor Congress for two years.84 However, the party won back the House in the 2018 midterm elections under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi.
Democrats were extremely critical of President Trump, particularly his policies on immigration, healthcare, and abortion, as well as his response to the COVID-19 pandemic.858687 In December 2019, Democrats in the House of Representatives impeached Trump, although he was acquitted in the Republican-controlled Senate.88
2020s
In November 2020, Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump to win the 2020 presidential election.89 After Trump attempted to challenge the election, he began his term with extremely narrow Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate.9091 During the Biden presidency, the party had been characterized as adopting an increasingly progressive economic agenda.92 In 2022, Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. However, she was replacing liberal justice Stephen Breyer, thus she did not alter the court's 6–3 split between conservatives (the majority) and liberals.93949596 After Dobbs v. Jackson (decided June 24, 2022), which led to abortion bans in much of the country, the Democratic Party rallied behind abortion rights.97
In the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats dramatically outperformed historical trends and a widely anticipated red wave did not materialize.9899 The party only narrowly lost its majority in the U.S. House and expanded its majority in the U.S. Senate,100101102 along with several gains at the state level.103104105106
In July 2024, after a series of age and health concerns, Biden became the first incumbent president since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 to withdraw from running for reelection, the first since the 19th century to withdraw after serving only one term,107 and the only one to ever withdraw after already winning the primaries.108109
Vice President Kamala Harris—who became Biden's replacement on the ballot after his withdrawal from the race—became the first black woman to be nominated by a major party, but she was defeated in the 2024 election by Donald Trump. Harris lost the electoral college 312–226 (including all seven of the anticipated swing states) as well as the popular vote, becoming the first Democratic candidate to do so since John Kerry in 2004, amid what was a global anti-incumbent backlash.110111112113
Current status
As of 2025, Democrats hold 23 state governorships, 17 state legislatures, 15 state government trifectas, and the mayorships in the majority of the country's major cities.114 Three of the nine current U.S. Supreme Court justices were appointed by Democratic presidents. By registered members, the Democratic Party is the largest party in the U.S. and the fourth largest in the world. All totaled, 16 Democrats have served as president of the United States.115
Name and symbols
The Democratic-Republican Party splintered in 1824 into the short-lived National Republican Party and the Jacksonian movement which in 1828 became the Democratic Party. Under the Jacksonian era, the term "The Democracy" was in use by the party, but the name "Democratic Party" was eventually settled upon116 and became the official name in 1844.117 Members of the party are called "Democrats" or "Dems".
The most common mascot symbol for the party has been the donkey, or jackass.118 Andrew Jackson's enemies twisted his name to "jackass" as a term of ridicule regarding a stupid and stubborn animal. However, the Democrats liked the common-man implications and picked it up too, therefore the image persisted and evolved.119 Its most lasting impression came from the cartoons of Thomas Nast from 1870 in Harper's Weekly. Cartoonists followed Nast and used the donkey to represent the Democrats and the elephant to represent the Republicans.
In the early 20th century, the traditional symbol of the Democratic Party in Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Ohio was the rooster, as opposed to the Republican eagle.120 The rooster was also adopted as an official symbol of the national Democratic Party.121 In 1904, the Alabama Democratic Party chose, as the logo to put on its ballots, a rooster with the motto "White supremacy – For the right."122 The words "White supremacy" were replaced with "Democrats" in 1966.123124 In 1996, the Alabama Democratic Party dropped the rooster, citing racist and white supremacist connotations linked with the symbol.125 The rooster symbol still appears on Oklahoma, Kentucky, Indiana, and West Virginia ballots.126 In New York, the Democratic ballot symbol is a five-pointed star.127
Although both major political parties (and many minor ones) use the traditional American colors of red, white, and blue in their marketing and representations, since election night 2000 blue has become the identifying color for the Democratic Party while red has become the identifying color for the Republican Party. That night, for the first time all major broadcast television networks used the same color scheme for the electoral map: blue states for Al Gore (Democratic nominee) and red states for George W. Bush (Republican nominee). Since then, the color blue has been widely used by the media to represent the party. This is contrary to common practice outside of the United States where blue is the traditional color of the right and red the color of the left.128
In 2025, a new logo was introduced, which incorporates a white donkey facing to the right instead of the left, with three blue stars in the center instead of four, on a blue background. The modified donkey design has been characterized by some as resembling a piñata.129
Jefferson-Jackson Day is the annual fundraising event (dinner) held by Democratic Party organizations across the United States.130 It is named after Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, whom the party regards as its distinguished early leaders.
The song "Happy Days Are Here Again" is the unofficial song of the Democratic Party. It was used prominently when Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated for president at the 1932 Democratic National Convention and remains a sentimental favorite for Democrats. For example, Paul Shaffer played the theme on the Late Show with David Letterman after the Democrats won Congress in 2006. "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac was adopted by Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 and has endured as a popular Democratic song. The emotionally similar song "Beautiful Day" by the band U2 has also become a favorite theme song for Democratic candidates. John Kerry used the song during his 2004 presidential campaign and several Democratic congressional candidates used it as a celebratory tune in 2006.131132
As a traditional anthem for its presidential nominating convention, Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" is traditionally performed at the beginning of the Democratic National Convention.
Structure
National committee
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is responsible for promoting Democratic campaign activities. While the DNC is responsible for overseeing the process of writing the Democratic Platform, the DNC is more focused on campaign and organizational strategy than public policy. In presidential elections, it supervises the Democratic National Convention. The national convention is subject to the charter of the party and the ultimate authority within the Democratic Party when it is in session, with the DNC running the party's organization at other times. Since 2021, the DNC has been chaired by Jaime Harrison.133
State parties
Main article: List of state parties of the Democratic Party (United States)
Each state also has a state committee, made up of elected committee members as well as ex officio committee members (usually elected officials and representatives of major constituencies), which in turn elects a chair. County, town, city, and ward committees generally are composed of individuals elected at the local level. State and local committees often coordinate campaign activities within their jurisdiction, oversee local conventions, and in some cases primaries or caucuses, and may have a role in nominating candidates for elected office under state law. Rarely do they have much direct funding, but in 2005 DNC Chairman Dean began a program (called the "50 State Strategy") of using DNC national funds to assist all state parties and pay for full-time professional staffers.134
In addition, state-level party committees operate in the territories of American Samoa, Guam, and Virgin Islands, the commonwealths of Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, with all but Puerto Rico being active in nominating candidates for both presidential and territorial contests, while Puerto Rico's Democratic Party is organized only to nominate presidential candidates. The Democrats Abroad committee is organized by American voters who reside outside of U.S. territory to nominate presidential candidates. All such party committees are accorded recognition as state parties and are allowed to elect both members to the National Committee as well as delegates to the National Convention.
Major party committees and groups
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) assists party candidates in House races and is chaired by Representative Suzan DelBene of Washington. Similarly, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), chaired by Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, raises funds for Senate races. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), chaired by Majority Leader of the New York State Senate Andrea Stewart-Cousins, is a smaller organization that focuses on state legislative races. The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) is an organization supporting the candidacies of Democratic gubernatorial nominees and incumbents. Likewise, the mayors of the largest cities and urban centers convene as the National Conference of Democratic Mayors.135
The DNC sponsors the College Democrats of America (CDA), a student-outreach organization with the goal of training and engaging a new generation of Democratic activists. Democrats Abroad is the organization for Americans living outside the United States. They work to advance the party's goals and encourage Americans living abroad to support the Democrats. The Young Democrats of America (YDA) and the High School Democrats of America (HSDA) are young adult and youth-led organizations respectively that attempt to draw in and mobilize young people for Democratic candidates but operates outside of the DNC.
Political positions
Main article: Political positions of the Democratic Party (United States)
The 21st century Democratic Party differs from other center-left parties around the world in its ideological orientation, in part due to its heterogenous demographic composition. In particular, the Democratic Party's ideology derives from being supported by both racial minorities, particularly African Americans, as well as White voters with high educational attainment.136137
This makes the Democratic Party different, because it is a big tent party, neither a classically liberal nor a social democratic party ideologically. Its voting demographics are heavily educationally and racially-polarized, but not income polarized.138 The Democratic Party is weakest among White voters without college degrees in the 21st century.139 Higher educational attainment is strongly correlated with higher income and wealth, and also strongly correlated with increased ideological support for the Democratic Party's positions among White voters.140
This derives in part from unique regional characteristics of the United States, particularly the Southern United States. Racial polarization is extremely high in the Southern United States, with Black Southerners almost entirely voting for the Democratic Party, and White Southerners almost entirely voting for the Republican Party.141142 Also, White Southerners with college degrees are strongly Republican, unlike in most of the rest of the country.143 African Americans continue to have the lowest incomes of any racial group in the United States.144
The Democratic Party's contemporary liberalism has its origins in the Puritans of New England, with their emphasis on education and science dating back to the colonial era and the Scientific Revolution. This liberalism is older than the classical liberalism or social democracy of the 19th century.145
The Democratic party's social positions derive from those of the New Left, that is cultural liberalism. These include feminism, LGBT rights, drug policy reforms, and environmentalism.146147148149 The party's platform favors a generous welfare state and a greater measure of social and economic equality.150 On social issues, it advocates for the continued legality of abortion,151 the legalization of marijuana,152 and LGBT rights.153
Economic issues
The social safety net and strong labor unions have been at the heart of Democratic economic policy since the New Deal in the 1930s.154 The Democratic Party's economic policy positions, as measured by votes in Congress, tend to align with those of the middle class.155156157158159 Democrats support a progressive tax system, higher minimum wages, equal opportunity employment, Social Security, universal health care, public education, and subsidized housing.160 They also support infrastructure development and clean energy investments to achieve economic development and job creation.161
Since the 1990s, the party has at times supported centrist economic reforms that cut the size of government and reduced market regulations.162 The party has generally rejected both laissez-faire economics and market socialism, instead favoring Keynesian economics within a capitalist market-based system.163
Fiscal policy
Democrats support a more progressive tax structure to provide more services and reduce economic inequality by making sure that the wealthiest Americans pay more in taxes.164 Democrats and Republicans traditionally take differing stances on eradicating poverty. Brady said "Our poverty level is the direct consequence of our weak social policies, which are a direct consequence of weak political actors".165 They oppose the cutting of social services, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,166 believing it to be harmful to efficiency and social justice. Democrats believe the benefits of social services in monetary and non-monetary terms are a more productive labor force and cultured population and believe that the benefits of this are greater than any benefits that could be derived from lower taxes, especially on top earners, or cuts to social services. Furthermore, Democrats see social services as essential toward providing positive freedom, freedom derived from economic opportunity. The Democratic-led House of Representatives reinstated the PAYGO (pay-as-you-go) budget rule at the start of the 110th Congress.167
Minimum wage
See also: Minimum wage in the United States
The Democratic Party favors raising the minimum wage. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 was an early component of the Democrats' agenda during the 110th Congress. In 2006, the Democrats supported six state-ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage and all six initiatives passed.168
In 2017, Senate Democrats introduced the Raise the Wage Act which would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024.169 In 2021, Democratic president Joe Biden proposed increasing the minimum wage to $15 by 2025.170 In many states controlled by Democrats, the state minimum wage has been increased to a rate above the federal minimum wage.171
Health care
Democrats call for "affordable and quality health care" and favor moving toward universal health care in a variety of forms to address rising healthcare costs. Progressive Democrats politicians favor a single-payer program or Medicare for All, while liberals prefer creating a public health insurance option.172
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, has been one of the most significant pushes for universal health care. As of December 2019, more than 20 million Americans have gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.173
Education
Democrats favor improving public education by raising school standards and reforming the Head Start program. They also support universal preschool, expanding access to primary education, including through charter schools, and are generally opposed to school voucher programs. They call for addressing student loan debt and reforms to reduce college tuition.174 Other proposals have included tuition-free public universities and reform of standardized testing. Democrats have the long-term aim of having publicly funded college education with low tuition fees (like in much of Europe and Canada), which would be available to every eligible American student. Alternatively, they encourage expanding access to post-secondary education by increasing state funding for student financial aid such as Pell Grants and college tuition tax deductions.175
Environment
Main article: Environmental policy of the United States
Democrats believe that the government should protect the environment and have a history of environmentalism. In more recent years, this stance has emphasized renewable energy generation as the basis for an improved economy, greater national security, and general environmental benefits.176 The Democratic Party is substantially more likely than the Republican Party to support environmental regulation and policies that are supportive of renewable energy.177178
The Democratic Party also favors expansion of conservation lands and encourages open space and rail travel to relieve highway and airport congestion and improve air quality and the economy as it "believe[s] that communities, environmental interests, and the government should work together to protect resources while ensuring the vitality of local economies. Once Americans were led to believe they had to make a choice between the economy and the environment. They now know this is a false choice".179
The foremost environmental concern of the Democratic Party is climate change. Democrats, most notably former Vice President Al Gore, have pressed for stern regulation of greenhouse gases. On October 15, 2007, Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to build greater knowledge about man-made climate change and laying the foundations for the measures needed to counteract it.180
Renewable energy and fossil fuels
Democrats have supported increased domestic renewable energy development, including wind and solar power farms, in an effort to reduce carbon pollution. The party's platform calls for an "all of the above" energy policy including clean energy, natural gas and domestic oil, with the desire of becoming energy independent.181 The party has supported higher taxes on oil companies and increased regulations on coal power plants, favoring a policy of reducing long-term reliance on fossil fuels.182183 Additionally, the party supports stricter fuel emissions standards to prevent air pollution.
During his presidency, Joe Biden enacted the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which is the largest allocation of funds for addressing climate change in the history of the United States.184185186
Trade
Like the Republican Party, the Democratic Party has taken widely varying views on international trade throughout its history. The Democratic Party has usually been more supportive of free trade than the Republican Party.
The Democrats dominated the Second Party System and set low tariffs designed to pay for the government but not protect industry. Their opponents the Whigs wanted high protective tariffs but usually were outvoted in Congress. Tariffs soon became a major political issue as the Whigs (1832–1852) and (after 1854) the Republicans wanted to protect their mostly northern industries and constituents by voting for higher tariffs and the Southern Democrats, which had very little industry but imported many goods voted for lower tariffs. After the Second Party System ended in 1854 the Democrats lost control and the new Republican Party had its opportunity to raise rates.187
During the Third Party System, Democratic president Grover Cleveland made low tariffs the centerpiece of Democratic Party policies, arguing that high tariffs were an unnecessary and unfair tax on consumers. The South and West generally supported low tariffs, while the industrial North high tariffs.188 During the Fourth Party System, Democratic president Woodrow Wilson made a drastic lowering of tariff rates a major priority for his presidency. The 1913 Underwood Tariff cut rates, and the new revenues generated by the federal income tax made tariffs much less important in terms of economic impact and political rhetoric.189
During the Fifth Party System, the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934 was enacted during FDR's administration, marking a sharp departure from the era of protectionism in the United States. American duties on foreign products declined from an average of 46% in 1934 to 12% by 1962.190 After World War II, the U.S. promoted the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established in 1947 during the Truman administration, to minimize tariffs liberalize trade among all capitalist countries.191192
In the 1990s, the Clinton administration and a number of prominent Democrats pushed through a number of agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).193 Barack Obama signed several free trade agreements during his presidency while Joe Biden did not sign any free trade agreements during his presidency and increased some tariffs on China.194195
During Republican Donald Trump's two terms as president, the Democratic Party has been more in favor of free trade than the Republican Party. The Democratic Party remains supportive of the USMCA free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada.196197
Social issues
The modern Democratic Party emphasizes social equality and equal opportunity. Democrats support voting rights and minority rights, including LGBT rights. Democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed racial segregation. Carmines and Stimson wrote "the Democratic Party appropriated racial liberalism and assumed federal responsibility for ending racial discrimination."198199200
Ideological social elements in the party include cultural liberalism, civil libertarianism, and feminism. Some Democratic social policies are immigration reform, electoral reform, and women's reproductive rights.
Equal opportunity
The Democratic Party is a staunch supporter of equal opportunity for all Americans regardless of sex, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, or national origin. The Democratic Party has broad appeal across most socioeconomic and ethnic demographics, as seen in recent exit polls.201 Democrats also strongly support the Americans with Disabilities Act to prohibit discrimination against people based on physical or mental disability. As such, the Democrats pushed as well the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, a disability rights expansion that became law.202
Most Democrats support affirmative action to further equal opportunity. However, in 2020 57% voters in California voted to keep their state constitution's ban on affirmative action, despite Biden winning 63% of the vote in California in the same election.203
Voting rights
The party is very supportive of improving "voting rights" as well as election accuracy and accessibility.204 They support extensions of voting time, including making election day a holiday. They support reforming the electoral system to eliminate gerrymandering, abolishing the electoral college, as well as passing comprehensive campaign finance reform.205
Abortion and reproductive rights
See also: Abortion in the United States
The Democratic position on abortion has changed significantly over time.206207 During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Republicans generally favored legalized abortion more than Democrats,208 although significant heterogeneity could be found within both parties.209 During this time, opposition to abortion tended to be concentrated within the political left in the United States. Liberal Protestants and Catholics (many of whom were Democratic voters) opposed abortion, while most conservative Protestants supported legal access to abortion services.210
In its national platforms from 1992 to 2004, the Democratic Party has called for abortion to be "safe, legal and rare"—namely, keeping it legal by rejecting laws that allow governmental interference in abortion decisions and reducing the number of abortions by promoting both knowledge of reproduction and contraception and incentives for adoption. When Congress voted on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003, congressional Democrats were split, with a minority (including former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) supporting the ban and the majority of Democrats opposing the legislation.211
According to the 2020 Democratic Party platform, "Democrats believe every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion."212
After Roe v. Wade (1973) was overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), Democratic-controlled states and ballot initiatives were able to ensure access to abortion. The number of abortions in the United States increased after Dobbs, due to the right to travel between states.213214
Immigration
See also: Immigration to the United States and Illegal immigration to the United States
Like the Republican Party, the Democratic Party has taken widely varying views on immigration throughout its history. Since the 1990s, the Democratic Party has been more supportive overall of immigration than the Republican Party.215 Many Democratic politicians have called for systematic reform of the immigration system such that residents that have come into the United States illegally have a pathway to legal citizenship. President Obama remarked in November 2013 that he felt it was "long past time to fix our broken immigration system," particularly to allow "incredibly bright young people" that came over as students to become full citizens.216 In 2013, Democrats in the Senate passed S. 744, which would reform immigration policy to allow citizenship for illegal immigrants in the United States. The law failed to pass in the House and was never re-introduced after the 113th Congress.217
Opposition to immigration has increased in the 2020s, with a majority of Democrats supporting increasing border security.218219 In the 2024 presidential election, Trump increased his vote share in counties along the Mexico–United States border, including in majority-Hispanic counties.220221
LGBT rights
See also: LGBT rights in the United States
The Democratic position on LGBT rights has changed significantly over time.222223 Before the 2000s, like the Republicans, the Democratic Party often took positions hostile to LGBT rights. As of the 2020s, both voters and elected representatives within the Democratic Party are overwhelmingly supportive of LGBT rights.224
Support for same-sex marriage has steadily increased among the general public, including voters in both major parties, since the start of the 21st century. An April 2009 ABC News/Washington Post public opinion poll put support among Democrats at 62%.225 A 2006 Pew Research Center poll of Democrats found that 55% supported gays adopting children with 40% opposed while 70% support gays in the military, with only 23% opposed.226 Gallup polling from May 2009 stated that 82% of Democrats support open enlistment.227 A 2023 Gallup public opinion poll found 84% of Democrats support same-sex marriage, compared to 71% support by the general public and 49% support by Republicans.228
The 2004 Democratic National Platform stated that marriage should be defined at the state level and it repudiated the Federal Marriage Amendment.229 John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, did not support same-sex marriage in his campaign. While not stating support of same-sex marriage, the 2008 platform called for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage and removed the need for interstate recognition, supported antidiscrimination laws and the extension of hate crime laws to LGBT people and opposed "don't ask, don't tell".230231 The 2012 platform included support for same-sex marriage and for the repeal of DOMA.232
On May 9, 2012, Barack Obama became the first sitting president to say he supports same-sex marriage.233234 Previously, he had opposed restrictions on same-sex marriage such as the Defense of Marriage Act, which he promised to repeal,235 California's Prop 8,236 and a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage (which he opposed saying that "decisions about marriage should be left to the states as they always have been"),237 but also stated that he personally believed marriage to be between a man and a woman and that he favored civil unions that would "give same-sex couples equal legal rights and privileges as married couples".238 Earlier, when running for the Illinois Senate in 1996 he said, "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages".239 Former presidents Bill Clinton240 and Jimmy Carter241 along with former Democratic presidential nominees Al Gore242 and Michael Dukakis243 support same-sex marriage. President Joe Biden has supported same-sex marriage since 2012, when he became the highest-ranking government official to support it. In 2022, Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act; the law repealed the Defense of Marriage Act, which Biden had voted for during his Senate tenure.244
Status of Puerto Rico and D.C.
The 2016 Democratic Party platform declares, regarding the status of Puerto Rico: "We are committed to addressing the extraordinary challenges faced by our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico. Many stem from the fundamental question of Puerto Rico's political status. Democrats believe that the people of Puerto Rico should determine their ultimate political status from permanent options that do not conflict with the Constitution, laws, and policies of the United States. Democrats are committed to promoting economic opportunity and good-paying jobs for the hardworking people of Puerto Rico. We also believe that Puerto Ricans must be treated equally by Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs that benefit families. Puerto Ricans should be able to vote for the people who make their laws, just as they should be treated equally. All American citizens, no matter where they reside, should have the right to vote for the president of the United States. Finally, we believe that federal officials must respect Puerto Rico's local self-government as laws are implemented and Puerto Rico's budget and debt are restructured so that it can get on a path towards stability and prosperity".245
Also, it declares that regarding the status of the District of Columbia: "Restoring our democracy also means finally passing statehood for the District of Columbia, so that the American citizens who reside in the nation's capital have full and equal congressional rights as well as the right to have the laws and budget of their local government respected without Congressional interference."246
Legal issues
Gun control
With a stated goal of reducing crime and homicide, the Democratic Party has introduced various gun control measures, most notably the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Brady Bill of 1993 and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994). In its national platform for 2008, the only statement explicitly favoring gun control was a plan calling for renewal of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.247 In 2022, Democratic president Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which among other things expanded background checks and provided incentives for states to pass red flag laws.248
The Democratic Party does not oppose gun ownership.249 According to a 2023 Pew Research Center poll, 20% of Democrats owned firearms, compared to 32% of the general public and 45% of Republicans.250
Death penalty
See also: Capital punishment in the United States
The Democratic Party's 2020 platform states its opposition to the death penalty.251 Although most Democrats in Congress have never seriously moved to overturn the rarely used federal death penalty, both Russ Feingold and Dennis Kucinich have introduced such bills with little success. Democrats have led efforts to overturn state death penalty laws, and prevent the reinstatement of the death penalty in those states which prohibit it, including Massachusetts, New York, and Delaware. During the Clinton administration, Democrats led the expansion of the federal death penalty. These efforts resulted in the passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, signed into law by President Clinton, which heavily limited appeals in death penalty cases. In 1972, the Democratic Party platform called for the abolition of capital punishment.252
During his Illinois Senate career, former President Barack Obama successfully introduced legislation intended to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions in capital cases, requiring videotaping of confessions. When campaigning for the presidency, Obama stated that he supports the limited use of the death penalty, including for people who have been convicted of raping a minor under the age of 12, having opposed the Supreme Court's ruling in Kennedy v. Louisiana that the death penalty was unconstitutional in which the victim of a crime was not killed.253 Obama has stated that he thinks the "death penalty does little to deter crime" and that it is used too frequently and too inconsistently.254 In June 2016, the Democratic Platform Drafting Committee unanimously adopted an amendment to abolish the death penalty.255
The 2024 platform is the first since the 2004 platform, that doesn't mention the death penalty, and the first since 2016 not to call for abolition.256 However, on December 23, 2024, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates to life in prison without parole.257
Torture
Many Democrats are opposed to the use of torture against individuals apprehended and held prisoner by the United States military, and hold that categorizing such prisoners as unlawful combatants does not release the United States from its obligations under the Geneva Conventions. Democrats contend that torture is inhumane, damages the United States' moral standing in the world, and produces questionable results. Democrats are largely against waterboarding.258
Torture became a divisive issue in the party after Barack Obama was elected president.259
Privacy
The Democratic Party believes that individuals should have a right to privacy. For example, many Democrats have opposed the NSA warrantless surveillance of American citizens.260261
Some Democratic officeholders have championed consumer protection laws that limit the sharing of consumer data between corporations. Democrats have opposed sodomy laws since the 1972 platform which stated that "Americans should be free to make their own choice of life-styles and private habits without being subject to discrimination or prosecution",262 and believe that government should not regulate consensual noncommercial sexual conduct among adults as a matter of personal privacy.263
Foreign policy issues
The foreign policy of the voters of the two major parties has largely overlapped since the 1990s. A Gallup poll in early 2013 showed broad agreement on the top issues, albeit with some divergence regarding human rights and international cooperation through agencies such as the United Nations.264
In June 2014, the Quinnipiac Poll asked Americans which foreign policy they preferred:
A) The United States is doing too much in other countries around the world, and it is time to do less around the world and focus more on our own problems here at home. B) The United States must continue to push forward to promote democracy and freedom in other countries worldwide because these efforts make our own country more secure.
Democrats chose A over B by 65% to 32%; Republicans chose A over B by 56% to 39%; and independents chose A over B by 67% to 29%.265
Iran sanctions
See also: United States sanctions against Iran
The Democratic Party has been critical of Iran's nuclear weapon program and supported economic sanctions against the Iranian government. In 2013, the Democratic-led administration worked to reach a diplomatic agreement with the government of Iran to halt the Iranian nuclear weapon program in exchange for international economic sanction relief.266 As of 2014, negotiations had been successful and the party called for more cooperation with Iran in the future.267 In 2015, the Obama administration agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which provides sanction relief in exchange for international oversight of the Iranian nuclear program. In February 2019, the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution calling on the United States to re-enter the JCPOA, which President Trump withdrew from in 2018.268
Invasion of Afghanistan
See also: Afghanistan–United States relations and International public opinion on the war in Afghanistan
Democrats in the House of Representatives and in the Senate near-unanimously voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists against "those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States" in Afghanistan in 2001, supporting the NATO coalition invasion of the nation. Most elected Democrats continued to support the Afghanistan conflict during George W. Bush's presidency.269270 During the 2008 Presidential Election, then-candidate Barack Obama called for a "surge" of troops into Afghanistan.271 After winning the presidency, Obama followed through, sending additional troops to Afghanistan. Troop levels were 94,000 in December 2011 and kept falling, with a target of 68,000 by fall 2012.272
Support for the war among the American people diminished over time. Many Democrats changed their opinion over the course of the war, coming to oppose continuation of the conflict.273274 In July 2008, Gallup found that 41% of Democrats called the invasion a "mistake" while a 55% majority disagreed.275 A CNN survey in August 2009 stated that a majority of Democrats opposed the war. CNN polling director Keating Holland said: "Nearly two thirds of Republicans support the war in Afghanistan. Three quarters of Democrats oppose the war".276
During the 2020 Presidential Election, then-candidate Joe Biden promised to "end the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East."277 Biden went on to win the election, and in April 2021, he announced he would withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by September 11 of that year.278 The last troops left in August, bringing America's 20-year-long military campaign in the country to a close.279 According to a 2023 AP-NORC poll, a majority of Democrats believed that the War in Afghanistan was not worth it.280
Israel
See also: Israel–United States relations
Democrats have historically been a stronger supporter of Israel than Republicans.281 During the 1940s, the party advocated for the cause of an independent Jewish state over the objections of many conservatives in the Old Right, who strongly opposed it.282 In 1948, Democratic President Harry Truman became the first world leader to recognize an independent state of Israel.283
The 2020 Democratic Party platform acknowledges a "commitment to Israel's security, its qualitative military edge, its right to defend itself, and the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding is ironclad" and that "we oppose any effort to unfairly single out and delegitimize Israel, including at the United Nations or through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement".284 During the Gaza war, the party requested a large-scale military aid package to Israel.285 Biden also announced military support for Israel, condemned the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants as terrorism,286 and ordered the US military to build a port to facilitate the arrival of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.287 However, parts of the Democratic base also became more skeptical of the Israel government.288 The number of Democrats (and Americans in general) who oppose sending arms to Israel has grown month by month as Israel's war on Gaza continues.289 Experts say support for Israel could have a negative impact on Democrats in several key states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, in the 2024 presidential election.290
Late in 2024, twenty Democrats requested support for US legislation that would ban the arms trade with countries that hinder humanitarian aid.291 According to Pew research conducted in March 2025, 69% of Democrats now have an unfavorable view of Israel, compared to 53% in 2022, before the Gaza war.292
Europe, Russia, and Ukraine
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine was politically and economically opposed by the Biden Administration, who promptly began an increased arming of Ukraine.293294 In October 2023, the Biden administration requested an additional $61.4 billion in aid for Ukraine for the year ahead,295 but delays in the passage of further aid by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives inhibited progress, with the additional $61 billion in aid to Ukraine added in April 2024.296297298
Demographics
Main article: Demographics of the Democratic Party (United States)
In the 2024 presidential election, the party performed best among voters who were upper income,299300301 lived in urban areas,302303 college graduates,304305306307308 identified as Atheist, Agnostic, or Jewish; African Americans,309310 LGBT+, and unmarried.311312313 In particular, Kamala Harris' two strongest demographic groups in the 2024 presidential election were African Americans (86-13%) and LGBT voters (86-12%).314
Support for the civil rights movement in the 1960s by Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson helped increase the Democrats' support within the African American community. African Americans have consistently voted between 85% and 95% Democratic since the 1960s, making African Americans one of the largest of the party's constituencies.315316
According to the Pew Research Center, 78.4% of Democrats in the 116th United States Congress were Christian.317 However, the vast majority of white evangelical and Latter-day Saint Christians favor the Republican Party.318 The party also receives strong support from non-religious voters.319320
Age
Younger Americans have tended to vote mainly for Democratic candidates in recent years, particularly those under the age of 30.321
In the 2024 presidential election, Harris won voters aged 18–29 (54-43%) and 30–39 (51-45%), tied among those aged 40–49 (49-49%), lost those aged 50–64 (43–56%), and narrowly lost those aged 65 and older (49–50%). The median voter is in their 50s.322
One of the main reasons that 18–29 year old voters strongly support Democrats is that they are much less likely to be married. Harris tied with White voters aged 18–29 (49-49%) and won White women aged 18–29 (54-44%).323
Race
Referring to the state map of the White vote, Kamala Harris in 2024 won every state where Joe Biden won the White vote in 2020. Republican Donald Trump won every state where Joe Biden lost the White vote except for Virginia.324 Virginia is both 20% African American and its White voters are much less Republican than those of other Southern states, because Northern Virginia in the Washington metropolitan area is a Democratic stronghold.325
Referring to the county map of the White vote, Democrats do win White voters in most of New England and the West Coast. Democrats also do well in regions with high Nordic and Scandinavian ancestry. For example, this keeps White voters in Minnesota and Wisconsin much less Republican than in other Midwestern states.326327
Democrats are also relatively competitive among or win White voters in parts of the Northeast, Midwest, and Southwest. Democrats do particularly poorly among White Southerners, as racial polarization is extremely high in the Southern United States.328
In the 2024 presidential election, African Americans supported Kamala Harris 86-13%, while White Southerners supported Donald Trump 67-32%. Even in many urban counties in the Southern United States, Democrats do not win a majority of White voters. Trump won both White Southerners with college degrees (57-41%) and without college degrees (75-24%).329
- In the swing states of Georgia and North Carolina, which Harris lost by 2.2% and 3.2%, Whites supported Trump 71-28% and 62-37%. Trump won White voters with college degrees in Georgia 57-43%, and lost White voters with college degrees in North Carolina 47–51%.
- White evangelicals supported Trump in Georgia (91-9%) and North Carolina (87-12%), on par with African American support for Harris in Georgia (88-11%) and North Carolina (86-12%).330
New Mexico is half-Hispanic (49.3%), as the most heavily-Hispanic state in the country.331 Of the 19 states and the District of Columbia won by Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, all except New Mexico had above-average educational attainment.332 New Mexico also had the lowest population density and the highest poverty rate of any state carried by Harris.
Gender and sexual minorities
Since 1980, a "gender gap" has seen stronger support for the Democratic Party among women than among men. Unmarried and divorced women are more likely to vote for Democrats.333334 Although women supported Obama over Mitt Romney by a margin of 55–44% in 2012, Romney prevailed amongst married women, 53–46%.335 Obama won unmarried women 67–31%.336 According to a December 2019 study, "White women are the only group of female voters who support Republican Party candidates for president. They have done so by a majority in all but 2 of the last 18 elections".337338
In the 2024 presidential election, LGBT voters supported Harris 86-12%, on par with African Americans. Harris lost married men (38–60%) and married women (47–52%), tied among unmarried men (48-48%), and won unmarried women (61-38%).339
White women with college degrees do support Democrats somewhat strongly, with Harris winning them 58-41%, likely the best ever modern performance with this demographic. They were one of the few demographic groups that shifted towards Democrats from 2020 to 2024.340
Total fertility rate is strongly negatively correlated with support for the Democratic Party. Specifically, as total fertility increased in states, Democratic vote share decreased.341
Region
See also: Solid South
Geographically, the party is strongest in the Northeastern United States, parts of the Great Lakes region and Southwestern United States, and the West Coast. The party is also very strong in major cities, regardless of region.342
The Democratic Party gradually lost its power in the Southern United States since 1964. Although Richard Nixon carried 49 states in 1972, including every Southern state, the Republican Party remained quite weak at the local and state levels across the entire South for decades. Republicans first won a majority of U.S. House seats in the South in the 1994 "Republican Revolution", and only began to dominate the South after the 2010 elections.343 Since the 2010s, White Southerners are the Republican Party's strongest racial demographic, in some Deep South states voting nearly as Republican as African Americans vote Democratic.344 This is partially attributable to religiosity, with White evangelical Christians in the Bible Belt, which covers most of the South, being the Republican Party's strongest religious demographic.
The Democratic Party is particularly strong in the West Coast and Northeastern United States. In particular, the Democratic Party receives its strongest support from White voters in these two regions. This is attributable to the two regions having the highest educational attainment in the country and being part of the "Unchurched Belt," with the lowest rates of religiosity in the country.345
The Democratic Party's support in the Midwest and Southwest are more mixed, with varying levels of support from White voters in both regions. In the Midwest, the Democratic Party receives varying levels of support, with some states safely Democratic, some swing states, and some safely Republican. In the Southwest, the Democratic Party also relies on Hispanic voters.346
The Democratic Party is particularly weak in the Great Plains and some Mountain states. In particular, the states of Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska,347 Kansas, and Oklahoma have not voted for the Democratic Party since the 1964 presidential election. Montana has not voted for the Democratic Party since the 1992 presidential election.348
White voters have considerable regional variations. In 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris lost Southern White voters 32–67% and Midwestern White voters 40–59%. Harris tied among White voters in the Northeastern United States 49-49%, and won White voters in the Western United States 52-45%. Harris lost White voters in the country as a whole to Trump 42–57%.349
Population density
Main articles: Urban-rural political divide and List of states and territories of the United States by population density
The Democratic Party's support is strongly positively correlated with increased population density, consistent with the urban-rural divide observed globally.350351 Notably, in the 2024 presidential election, the swings against Kamala Harris were inversely correlated to population density, shrinking the urban-rural divide slightly.352 Harris still received higher support as population density increased. But relative to 2020, urban areas had the largest swings against Harris, suburban areas had lesser swings against Harris, and rural areas had the smallest swings against Harris.353
Specifically, Harris won voters in urban areas (60-38%), narrowly lost voters in suburban areas (47–51%), and lost voters in rural areas (34–64%). The urban-rural divide holds after controlling for race.354
- Harris won White voters in urban areas (53-45%), lost them in suburban areas (41–57%), and lost them in rural areas (31–68%).
- Harris won Hispanic voters in urban areas (57-39%) and suburban areas (51-48%), and lost them in rural areas (33–66%).
- Harris won African American voters in urban areas (89-10%), suburban areas (86-12%), and rural areas (71-27%).
The only state of the ten least densely populated that Harris won was New Mexico, which is half-Hispanic (49.3%).
In the Southern United States, racial polarization is often stronger than the urban-rural divide. In particular, Democrats lose White voters in many Southern urban areas, while doing extremely well in rural majority-Black counties.355
Income and wealth
Until the 2016 victory of Republican Donald Trump, lower income was strongly correlated to voting for the Democratic Party among the general electorate.356 However, in all three of Trump's elections in 2016, 2020, and 2024, the previous correlation between lower incomes and voting for the Democratic Party was eliminated.357 For White voters, instead higher educational attainment was strongly correlated with higher support for the Democratic Party.358
In the 2024 presidential election, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris did better among higher-income voters than lower-income voters for the first time ever in modern American political history.359360 High-income voters, including high-income White voters and White men with college degrees, are no longer Republican demographic strongholds and voted in line with the national popular vote in 2024.361 Harris only narrowly lost White voters making $100,000 to $199,999 (49–50%), over $200,000 (48–51%), and White men with college degrees (48–50%), all on par with Harris losing the popular vote 48–50%. White men with college degrees are the highest-income demographic group.362
Nate Silver argues that the urban-rural divide, educational polarization, and racial polarization have rendered income irrelevant to voters in the Trump era.363
African Americans continue to be the lowest-income demographic in the United States.364 According to 2024 exit polls, 45% of Black voters made less than $50,000 a year, compared to 27% of the electorate.365 Harris still won most of the lowest-income counties, which are mainly majority-Black counties in the Southern Black Belt.366
Higher educational attainment is strongly correlated to higher income and wealth, and the 2021-2023 inflation surge resulted in lower-income voters losing purchasing power while higher-income voters gained from asset prices increasing due to inflation, including stocks and real estate.367
- Among White voters in 2024, income was negatively correlated with support for Kamala Harris. Specifically, Harris lost White voters making less than $30,000 (34–63%), those making between $30,000 to $49,999 (37–62%), and those making $50,000 to $99,999 (42–56%). Harris only narrowly lost White voters making $100,000 to $199,999 (49–50%) and those making more than $200,000 (48–51%).368
- Among the electorate as a whole, Harris won those making less than $30,000 (50–46%), lost those making between $30,000 and $99,999 (46–52%), won those making between $100,000 and $199,999 (51–48%), and won those making over $200,000 (52–46%). Harris' strongest income demographic were voters making over $200,000 a year.369370
After controlling for education, there was little difference in White voter support for Harris by annual income. Note than 54% of White voters did not have degrees, and 46% of White voters did have college degrees.371
- Harris lost White voters without college degrees making less than $50,000 (30–68%), making between $50,000 and $99,999 (32–67%), and making over $100,000 (33–66%). Among White voters without college degrees, 36% made less than $50,000, 35% made between $50,000 and $99,999, and 30% over $100,000.
- Harris won White voters with college degrees making less than $50,000 (54–44%), making between $50,000 and $99,999 (54–45%), and making over $100,000 (53–46%). Among White voters with college degrees, 11% made less than $50,000, 27% made between $50,000 and $99,999, and 62% made over $100,000.
According to a 2022 Gallup poll, roughly equal proportions of Democrats (64-35%) and Republicans (66-34%) had money invested in the stock market.372
Education
In the 2020 presidential election, college-educated White voters in all 50 states voted more Democratic than non-college White voters, as displayed in the two maps.373374 As of 2022, over 90% of American adults over the age of 25 have completed high school. However, only 35% have a Bachelor's degree and 17% have a graduate degree.375 Higher educational attainment among White voters corresponds to increased ideological support for the Democratic Party.376
Educational attainment is not the only factor that affects ideology among White voters.377 After controlling for education, there still remain huge variations by state and region.378 Educational polarization is weaker than racial polarization in the South.379
- Southern White voters with college degrees remain strongly Republican, with Harris losing them 41–57% in the 2024 presidential election. Harris won White voters with college degrees in the Midwestern United States 50-48%, the Northeastern United States 61-38%, and in the Western United States 67-30%. Harris won White voters with college degrees as a whole 53-45%.
- Harris lost White voters without college degrees 24–75% in the Southern United States, 32–67% in the Midwestern United States, 37–61% in the Northeastern United States, and 42–56% in the Western United States. Harris lost White voters without college degrees as a whole 32–66%.
Educational polarization has benefitted Democrats in some well-educated Southern states, because it has not changed African American support for Democrats. Democrats are competitive in Georgia and North Carolina because there is much more room for Democrats to grow among White Southerners with college degrees than ground for Democrats to fall among White Southerners without college degrees. This also keeps Virginia reliably Democratic, despite its White voters voting Republican.380
In the 2024 presidential election, among White voters educational attainment was strongly positively correlated with support for Kamala Harris. Specifically, as educational attainment increased among White voters, so did support for Harris. It wasn't only about having a college degree or not, but rather support for Harris continuously increased as educational attainment increased.
- In particular, Harris lost White voters with high school or less 25–73%, an Associate degree 31–67%, and some college 38–61%. Harris tied with Trump among White voters with a Bachelor's degree 49-49%, and won White voters with a graduate degree 58-40%.381
Educational polarization is stronger than gender and marital status among White voters, but weaker than racial polarization in the South.382
- Harris won White women with college degrees (58-41%) and lost White men with college degrees (48–50%) by the same as the popular vote.383
- Harris lost White women without college degrees (35–63%) and White men without college degrees (29–69%).
According to a Gallup poll in November 2024, unionization rates were positively correlated to increased educational attainment and higher income. In particular, 15% of those with graduate degrees, 8% with bachelor's degrees, 9% with some college, and 5% with high school or less were unionized. Also, 11% of those with household incomes of $100,000 or more, 7% of those with $40,000 to $99,999, and 3% with less than $40,000 were unionized. Also only 6% of those in the private sector were unionized, compared to 28% of government employees.384
Many Democrats without college degrees differ from liberals in their more socially moderate views, and are more likely to belong to an ethnic minority.385386 White voters with college degrees are more likely to live in urban areas.387
- There was no difference in support for Harris from African Americans based on education, with Harris winning African Americans with and without a college degree 86-13%.
- There was a modest difference in support for Harris among Hispanic voters with a college degree (54-42%) and without a college degree (51-48%). This was far less than the differences among Hispanic voters in urban (57-39%), suburban (51-48%), and rural areas (33–66%).388
Factions
Further information: Factions in the Democratic Party (United States)
Upon foundation, the Democratic Party supported agrarianism and the Jacksonian democracy movement of President Andrew Jackson, representing farmers and rural interests and traditional Jeffersonian democrats.389 Since the 1890s, especially in northern states, the party began to favor more liberal positions (the term "liberal" in this sense describes modern liberalism, rather than classical liberalism or economic liberalism). Historically, the party has represented farmers, laborers, and religious and ethnic minorities as it has opposed unregulated business and finance and favored progressive income taxes.
In the 1930s, the party began advocating social programs targeted at the poor. Before the New Deal, the party had a fiscally conservative, pro-business wing, typified by Grover Cleveland and Al Smith.390 The party was dominant in the Southern United States until President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In foreign policy, internationalism (including interventionism) was a dominant theme from 1913 to the mid-1960s. The major influences for liberalism were labor unions (which peaked in the 1936–1952 era) and African Americans. Environmentalism has been a major component since the 1970s.
Even after the New Deal, until the 2010s, the party still had a fiscally conservative faction,391 such as John Nance Garner and Howard W. Smith.392 The party's Southern conservative wing began shrinking after President Lyndon B. Johnson supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and largely died out in the 2010s, as the Republican Party built up its Southern base.393394 The party still receives support from African Americans and urban areas in the Southern United States.395396
The 21st century Democratic Party is predominantly a coalition of centrists, liberals, and progressives, with significant overlap between the three groups. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that among Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters, 47% identify as liberal or very liberal, 38% identify as moderate, and 14% identify as conservative or very conservative.397398 Political scientists characterize the Democratic Party as less ideologically cohesive than the Republican Party due to the broader diversity of coalitions that compose the Democratic Party.399400401
The party has lost significant ground with voters without college degrees in the 21st century, in line with trends across the developed world.402 The realignment unfolded gradually, first with White voters in the South403404 and Midwest,405 and later with voters as a whole without college degrees, except for African Americans.406407
Democrats have consistently won voters with graduate degrees since the 1990s, including a majority of White voters with graduate degrees.408 Since the 2010s, the party's main demographic gains have been among White voters with college degrees, which were previously a Republican-leaning group until 2016.409 The party still receives extremely strong support from African Americans, but has lost ground among other racial minorities, including Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian Americans.410
Liberals
See also: Modern liberalism in the United States
Modern liberals are a large portion of the Democratic base. According to 2018 exit polls, liberals constituted 27% of the electorate, and 91% of American liberals favored the candidate of the Democratic Party.411 White-collar college-educated professionals were mostly Republican until the 1950s, but they had become a vital component of the Democratic Party by the early 2000s.412
According to a 2025 Gallup poll, 37% of American voters identify as "conservative" or "very conservative", 34% as "moderate", and 25% as "liberal" or "very liberal". For Democrats, 9% identified as conservative, 34% as moderate, and 55% as liberal.413
A large majority of liberals favor moving toward universal health care. A majority also favor diplomacy over military action; stem cell research, same-sex marriage, stricter gun control, environmental protection laws, as well as the preservation of abortion rights. Immigration and cultural diversity are deemed positive as liberals favor cultural pluralism, a system in which immigrants retain their native culture in addition to adopting their new culture. Most liberals oppose increased military spending and the mixing of church and state.414 As of 2020, the three most significant labor groupings in the Democratic coalition were the AFL–CIO and Change to Win labor federations as well as the National Education Association, a large, unaffiliated teachers' union. Important issues for labor unions include supporting unionized manufacturing jobs, raising the minimum wage, and promoting broad social programs such as Social Security and Medicare.415
This ideological group is strongly correlated with high educational attainment. According to the Pew Research Center, 49% were college graduates, the highest figure of any typographical group.416 It was also the fastest growing typological group since the late 1990s to the present.417 Liberals include most of the academia418 and large portions of the professional class.419
Moderates
See also: New Democrats (United States), New Democrat Coalition, and Blue Dog Coalition
Moderate Democrats, or New Democrats, are an ideologically centrist faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H. W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election.420 Running as a New Democrat, Bill Clinton won the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections.421 They are an economically liberal and "Third Way" faction that dominated the party for around 20 years, until the beginning of Obama's presidency.422423 They are represented by organizations such as the New Democrat Network and the New Democrat Coalition.
The Blue Dog Coalition was formed during the 104th Congress to give members from the Democratic Party representing conservative-leaning districts a unified voice after the Democrats' loss of Congress in the 1994 Republican Revolution.424425426 However, in the late 2010s and early 2020s, the Coalition's focus shifted towards ideological centrism. One of the most influential centrist groups was the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), a nonprofit organization that advocated centrist positions for the party. The DLC disbanded in 2011.427
Some Democratic elected officials have self-declared as being centrists, including former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, Senator Mark Warner, Kansas governor Laura Kelly, former Senator Jim Webb, and President Joe Biden.428429 The New Democrat Network supports socially liberal and fiscally moderate Democratic politicians and is associated with the congressional New Democrat Coalition in the House.430 Annie Kuster is the chair of the coalition,431 and former senator and President Barack Obama was self-described as a New Democrat.432 In the 21st century, some former Republican moderates have switched to the Democratic Party.433434435
Progressives
See also: Congressional Progressive Caucus, Progressivism in the United States, and Social democracy
Progressives are the most left-leaning faction in the party and support strong business regulations, social programs, and workers' rights.436437 In 2014, progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren set out "Eleven Commandments of Progressivism": tougher regulation on corporations; affordable education; scientific investment and environmentalism; net neutrality; increased wages; equal pay for women; collective bargaining rights; defending social programs; same-sex marriage; immigration reform; and unabridged access to reproductive healthcare.438 The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is a caucus of progressive Democrats chaired by Pramila Jayapal of Washington.439440 Its members have included Representatives Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, John Conyers of Michigan, Jim McDermott of Washington, Barbara Lee of California, and Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota. Senators Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, and Ed Markey of Massachusetts were members of the caucus when in the House of Representatives. As of 2024, the CPC is the second-largest ideological caucus in the House Democratic Caucus by voting members, behind the New Democrat Coalition.441442 Senator Bernie Sanders has often been viewed as a leader of the progressive movement;443444445 he ran presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020.446 Other members of the progressive faction include the Squad.447
Democratic presidents
See also: List of presidents of the United States and Republican Party (United States) § Republican presidents
As of 2025, there have been a total of 16 Democratic presidents.
Recent electoral history
In congressional elections: 1950–present
See also: Party divisions of United States Congresses
| House of Representatives | President | Senate | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Election year | No. of seats won | +/– | No. of seats won | +/– | Election year | |||
| 1950 | 235 / 435 | 28 | Harry S. Truman | 49 / 96 | 5 | 1950 | ||
| 1952 | 213 / 435 | 22 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | 47 / 96 | 2 | 1952 | ||
| 1954 | 232 / 435 | 19 | 49 / 96 | 2 | 1954 | |||
| 1956 | 234 / 435 | 2 | 49 / 96 | 0 | 1956 | |||
| 1958 | 283 / 437 | 49 | 64 / 98 | 15 | 1958 | |||
| 1960 | 262 / 437 | 21 | John F. Kennedy | 64 / 100 | 1 | 1960 | ||
| 1962 | 258 / 435 | 4 | 66 / 100 | 3 | 1962 | |||
| 1964 | 295 / 435 | 37 | Lyndon B. Johnson | 68 / 100 | 2 | 1964 | ||
| 1966 | 248 / 435 | 47 | 64 / 100 | 3 | 1966 | |||
| 1968 | 243 / 435 | 5 | Richard Nixon | 57 / 100 | 5 | 1968 | ||
| 1970 | 255 / 435 | 12 | 54 / 100 | 3 | 1970 | |||
| 1972 | 242 / 435 | 13 | 56 / 100 | 2 | 1972 | |||
| 1974 | 291 / 435 | 49 | Gerald Ford | 60 / 100 | 4 | 1974 | ||
| 1976 | 292 / 435 | 1 | Jimmy Carter | 61 / 100 | 0 | 1976 | ||
| 1978 | 277 / 435 | 15 | 58 / 100 | 3 | 1978 | |||
| 1980 | 243 / 435 | 34 | Ronald Reagan | 46 / 100 | 12 | 1980 | ||
| 1982 | 269 / 435 | 26 | 46 / 100 | 1 | 1982 | |||
| 1984 | 253 / 435 | 16 | 47 / 100 | 2 | 1984 | |||
| 1986 | 258 / 435 | 5 | 55 / 100 | 8 | 1986 | |||
| 1988 | 260 / 435 | 2 | George H. W. Bush | 55 / 100 | 1 | 1988 | ||
| 1990 | 267 / 435 | 7 | 56 / 100 | 1 | 1990 | |||
| 1992 | 258 / 435 | 9 | Bill Clinton | 57 / 100 | 1 | 1992 | ||
| 1994 | 204 / 435 | 54 | 47 / 100 | 10 | 1994 | |||
| 1996 | 206 / 435 | 2 | 45 / 100 | 2 | 1996 | |||
| 1998 | 211 / 435 | 5 | 45 / 100 | 0 | 1998 | |||
| 2000 | 212 / 435 | 1 | George W. Bush | 50 / 100 | 5 | 2000451 | ||
| 2002 | 204 / 435 | 7 | 49 / 100 | 2 | 2002 | |||
| 2004 | 202 / 435 | 2 | 45 / 100 | 4 | 2004 | |||
| 2006 | 233 / 435 | 31 | 51 / 100 | 6452 | 2006 | |||
| 2008 | 257 / 435 | 21 | Barack Obama | 59 / 100 | 8453 | 2008 | ||
| 2010 | 193 / 435 | 63 | 53 / 100 | 6454 | 2010 | |||
| 2012 | 201 / 435 | 8 | 55 / 100 | 2455 | 2012 | |||
| 2014 | 188 / 435 | 13 | 46 / 100 | 9456 | 2014 | |||
| 2016 | 194 / 435 | 6 | Donald Trump | 48 / 100 | 2457 | 2016 | ||
| 2018 | 235 / 435 | 41 | 47 / 100 | 1458 | 2018 | |||
| 2020 | 222 / 435 | 13 | Joe Biden | 50 / 100 | 3459 | 2020460 | ||
| 2022 | 213 / 435 | 9 | 51 / 100 | 1461 | 2022 | |||
| 2024 | 215 / 435 | 2 | Donald Trump | 47 / 100 | 4462 | 2024 | ||
In presidential elections: 1828–present
See also: List of United States Democratic Party presidential tickets
See also
- Liberalism portal
- Politics portal
- United States portal
- Democratic Party (United States) organizations
- List of political parties in the United States
- List of United States Democratic Party presidential candidates
- List of United States Democratic Party presidential tickets
- Political party strength in U.S. states
- Politics of the United States
- List of major liberal parties considered left
Notes
Further reading
- The Almanac of American Politics 2022 (2022) details on members of Congress, and the governors: their records and election results; also state and district politics; revised every two years since 1975. see The Almanac of American Politics
- American National Biography (20 volumes, 1999) covers all politicians no longer alive; online at many academic libraries and at Wikipedia Library.
- Andelic, Patrick. Donkey Work: Congressional Democrats in Conservative America, 1974–1994 (2019) online
- Baker, Jean H. Affairs of party: The political culture of northern Democrats in the mid-nineteenth century (Fordham UP, 1998).
- Bass Jr, Harold F. Historical dictionary of United States political parties (Scarecrow Press, 2009).
- Black, Merle (2004). "The transformation of the southern Democratic Party". Journal of Politics. 66 (4): 1001–1017. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2508.2004.00287.x. S2CID 154506701.
- Burner, David. The Politics of Provincialism: The Democratic Party in Transition, 1918–1932 (Knopf, 1968).
- Congressional Quarterly. National Party Conventions, 1831–2000 (2001).
- Congressional Quarterly. Presidential Elections 1789–2008 (10th edition, 2009)
- Craig, Douglas. "Newton D. Baker and the Democratic Malaise, 1920–1937." Australasian Journal of American Studies (2006): 49–64. in JSTOR Archived August 19, 2018, at the Wayback Machine
- Dowe, Pearl K. Ford, et al. Remaking the Democratic Party: Lyndon B. Johnson as a Native-Son Presidential Candidate (University of Michigan Press, 2016).
- Feller, David. "Politics and Society: Toward a Jacksonian Synthesis" Journal of the Early Republic 10#2 (1990), pp. 135–161 in JSTOR
- Finkelman, Paul, and Peter Wallenstein, eds. The encyclopedia of American political history (CQ Press, 2001).
- Frymer, Paul. Black and blue: African Americans, the labor movement, and the decline of the Democratic party (Princeton UP, 2008).
- Gerring, John. "A chapter in the history of American party ideology: The nineteenth-century Democratic Party (1828–1892)." Polity 26.4 (1994): 729–768. online Archived February 2, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
- Gillon, Steven M. (1992). The Democrats' Dilemma: Walter F. Mondale and the Liberal Legacy. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231076302. online
- Greene, Jack B. Encyclopedia of American Political History (1983)
- Hilton, Adam. True Blues: The Contentious Transformation of the Democratic Party (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021), since 1972.
- Kazin, Michael. What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party (2022) online
- Kazin, Michael. ed. The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History (2 vol. Princeton UP, 2009)
- Kazin, Michael. ed. The Concise Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History (Princeton UP, 2011)
- Landis, Michael Todd. Northern Men with Southern Loyalties: The Democratic Party and the Sectional Crisis. (Cornell UP, 2014).
- Lawrence, David G. The collapse of the democratic presidential majority: Realignment, dealignment, and electoral change from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton. (Westview Press, 1997).
- McGuire, John Thomas (2014). "Beginning an 'Extraordinary Opportunity': Eleanor Roosevelt, Molly Dewson, and the expansion of women's boundaries in the Democratic Party, 1924–1934". Women's History Review. 23 (6): 922–937. doi:10.1080/09612025.2014.906841. S2CID 146773549.
- Maisel, L. Sandy, and Jeffrey M. Berry, eds. The Oxford handbook of American political parties and interest groups (Oxford UP, 2010).
- Maisel, L. Sandy, and Charles Bassett, eds. Political parties & elections in the United States: an encyclopedia (2 vol, Garland, 1991)
- Mieczkowski, Yanek, and Mark C Carnes. The Routledge historical atlas of presidential elections (2001).
- Neal, Steven. Happy Days are Here Again: The 1932 Democratic Convention, the Emergence of FDR—and how America was Changed Forever (HarperCollins, 2010).
- Remini, Robert V. Martin Van Buren and the making of the Democratic Party (Columbia UP, 1961).
- Savage, Sean J. Roosevelt: The Party Leader, 1932–1945 (U Press of Kentucky, 2015).
- Savage, Sean J. JFK, LBJ, and the Democratic Party (SUNY Press, 2012).
- Savage, Sean J. Truman and the Democratic Party (U Press of Kentucky, 2015).
- Woods, Randall B. Prisoners of Hope: Lyndon B. Johnson, the Great Society, and the Limits of Liberalism (Basic Books, 2016).
External links
References
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Stanley, Harold W. (1988). "Southern Partisan Changes: Dealignment, Realignment or Both?". The Journal of Politics. 50 (1): 64–88. doi:10.2307/2131041. ISSN 0022-3816. JSTOR 2131041. S2CID 154860857. Events surrounding the presidential election of 1964 marked a watershed in terms of the parties and the South (Pomper, 1972). The Solid South was built around the identification of the Democratic party with the cause of white supremacy. Events before 1964 gave white southerners pause about the linkage between the Democratic Party and white supremacy, but the 1964 election, passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 altered in the minds of most the positions of the national parties on racial issues. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Black, Earl; Black, Merle (September 30, 2003). The Rise of Southern Republicans. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674012486. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 9, 2018. When the Republican party nominated Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater—one of the few senators who had opposed the Civil Rights Act—as their presidential candidate in 1964, the party attracted many southern whites but permanently alienated African-American voters. Beginning with the Goldwater-versus-Johnson campaign more southern whites voted Republican than Democratic, a pattern that has recurred in every subsequent presidential election. ... Before the 1964 presidential election the Republican party had not carried any Deep South state for eighty-eight years. Yet shortly after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, hundreds of Deep South counties gave Barry Goldwater landslide majorities.Weigel, David (October 15, 2024). "No matter who wins, the US is moving to the right". Semafor. Retrieved October 24, 2024. 9780674012486 ↩
Miller, Gary; Schofield, Norman (2003). "Activists and Partisan Realignment in the United States". American Political Science Review. 97 (2): 245–260. doi:10.1017/S0003055403000650 (inactive November 7, 2024). ISSN 1537-5943. S2CID 12885628. By 2000, however, the New Deal party alignment no longer captured patterns of partisan voting. In the intervening 40 years, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts had triggered an increasingly race-driven distinction between the parties. ... Goldwater won the electoral votes of five states of the Deep South in 1964, four of them states that had voted Democratic for 84 years (Califano 1991, 55). He forged a new identification of the Republican party with racial conservatism, reversing a century-long association of the GOP with racial liberalism. This in turn opened the door for Nixon's "Southern strategy" and the Reagan victories of the eighties.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link) /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Issue Evolution. Princeton University Press. September 6, 1990. ISBN 9780691023311. Archived from the original on May 16, 2018. Retrieved June 9, 2018."Bernie Sanders: From small-town mayor to godfather of the progressive left". Business Insider. Retrieved January 21, 2025. 9780691023311 ↩
Valentino, Nicholas A.; Sears, David O. (2005). "Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: Race and Partisan Realignment in the Contemporary South". American Journal of Political Science. 49 (3): 672–88. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2005.00136.x. ISSN 0092-5853. /wiki/Nicholas_Valentino ↩
Kuziemko, Ilyana; Washington, Ebonya (2018). "Why Did the Democrats Lose the South? Bringing New Data to an Old Debate". American Economic Review. 108 (10): 2830–2867. doi:10.1257/aer.20161413. ISSN 0002-8282. https://doi.org/10.1257%2Faer.20161413 ↩
James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (1997). ↩
Miller, Gary; Schofield, Norman (2008). "The Transformation of the Republican and Democratic Party Coalitions in the U.S.". Perspectives on Politics. 6 (3): 433–450. doi:10.1017/S1537592708081218. ISSN 1541-0986. S2CID 145321253. 1964 was the last presidential election in which the Democrats earned more than 50 percent of the white vote in the United States. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Black, Earl; Black, Merle (September 30, 2003). The Rise of Southern Republicans. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674012486. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 9, 2018. When the Republican party nominated Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater—one of the few senators who had opposed the Civil Rights Act—as their presidential candidate in 1964, the party attracted many southern whites but permanently alienated African-American voters. Beginning with the Goldwater-versus-Johnson campaign more southern whites voted Republican than Democratic, a pattern that has recurred in every subsequent presidential election. ... Before the 1964 presidential election the Republican party had not carried any Deep South state for eighty-eight years. Yet shortly after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, hundreds of Deep South counties gave Barry Goldwater landslide majorities.Weigel, David (October 15, 2024). "No matter who wins, the US is moving to the right". Semafor. Retrieved October 24, 2024. 9780674012486 ↩
Miller, Gary; Schofield, Norman (2003). "Activists and Partisan Realignment in the United States". American Political Science Review. 97 (2): 245–260. doi:10.1017/S0003055403000650 (inactive November 7, 2024). ISSN 1537-5943. S2CID 12885628. By 2000, however, the New Deal party alignment no longer captured patterns of partisan voting. In the intervening 40 years, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts had triggered an increasingly race-driven distinction between the parties. ... Goldwater won the electoral votes of five states of the Deep South in 1964, four of them states that had voted Democratic for 84 years (Califano 1991, 55). He forged a new identification of the Republican party with racial conservatism, reversing a century-long association of the GOP with racial liberalism. This in turn opened the door for Nixon's "Southern strategy" and the Reagan victories of the eighties.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link) /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Valentino, Nicholas A.; Sears, David O. (2005). "Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: Race and Partisan Realignment in the Contemporary South". American Journal of Political Science. 49 (3): 672–88. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2005.00136.x. ISSN 0092-5853. /wiki/Nicholas_Valentino ↩
Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (1997). ↩
Smyth, David J.; Taylor, Susan Washburn (1992). "Why Do the Republicans Win the White House More Often than the Democrats?". Presidential Studies Quarterly. 22 (3): 481–491. ISSN 0360-4918. JSTOR 27550992. Archived from the original on January 19, 2023. Retrieved January 19, 2023. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27550992 ↩
Jr, R. W. Apple (July 12, 1992). "Donkey's Years; Is There Room At the Top For Democrats?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 19, 2023. Retrieved January 19, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/12/weekinreview/donkey-s-years-is-there-room-at-the-top-for-democrats.html ↩
James T. Patterson, Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore (2011). ↩
Geismer, Lily (June 11, 2019). "Democrats and neoliberalism". Vox. Archived from the original on November 5, 2022. Retrieved November 5, 2022. The version of neoliberalism embedded in these policies understood a distinct role for government to stimulate market-oriented solutions to address social ills such as unemployment and poverty. It thereby aimed not to eradicate the welfare state but rather to reformulate it. It extended the importance of poverty alleviation, which had long served as a benchmark of liberal policy, and had many similarities with the basic ideas of the war on poverty."Sanders says next term is likely his last". Politico. December 10, 2024. Retrieved January 21, 2025. https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2019/6/11/18660240/democrats-neoliberalism ↩
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Geismer, Lily (June 11, 2019). "Democrats and neoliberalism". Vox. Archived from the original on November 5, 2022. Retrieved November 5, 2022. The version of neoliberalism embedded in these policies understood a distinct role for government to stimulate market-oriented solutions to address social ills such as unemployment and poverty. It thereby aimed not to eradicate the welfare state but rather to reformulate it. It extended the importance of poverty alleviation, which had long served as a benchmark of liberal policy, and had many similarities with the basic ideas of the war on poverty."Sanders says next term is likely his last". Politico. December 10, 2024. Retrieved January 21, 2025. https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2019/6/11/18660240/democrats-neoliberalism ↩
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Dayen, David (December 2, 2024). "What Is the Democratic Party?". The American Prospect. The statistic that best defines our politics over the past 20 years is this: Nine of the past ten national elections have resulted in a change in power in at least one chamber of Congress or the White House. (The sole outlier is 2012.) Several of those elections were considered at the time to be realignments that would lead to a sustained majority for one of the major parties. ... After Republicans defeated John Kerry in 2004 and snatched five Senate seats across the South, commentators believed social issues like gay marriage would set an unwinnable trap for Democrats. Hugh Hewitt wrote a book called Painting the Map Red, imagining a permanent conservative majority. Democrats then took the House and Senate in the 2006 midterms. When Barack Obama crushed John McCain in post–financial crisis 2008, Democratic pundits decided they had an enduring majority. The Tea Party thrashed them in 2010. The conventional wisdom was that Obama was toast; he won in 2012. Donald Trump's 2016 victory signaled a changed electorate, until Democrats won the House in 2018 and the presidency in 2020, only to lose both in 2022 and 2024. https://prospect.org/politics/2024-12-02-what-is-democratic-party/ ↩
"The long goodbye". The Economist. November 11, 2010. Retrieved February 20, 2023. In 1981 Republicans took control of the Senate for the first time since 1953, but most Southern elected officials remained white Democrats. When Republicans took control of the House in 1995, white Democrats still comprised one-third of the South's tally. ... white Southern Democrats have met their Appomattox: they will account for just 24 of the South's 155 senators and congressmen in the 112th United States Congress. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2010/11/11/the-long-goodbye ↩
Elected as Vice President with the National Union Party ticket in the 1864 presidential election. Ascended to the presidency after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Rejoined the Democratic Party in 1868.McQuarrie, Michael (November 8, 2017). "The revolt of the Rust Belt: place and politics in the age of anger". The British Journal of Sociology. 68 (S1): S120 – S152. doi:10.1111/1468-4446.12328. PMID 29114874. S2CID 26010609. Today, the Democratic Party is a party of professionals, minorities and the New Economy. /wiki/National_Union_Party_(United_States) ↩
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Although Cleveland won a plurality of the popular vote, Republican Benjamin Harrison won a majority of votes in the Electoral College.Cronin, Tom and Bob Loevy: "American federalism: States veer far left or far right," Archived July 4, 2023, at the Wayback Machine, July 1, 2023, updated July 2, 2023, Colorado Springs Gazette, retrieved July 4, 2023 /wiki/Plurality_(voting) ↩
All three incumbents in the 20th century to withdraw or not seek reelection—Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson—had succeeded to the presidency when their predecessor died, then won a second term in their own right.[113] Three presidents in the 1800s made and kept pledges to serve only one term, most recently Rutherford B. Hayes.[114] ↩
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"Exit poll results 2024". CNN. November 6, 2024. Retrieved November 6, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0 ↩
Jackson, Brooks (April 18, 2008). "Blacks and the Democratic Party". FactCheck.org. Archived from the original on November 3, 2011. Retrieved October 30, 2011. http://www.factcheck.org/2008/04/blacks-and-the-democratic-party/ ↩
Bositis, David. "Blacks and the 2012 Democratic National Convention; page 9, table 1: black votes in presidential elections, 1936 – 2008" (PDF). Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 22, 2024. Retrieved March 23, 2024. https://jointcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Blacks-and-the-2012-Democratic-National-Convention.pdf ↩
"Faith on the Hill: The religious composition of the 116th Congress". Pew Research Center. January 3, 2019. Archived from the original on February 18, 2021. Retrieved May 18, 2020. https://www.pewforum.org/2019/01/03/faith-on-the-hill-116/ ↩
Andre, Michael; et al. (November 3, 2020). "National Exit Polls: How Different Groups Voted". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on November 10, 2020. Retrieved December 5, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html ↩
"An inaugural first: Obama acknowledges 'non-believers'". USA Today. January 22, 2009. Archived from the original on April 1, 2010. Retrieved August 22, 2017. https://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-01-20-obama-non-believers_N.htm ↩
"Party identification among religious groups and religiously unaffiliated voters". Pew Research Center. April 9, 2024. Retrieved May 27, 2024. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/party-identification-among-religious-groups-and-religiously-unaffiliated-voters/ ↩
"4. Age, generational cohorts and party identification". Pew Research Center. April 9, 2024. Archived from the original on August 3, 2024. Retrieved August 3, 2024. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/age-generational-cohorts-and-party-identification/ ↩
Yglesias, Matthew (September 22, 2021). "The median voter is a 50-something white person who didn't go to college". Slow Boring. Retrieved April 9, 2024. Long story short, if you're going to blow off the median voter, you ought to do it purposefully and with a plan — don't just act like the views of under-40 college grads are typical. ... And I don't think there's a mass delusion where people have come to believe that left-wing cultural politics and student debt relief are the top priorities for 50-something working-class people living outside the top 50 metro areas. https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-median-voter-is-a-50-something ↩
Considine, Clare (November 22, 2022). "Struggling to Attract Single Women? So are Republicans". Split Ticket. It's true—marriage has a conservatizing effect on the political attitudes of women. Married women are associated with lower levels of gender-linked fate, which is itself is associated with ideology, partisanship, and even positional attitudes such as support for abortion. Research tells us that marriage plays a distinct role in structuring legal abortion attitudes for women, particularly among white women. We know that the Dobbs decision created an inflection point in support for Democrats, and it's not an unreasonable to understand why the issue would have outsized salience among unmarried women (86 percent of abortion seekers in the US are unmarried). https://split-ticket.org/2022/11/22/struggling-to-attract-single-women-so-are-republicans/ ↩
Jain, Lakshya; Lavelle, Harrison; Thomas, Armin (March 24, 2023). "Where Do Democrats Win White Voters?". Split Ticket. Retrieved January 13, 2025. Educational polarization and urbanization are not the only two lenses through which to analyze the white vote. For all that educational polarization has done to explain shifts in partisanship (as shown by Atlanta and Dallas rocketing left), it cannot fully explain the differences in baseline partisanship nearly as well. To better understand this, it becomes necessary to consider a more comprehensive picture. ... Religious affiliation (i.e. denomination) and religiosity levels, among other factors, explained wide differences in how both non-college whites and college-educated whites voted across regions. Throughout New England and the Pacific Coast, widespread secularism makes both college and non-college whites significantly bluer than the national average. Elsewhere in the Northeast, a comparatively large Catholic population has raised the Democratic floor among whites across the educational attainment spectrum. ... This likely has a good deal to do with southern cultural conservatism, which is elevated relative to the nation thanks in part to marked Protestant religiosity, particularly among white Baptists. For this reason, support for abortion is exceptionally high in the Midwest, but extremely low in the South. This regional mix of religiosity and racial polarization results in something quite striking: whites in virtually every southern county are significantly more Republican than their northern counterparts. https://split-ticket.org/2023/03/24/where-do-democrats-win-white-voters/ ↩
"Without Northern Virginia, Trump would have won the state". Inside Nova. Retrieved November 17, 2020. https://www.insidenova.com/headlines/without-northern-virginia-trump-would-have-won-the-state/article_c937d4de-2516-11eb-9178-bbdf2f2c7b16.html ↩
Bergman, Klas. Scandinavians in the State House: How Nordic Immigrants Shaped Minnesota Politics (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2017) online review. /wiki/Minnesota_Historical_Society_Press ↩
Brøndal, Jørn. Ethnic Leadership and Midwestern Politics: Scandinavian Americans and the Progressive Movement in Wisconsin, 1890–1914 (University of Illinois Press, 2004). /wiki/University_of_Illinois_Press ↩
Jain, Lakshya; Lavelle, Harrison; Thomas, Armin (March 24, 2023). "Where Do Democrats Win White Voters?". Split Ticket. Retrieved January 13, 2025. Educational polarization and urbanization are not the only two lenses through which to analyze the white vote. For all that educational polarization has done to explain shifts in partisanship (as shown by Atlanta and Dallas rocketing left), it cannot fully explain the differences in baseline partisanship nearly as well. To better understand this, it becomes necessary to consider a more comprehensive picture. ... Religious affiliation (i.e. denomination) and religiosity levels, among other factors, explained wide differences in how both non-college whites and college-educated whites voted across regions. Throughout New England and the Pacific Coast, widespread secularism makes both college and non-college whites significantly bluer than the national average. Elsewhere in the Northeast, a comparatively large Catholic population has raised the Democratic floor among whites across the educational attainment spectrum. ... This likely has a good deal to do with southern cultural conservatism, which is elevated relative to the nation thanks in part to marked Protestant religiosity, particularly among white Baptists. For this reason, support for abortion is exceptionally high in the Midwest, but extremely low in the South. This regional mix of religiosity and racial polarization results in something quite striking: whites in virtually every southern county are significantly more Republican than their northern counterparts. https://split-ticket.org/2023/03/24/where-do-democrats-win-white-voters/ ↩
Jain, Lakshya; Lavelle, Harrison; Thomas, Armin (March 24, 2023). "Where Do Democrats Win White Voters?". Split Ticket. Retrieved January 13, 2025. Educational polarization and urbanization are not the only two lenses through which to analyze the white vote. For all that educational polarization has done to explain shifts in partisanship (as shown by Atlanta and Dallas rocketing left), it cannot fully explain the differences in baseline partisanship nearly as well. To better understand this, it becomes necessary to consider a more comprehensive picture. ... Religious affiliation (i.e. denomination) and religiosity levels, among other factors, explained wide differences in how both non-college whites and college-educated whites voted across regions. Throughout New England and the Pacific Coast, widespread secularism makes both college and non-college whites significantly bluer than the national average. Elsewhere in the Northeast, a comparatively large Catholic population has raised the Democratic floor among whites across the educational attainment spectrum. ... This likely has a good deal to do with southern cultural conservatism, which is elevated relative to the nation thanks in part to marked Protestant religiosity, particularly among white Baptists. For this reason, support for abortion is exceptionally high in the Midwest, but extremely low in the South. This regional mix of religiosity and racial polarization results in something quite striking: whites in virtually every southern county are significantly more Republican than their northern counterparts. https://split-ticket.org/2023/03/24/where-do-democrats-win-white-voters/ ↩
"Exit poll results 2024". CNN. November 6, 2024. Retrieved November 6, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0 ↩
"U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: New Mexico". census.gov. Retrieved September 9, 2021. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/NM ↩
"EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT". U.S. Census Bureau. Archived from the original on September 19, 2022. Retrieved September 18, 2022. https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=S1501&g=0100000US%240400000&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S1501&moe=false&tp=false ↩
"Unmarried Women in the 2004 Presidential Election" Archived January 1, 2016, at the Wayback Machine (PDF). Report by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, January 2005. p. 3: "The marriage gap is one of the most important cleavages in electoral politics. Unmarried women voted for Kerry by a 25-point margin (62 to 37 percent), while married women voted for President Bush by an 11-point margin (55 percent to 44 percent). Indeed, the 25-point margin Kerry posted among unmarried women represented one of the high water marks for the Senator among all demographic groups." http://www.wvwv.org/docs/WVWV_2004_post-election_memo.pdf ↩
"Republicans should worry that unmarried women shun them". The Economist. December 14, 2013. Archived from the original on January 15, 2018. Retrieved September 18, 2019. https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21591624-republicans-should-worry-unmarried-women-shun-them-marriage-gap?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/themarriagegap ↩
McDonnell, Meg T. (December 3, 2012). "The Marriage Gap in the Women's Vote". Crisis Magazine. Archived from the original on October 31, 2014. Retrieved December 11, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141031034237/http://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/the-marriage-gap-in-the-womens-vote ↩
Goldenberg, Suzanne (November 9, 2012). "Single women voted overwhelmingly in favour of Obama, researchers find". The Guardian. Archived from the original on December 31, 2014. Retrieved December 11, 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/09/single-women-voted-favour-obama ↩
Junn, Jane; Masuoka, Natalie (2020). "The Gender Gap Is a Race Gap: Women Voters in US Presidential Elections". Perspectives on Politics. 18 (4): 1135–1145. doi:10.1017/S1537592719003876. ISSN 1537-5927. /wiki/Jane_Junn ↩
"White Female Voters Continue to Support the Republican Party". The Atlantic. November 14, 2016. Archived from the original on December 15, 2023. Retrieved January 30, 2021. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/white-women-support-gop/507617/ ↩
Considine, Clare (November 22, 2022). "Struggling to Attract Single Women? So are Republicans". Split Ticket. It's true—marriage has a conservatizing effect on the political attitudes of women. Married women are associated with lower levels of gender-linked fate, which is itself is associated with ideology, partisanship, and even positional attitudes such as support for abortion. Research tells us that marriage plays a distinct role in structuring legal abortion attitudes for women, particularly among white women. We know that the Dobbs decision created an inflection point in support for Democrats, and it's not an unreasonable to understand why the issue would have outsized salience among unmarried women (86 percent of abortion seekers in the US are unmarried). https://split-ticket.org/2022/11/22/struggling-to-attract-single-women-so-are-republicans/ ↩
Kornacki, Steve (March 18, 2025). "Steve Kornacki: White men, white women, and the gap within the gender gap". NBC News. Retrieved March 19, 2025. New NBC News polling data illustrates the cultural and political gulf separating white men without college degrees and white women with college degrees. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/steve-kornacki-white-men-white-women-gap-gender-gap-rcna196791 ↩
Considine, Clare (November 22, 2022). "Struggling to Attract Single Women? So are Republicans". Split Ticket. It's true—marriage has a conservatizing effect on the political attitudes of women. Married women are associated with lower levels of gender-linked fate, which is itself is associated with ideology, partisanship, and even positional attitudes such as support for abortion. Research tells us that marriage plays a distinct role in structuring legal abortion attitudes for women, particularly among white women. We know that the Dobbs decision created an inflection point in support for Democrats, and it's not an unreasonable to understand why the issue would have outsized salience among unmarried women (86 percent of abortion seekers in the US are unmarried). https://split-ticket.org/2022/11/22/struggling-to-attract-single-women-so-are-republicans/ ↩
Thompson, Derek (September 13, 2019). "How Democrats Conquered the City". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on March 7, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/brief-history-how-democrats-conquered-city/597955/ ↩
"The long goodbye". The Economist. November 11, 2010. Retrieved February 20, 2023. In 1981 Republicans took control of the Senate for the first time since 1953, but most Southern elected officials remained white Democrats. When Republicans took control of the House in 1995, white Democrats still comprised one-third of the South's tally. ... white Southern Democrats have met their Appomattox: they will account for just 24 of the South's 155 senators and congressmen in the 112th United States Congress. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2010/11/11/the-long-goodbye ↩
Cohn, Nate (April 23, 2014). "Southern Whites' Loyalty to GOP Nearing that of Blacks to Democrats". The New York Times. President Obama's landslide victory in 2008 was supposed to herald the beginning of a new Democratic era. And yet, six years later, there is not even a clear Democratic majority in the country, let alone one poised for 30 years of dominance. It's not because Mr. Obama's so-called new coalition of young and nonwhite voters failed to live up to its potential. They again turned out in record numbers in 2012. The Democratic majority has failed to materialize because the Republicans made large, countervailing and unappreciated gains of their own among white Southerners. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/upshot/southern-whites-loyalty-to-gop-nearing-that-of-blacks-to-democrats.html ↩
Jain, Lakshya; Lavelle, Harrison; Thomas, Armin (March 24, 2023). "Where Do Democrats Win White Voters?". Split Ticket. Retrieved January 13, 2025. Educational polarization and urbanization are not the only two lenses through which to analyze the white vote. For all that educational polarization has done to explain shifts in partisanship (as shown by Atlanta and Dallas rocketing left), it cannot fully explain the differences in baseline partisanship nearly as well. To better understand this, it becomes necessary to consider a more comprehensive picture. ... Religious affiliation (i.e. denomination) and religiosity levels, among other factors, explained wide differences in how both non-college whites and college-educated whites voted across regions. Throughout New England and the Pacific Coast, widespread secularism makes both college and non-college whites significantly bluer than the national average. Elsewhere in the Northeast, a comparatively large Catholic population has raised the Democratic floor among whites across the educational attainment spectrum. ... This likely has a good deal to do with southern cultural conservatism, which is elevated relative to the nation thanks in part to marked Protestant religiosity, particularly among white Baptists. For this reason, support for abortion is exceptionally high in the Midwest, but extremely low in the South. This regional mix of religiosity and racial polarization results in something quite striking: whites in virtually every southern county are significantly more Republican than their northern counterparts. https://split-ticket.org/2023/03/24/where-do-democrats-win-white-voters/ ↩
Barabak, Mark Z. (November 2023). "A series on political shifts in the West". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 4, 2024. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-06-16/columnist-mark-z-barabak-the-new-west ↩
Three Democrats (Barack Obama in 2008, Joe Biden in 2020, and Kamala Harris in 2024) have since won an electoral vote from Nebraska's 2nd congressional district, but Johnson remains the last Democrat to carry the state as a whole. /wiki/Barack_Obama ↩
Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016 http://www.americamagazine.org/content/unconventional-wisdom/how-red-and-blue-map-evolved-over-past-century ↩
"Exit poll results 2024". CNN. November 6, 2024. Retrieved November 6, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0 ↩
Rachman, Gideon (July 30, 2018). "Urban-rural splits have become the great global divider". Financial Times. ISSN 0307-1766. Archived from the original on February 26, 2021. Retrieved May 6, 2024. https://www.ft.com/content/e05cde76-93d6-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e ↩
Thompson, Derek (September 13, 2019). "How Democrats Conquered the City". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on March 7, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/brief-history-how-democrats-conquered-city/597955/ ↩
Kondik, Kyle (January 9, 2025). "How the Other Half Votes: The Big Counties Versus the Rest of the Country in 2024". Sabato's Crystal Ball. Retrieved February 8, 2024. https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/how-the-other-half-votes-the-big-counties-versus-the-rest-of-the-country-in-2024/ ↩
Lavelle, Harrison; McCall, Max (February 8, 2025). "America's Demographic Revolution". Split Ticket. Retrieved February 8, 2025. https://split-ticket.org/2025/02/08/americas-demographic-revolution/ ↩
"Exit poll results 2024". CNN. November 6, 2024. Retrieved November 6, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0 ↩
Jain, Lakshya; Lavelle, Harrison; Thomas, Armin (March 24, 2023). "Where Do Democrats Win White Voters?". Split Ticket. Retrieved January 13, 2025. Educational polarization and urbanization are not the only two lenses through which to analyze the white vote. For all that educational polarization has done to explain shifts in partisanship (as shown by Atlanta and Dallas rocketing left), it cannot fully explain the differences in baseline partisanship nearly as well. To better understand this, it becomes necessary to consider a more comprehensive picture. ... Religious affiliation (i.e. denomination) and religiosity levels, among other factors, explained wide differences in how both non-college whites and college-educated whites voted across regions. Throughout New England and the Pacific Coast, widespread secularism makes both college and non-college whites significantly bluer than the national average. Elsewhere in the Northeast, a comparatively large Catholic population has raised the Democratic floor among whites across the educational attainment spectrum. ... This likely has a good deal to do with southern cultural conservatism, which is elevated relative to the nation thanks in part to marked Protestant religiosity, particularly among white Baptists. For this reason, support for abortion is exceptionally high in the Midwest, but extremely low in the South. This regional mix of religiosity and racial polarization results in something quite striking: whites in virtually every southern county are significantly more Republican than their northern counterparts. https://split-ticket.org/2023/03/24/where-do-democrats-win-white-voters/ ↩
Silver, Nate (November 22, 2016). "Education, Not Income, Predicted Who Would Vote For Trump". FiveThirtyEight. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/education-not-income-predicted-who-would-vote-for-trump/ ↩
Morris, G. Elliott; Brown, Amina; Marriner, Katie. "Where Have All The Democrats Gone?". FiveThirtyEight. Archived from the original on February 4, 2025. This all raises questions about Democrats' messaging about the economy, or maybe suggests that the type of people they hypothesize would be helped most by their policies — such as wealth redistribution from progressive and corporate taxation and federal subsidies for companies that invest in underdeveloped areas, especially when it comes to manufacturing — are not as responsive as the party hoped to the type of so-called policy "deliverism" that the Obama and Biden administrations pursued. In a more dire framing for Democrats: If a party that tells itself it stands for working-class voters is systematically losing support with those people, something has gone terribly wrong for them. https://web.archive.org/web/20250204231156/https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-swings/ ↩
Enten, Harry (November 29, 2016). "Even Among The Wealthy, Education Predicts Trump Support". FiveThirtyEight. First, it's clear from the exit polls that for white voters, every bit of extra education meant less support for Trump. ... Second, education matters a lot even when separating out income levels. ... Third, Trump saw little difference in his support between income levels within each education group. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/even-among-the-wealthy-education-predicts-trump-support/ ↩
Cohn, Nate (November 25, 2024). "How Democrats Lost Their Base and their Message". The New York Times. Retrieved November 25, 2024. Donald Trump's populist pitch bumped Democrats off their traditional place in American politics. ... It has long been clear that the rise of Donald J. Trump meant the end of the Republican Party as we once knew it. It has belatedly become clear that his rise may have meant the end of the Democratic Party as we knew it as well. After three Trump elections, almost every traditional Democratic constituency has swung to the right. In fact, Mr. Trump has made larger gains among Black, Hispanic, Asian American and young voters in his three campaigns since 2016 than he has among white voters without a college degree, according to New York Times estimates. In each case, Mr. Trump fared better than any Republican in decades. ... The overarching pattern is clear. In election after election, Democrats underperformed among traditional Democratic constituencies during the Trump era. Sometimes, it was merely a failure to capitalize on his unpopularity. Other times, it was a staggering decline in support. Together, it has shattered Democratic dreams of building a new majority with the rise of a new generation of young and nonwhite voters. This overarching pattern requires an overarching explanation: Mr. Trump's populist conservatism corroded the foundations of the Democratic Party's appeal. It tapped into many of the issues and themes that once made these voters Democrats. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/25/upshot/democrats-trump-working-class.html ↩
Levitz, Eric (September 29, 2021). "Is America Too Rich for Class Politics?". New York. Retrieved December 2, 2024. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/09/is-america-too-rich-for-class-politics.html ↩
Cliffe, Jeremy (February 15, 2023). "The strange death of the centre right". New Statesman. Archived from the original on February 11, 2025. Retrieved February 5, 2025. The traditional centre right of the postwar decades could do so by "bundling" moderate social conservatism (moderate by the standards of its day, at least) with the pro-business economic conservatism favoured by higher earners. But today those two elements are coming apart: richer folk are more likely to have gone to university and be socially liberal, while social conservatism is more associated with poorer groups. That puts centre-right politics in zugzwang: forced to move, but with no good options. It can emphasize its social conservatism and lose pro-business graduates to the centre, or play it down, shore up its support among those voters and lose social conservatives to the radical right. https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2023/02/strange-death-centre-right-moderate-conservatism ↩
Suss, Joel; Xiao, Eva; Burn-Murdoch, John; Murray, Clara; Vincent, Jonathan (November 9, 2024). "Poorer voters flocked to Trump — and other data points from the election". Financial Times. Retrieved November 12, 2024. In contrast to 2020, the majority of lower-income households or those earning less than $50,000 a year voted for Trump this election. Conversely, those making more than $100,000 voted for Harris, according to exit polls. https://www.ft.com/content/6de668c7-64e9-4196-b2c5-9ceca966fe3f ↩
Silver, Nate (March 28, 2024). "How culture trumps economic class as the new political fault line". Silver Bulletin. Retrieved January 13, 2025. https://www.natesilver.net/p/how-culture-trumps-economic-class ↩
Kurtzleben, Danielle (September 24, 2014). "White high school dropouts are wealthier than Black or Latino college graduates". Vox. https://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6840037/white-high-school-dropouts-have-more-wealth-than-black-and-hispanic ↩
"Exit poll results 2024". CNN. November 6, 2024. Retrieved November 6, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0 ↩
Badger, Emily; Gebeloff, Robert; Bhatia, Aatish (October 26, 2024). "They Used to Be Ahead in the American Economy. Now They've Fallen Behind". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 27, 2024. Retrieved October 26, 2024. In the data, men working without a college degree of every racial group have fallen well below the average full-time worker (women without a degree have long been at the bottom in income, and college-educated men have consistently been at the top). Workers in coastal states have seen the highest growth, while steep declines have been concentrated in parts of the Midwest that are also likely to decide the election this November. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/26/upshot/census-relative-income.html ↩
Parikh, Tej (November 8, 2024). "This was an election on the US economy. And for many Americans, the economy sucks". Financial Times. Retrieved November 8, 2024. https://www.ft.com/content/b0a60325-4c93-49a0-8dc6-817f0d8281fc ↩
"What does 'working class' even mean?". Vox. December 9, 2024. Retrieved December 9, 2024. The criticism that Democrats left America's working class behind surged after the 2024 election. Here's why the term is so hard to define — and why that maters. https://www.vox.com/politics/390108/working-class-definition-voters-2024 ↩
"Exit poll results 2024". CNN. November 6, 2024. Retrieved November 6, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0 ↩
"Charting the Biden economy: Despite all the growth and jobs, a deeply unpopular president". CNBC. January 19, 2025. Joe Biden leaves the presidency with what appears to be a sterling economic record. There's just one problem, and it is one that will forever taint the 46th president's legacy. Inflation and its onerous burden on households, particularly at the lower end of the income spectrum, dwarfed all the other good that happened on Biden's watch. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/19/charting-the-biden-economy-deeply-unpopular-despite-growth-and-jobs.html ↩
"Exit poll results 2024". CNN. November 6, 2024. Retrieved November 6, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0 ↩
Saad, Lydia; Jones, Jeffrey M. (May 12, 2022). "What Percentage of Americans Own Stock?". Gallup, Inc. Archived from the original on May 12, 2022. Retrieved May 12, 2022. https://news.gallup.com/poll/266807/percentage-americans-owns-stock.aspx ↩
Levitz, Eric (October 19, 2022). "How the Diploma Divide Is Remaking American Politics". New York Intelligencer. Archived from the original on October 20, 2022. Retrieved April 24, 2023. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/education-polarization-diploma-divide-democratic-party-working-class.html ↩
Sosnik, Doug (April 17, 2023). "The 'Diploma Divide' Is the New Fault Line in American Politics". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 24, 2023. Retrieved April 24, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/17/opinion/education-american-politics.html ↩
"EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT". U.S. Census Bureau. Archived from the original on September 19, 2022. Retrieved September 18, 2022. https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=S1501&g=0100000US%240400000&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S1501&moe=false&tp=false ↩
Abramowitz, Alan I. (September 23, 2021). "Can Democrats Win Back the White Working Class?". Sabato's Crystal Ball. Retrieved February 7, 2022. The data in Table 3 show that ideology had a powerful influence on vote choice in the 2020 presidential election. Almost all white voters located to the left of center on the ideology scale, regardless of education, voted for Biden, while almost all white voters located to the right of center, regardless of education, voted for Trump. Those in the center, just over one-fifth of white voters, favored Biden overall by a margin of 57% to 43%. However, there is little evidence that economic insecurity had any impact on the candidate preferences of even this group. Finally, it is worth noting that after controlling for ideology, there is almost no remaining difference between the candidate preferences of college and non-college whites. The class divide in candidate preference among white voters in 2020 is almost entirely explained by the fact that non-college white voters are now far more conservative across the board than are white college graduates. https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/can-democrats-win-back-the-white-working-class/ ↩
Jain, Lakshya; Lavelle, Harrison; Thomas, Armin (March 24, 2023). "Where Do Democrats Win White Voters?". Split Ticket. Retrieved January 13, 2025. Educational polarization and urbanization are not the only two lenses through which to analyze the white vote. For all that educational polarization has done to explain shifts in partisanship (as shown by Atlanta and Dallas rocketing left), it cannot fully explain the differences in baseline partisanship nearly as well. To better understand this, it becomes necessary to consider a more comprehensive picture. ... Religious affiliation (i.e. denomination) and religiosity levels, among other factors, explained wide differences in how both non-college whites and college-educated whites voted across regions. Throughout New England and the Pacific Coast, widespread secularism makes both college and non-college whites significantly bluer than the national average. Elsewhere in the Northeast, a comparatively large Catholic population has raised the Democratic floor among whites across the educational attainment spectrum. ... This likely has a good deal to do with southern cultural conservatism, which is elevated relative to the nation thanks in part to marked Protestant religiosity, particularly among white Baptists. For this reason, support for abortion is exceptionally high in the Midwest, but extremely low in the South. This regional mix of religiosity and racial polarization results in something quite striking: whites in virtually every southern county are significantly more Republican than their northern counterparts. https://split-ticket.org/2023/03/24/where-do-democrats-win-white-voters/ ↩
"Exit poll results 2024". CNN. November 6, 2024. Retrieved November 6, 2024. https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0 ↩
Jain, Lakshya (January 3, 2022). "The White Vote and Educational Polarization". Split Ticket. Retrieved January 4, 2025. Before proceeding, it is worth pointing out that educational attainment, while highly informative, is by no means definitive. As David Shor and Ezra Klein have both said, the metric really serves as a proxy for class polarization, but while it is increasingly predictive, it is not the sole determining factor in a person's vote. https://split-ticket.org/2022/01/03/the-white-vote-and-educational-polarization/ ↩
Ruffini, Patrick (September 26, 2023). "Why Trump lost Georgia". The Intersection. Retrieved March 27, 2024. But this proximity belies highly racially polarized voting. Black adults outnumber white adults by 1 point and Biden voters Trump voters by a nearly identical 4 points. The Black Belt is one of four regions—including Southern Georgia, the Northern Highlands, and the Metro Borderlands, where the white vote for Republicans ranges upwards of 80 percent. This fact alone helps explain why education polarization in the South hasn't helped Trump: there are few non-college white Democrats to flip, but a lot of upside for Democrats in flipping still very Republican college-educated whites. https://www.patrickruffini.com/p/why-trump-lost-georgia ↩
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Kornacki, Steve (March 18, 2025). "Steve Kornacki: White men, white women, and the gap within the gender gap". NBC News. Retrieved March 19, 2025. New NBC News polling data illustrates the cultural and political gulf separating white men without college degrees and white women with college degrees. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/steve-kornacki-white-men-white-women-gap-gender-gap-rcna196791 ↩
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Brownstein, Ronald. "Republicans and Democrats increasingly really do occupy different worlds". CNN. Archived from the original on October 24, 2018. Retrieved October 24, 2018. On the one hand, non-college whites almost always expressed more conservative views than did either non-whites or whites with a college degree living in the same kind of geographic area. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/12/politics/republicans-democrats-different-worlds/index.html ↩
Teixeira, Ruy (November 6, 2022). "Democrats' Long Goodbye to the Working Class". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on January 7, 2023. Retrieved November 8, 2022. As we move into the endgame of the 2022 election, the Democrats face a familiar problem. America's historical party of the working class keeps losing working-class support. And not just among White voters. Not only has the emerging Democratic majority I once predicted failed to materialize, but many of the non-White voters who were supposed to deliver it are instead voting for Republicans... From 2012 to 2020, the Democrats not only saw their support among White working-class voters — those without college degrees — crater, they also saw their advantage among non-White working-class voters fall by 18 points. And between 2016 and 2020 alone, the Democratic advantage among Hispanic voters declined by 16 points, overwhelmingly driven by the defection of working-class voters. In contrast, Democrats' advantage among White college-educated voters improved by 16 points from 2012 to 2020, an edge that delivered Joe Biden the White House. /wiki/Ruy_Teixeira ↩
Brownstein, Ronald. "Republicans and Democrats increasingly really do occupy different worlds". CNN. Archived from the original on October 24, 2018. Retrieved October 24, 2018. On the one hand, non-college whites almost always expressed more conservative views than did either non-whites or whites with a college degree living in the same kind of geographic area. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/12/politics/republicans-democrats-different-worlds/index.html ↩
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Kane, Paul (January 15, 2014). "Blue Dog Democrats, whittled down in number, are trying to regroup". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on January 16, 2014. Retrieved July 23, 2014. Four years ago, they were the most influential voting bloc on Capitol Hill, more than 50 House Democrats pulling their liberal colleagues to a more centrist, fiscally conservative vision on issues such as health care and Wall Street reforms. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/blue-dog-democrats-whittled-down-in-number-are-trying-to-regroup/2014/01/15/37d4e7e2-7dfd-11e3-95c6-0a7aa80874bc_story.html ↩
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Cohn, Nate (April 23, 2014). "Southern Whites' Loyalty to GOP Nearing that of Blacks to Democrats". The New York Times. President Obama's landslide victory in 2008 was supposed to herald the beginning of a new Democratic era. And yet, six years later, there is not even a clear Democratic majority in the country, let alone one poised for 30 years of dominance. It's not because Mr. Obama's so-called new coalition of young and nonwhite voters failed to live up to its potential. They again turned out in record numbers in 2012. The Democratic majority has failed to materialize because the Republicans made large, countervailing and unappreciated gains of their own among white Southerners. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/upshot/southern-whites-loyalty-to-gop-nearing-that-of-blacks-to-democrats.html ↩
Kilgore, Ed (November 9, 2018). "A Different Kind of Democratic Party Is Rising in the South". New York. Retrieved November 9, 2018. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/changing-southern-democratic-party.html ↩
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Cite error: The named reference Piketty 2022 was invoked but never defined (see the help page). /wiki/Help:Cite_errors/Cite_error_references_no_text ↩
Cohn, Nate (April 23, 2014). "Southern Whites' Loyalty to GOP Nearing that of Blacks to Democrats". The New York Times. President Obama's landslide victory in 2008 was supposed to herald the beginning of a new Democratic era. And yet, six years later, there is not even a clear Democratic majority in the country, let alone one poised for 30 years of dominance. It's not because Mr. Obama's so-called new coalition of young and nonwhite voters failed to live up to its potential. They again turned out in record numbers in 2012. The Democratic majority has failed to materialize because the Republicans made large, countervailing and unappreciated gains of their own among white Southerners. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/upshot/southern-whites-loyalty-to-gop-nearing-that-of-blacks-to-democrats.html ↩
Kilgore, Ed (November 10, 2014). "From Yellow Dogs To Blue Dogs To New Dogs". Washington Monthly. Retrieved December 24, 2016. Even more to the point, once the ancient white Democratic voting habits were broken, there was really no going back. Blue Dogs were a fading echo of the Yellow Dog tradition in the South, in which the Democratic Party was the default vehicle for day-to-day political life, and the dominant presence, regardless of ideology, for state and local politics. ... So Martin's right: the Blue Dog model is gone for good. But I would warn against the very popular assumption that Democrats can simply intone "economic populism" and regain traction among "the economically pressed white voter" of the Deep South. All the reasons Democrats are struggling with non-college-educated white voters nationally are especially strong in the South: racial and religious fears, anti-urbanism, militarism, and mistrust of unions as well as Wall Street. And for a whole host of reasons, including exceptionally weak union affiliation levels and a neo-colonial heritage as a region starved for capital, the Deep South is going to be more "pro-business" than most of the country. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2014/11/10/from-yellow-dogs-to-blue-dogs-to-new-dogs/ ↩
Cuenco, Michael (August 21, 2024). "Is Obama the reason Democrats are now 'underdogs'?". UnHerd. Retrieved December 10, 2024. Consider that when Obama last ran, the Midwest was still known as an impenetrable Blue Wall, while Florida and Ohio were still purple states. When Bill Clinton gave his acceptance speech in 1996, the Democrats were competitive throughout large swathes of the South. During that period, they had gone on to win not just Clinton's Arkansas and Al Gore's Tennessee, but states such as Kentucky and Louisiana too. The story of the last three decades has been one of political success for Democrats, who have won the popular vote in seven out of the last nine elections. Yet it is also one of narrowing political constituencies and pyrrhic victories, as the party attracted college-educated professionals at the expense of the non-college-educated majority. In particular, non-college-educated whites were lost, but in recent years they have increasingly been joined by significant numbers of non-college-educated minorities. https://unherd.com/newsroom/is-obama-the-reason-democrats-are-now-underdogs/ ↩
Morris, G. Elliott; Brown, Amina; Marriner, Katie. "Where Have All The Democrats Gone?". FiveThirtyEight. Archived from the original on February 4, 2025. This all raises questions about Democrats' messaging about the economy, or maybe suggests that the type of people they hypothesize would be helped most by their policies — such as wealth redistribution from progressive and corporate taxation and federal subsidies for companies that invest in underdeveloped areas, especially when it comes to manufacturing — are not as responsive as the party hoped to the type of so-called policy "deliverism" that the Obama and Biden administrations pursued. In a more dire framing for Democrats: If a party that tells itself it stands for working-class voters is systematically losing support with those people, something has gone terribly wrong for them. https://web.archive.org/web/20250204231156/https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-swings/ ↩
Kondik, Kyle (December 5, 2024). "The End of the Line for Red State Senate Democrats". Sabato's Crystal Ball. Retrieved January 17, 2025. As part of capturing the Senate this year, Republicans knocked out the final remaining Democratic senators from a group of 20 states that have consistently voted Republican for president since at least the 2000 election. A quarter-century ago, Democrats held nearly a third of the Senate seats from these 20 states. But that tally was down to just 2 leading into this election, and Republican victories in Montana and West Virginia reduced it to 0. https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/the-end-of-the-line-for-red-state-senate-democrats/ ↩
"Polarisation by education is remaking American politics". The Economist. October 13, 2024. From 1952 to 2000, a majority of white voters with college degrees self-identified as Republicans. Starting with the 2012 election, this affiliation began to weaken. It loosened even more once [Donald] Trump became the Republican standard-bearer in 2016. By 2020, the college-educated called themselves Democrats by a 2:1 margin. And there were many more of them; their share of the electorate rose from 8% in 1952 to 40% in 2020. Had the party held on to the rest of its support, this would have ensured an enduring majority. Yet at the same time, Democrats lost support among whites without college degrees. They now favour Republicans by their own margin of 2:1. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/10/13/polarisation-by-education-is-remaking-american-politics ↩
Enten, Harry (November 29, 2016). "Even Among The Wealthy, Education Predicts Trump Support". FiveThirtyEight. First, it's clear from the exit polls that for white voters, every bit of extra education meant less support for Trump. ... Second, education matters a lot even when separating out income levels. ... Third, Trump saw little difference in his support between income levels within each education group. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/even-among-the-wealthy-education-predicts-trump-support/ ↩
Cohn, Nate (November 25, 2024). "How Democrats Lost Their Base and their Message". The New York Times. Retrieved November 25, 2024. Donald Trump's populist pitch bumped Democrats off their traditional place in American politics. ... It has long been clear that the rise of Donald J. Trump meant the end of the Republican Party as we once knew it. It has belatedly become clear that his rise may have meant the end of the Democratic Party as we knew it as well. After three Trump elections, almost every traditional Democratic constituency has swung to the right. In fact, Mr. Trump has made larger gains among Black, Hispanic, Asian American and young voters in his three campaigns since 2016 than he has among white voters without a college degree, according to New York Times estimates. In each case, Mr. Trump fared better than any Republican in decades. ... The overarching pattern is clear. In election after election, Democrats underperformed among traditional Democratic constituencies during the Trump era. Sometimes, it was merely a failure to capitalize on his unpopularity. Other times, it was a staggering decline in support. Together, it has shattered Democratic dreams of building a new majority with the rise of a new generation of young and nonwhite voters. This overarching pattern requires an overarching explanation: Mr. Trump's populist conservatism corroded the foundations of the Democratic Party's appeal. It tapped into many of the issues and themes that once made these voters Democrats. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/25/upshot/democrats-trump-working-class.html ↩
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Geismer, Lily (June 11, 2019). "Democrats and neoliberalism". Vox. Archived from the original on November 5, 2022. Retrieved November 5, 2022. The version of neoliberalism embedded in these policies understood a distinct role for government to stimulate market-oriented solutions to address social ills such as unemployment and poverty. It thereby aimed not to eradicate the welfare state but rather to reformulate it. It extended the importance of poverty alleviation, which had long served as a benchmark of liberal policy, and had many similarities with the basic ideas of the war on poverty."Sanders says next term is likely his last". Politico. December 10, 2024. Retrieved January 21, 2025. https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2019/6/11/18660240/democrats-neoliberalism ↩
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Cornwell, Susan (October 21, 2019). "Expanding the 'Squad:' U.S. liberals challenge moderate Democrats to move party left". Reuters. Archived from the original on November 13, 2019. Retrieved November 13, 2019. Ocasio-Cortez [...] has since become the face of the 'Squad', freshman Democrats aiming to move the party farther left on issues such as healthcare and climate change. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-democrats/expanding-the-squad-us-liberals-challenge-moderate-democrats-to-move-party-left-idUSKBN1X00ZY ↩
Elected as Vice President with the National Union Party ticket in the 1864 presidential election. Ascended to the presidency after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Rejoined the Democratic Party in 1868.McQuarrie, Michael (November 8, 2017). "The revolt of the Rust Belt: place and politics in the age of anger". The British Journal of Sociology. 68 (S1): S120 – S152. doi:10.1111/1468-4446.12328. PMID 29114874. S2CID 26010609. Today, the Democratic Party is a party of professionals, minorities and the New Economy. /wiki/National_Union_Party_(United_States) ↩
Died in office."Important Examples of Progressive Reforms". University of Michigan. Archived from the original on February 12, 2015. Retrieved April 2, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150212014328/http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~ppennock/Progressive%20Reforms.htm ↩
Died in office."Important Examples of Progressive Reforms". University of Michigan. Archived from the original on February 12, 2015. Retrieved April 2, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150212014328/http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~ppennock/Progressive%20Reforms.htm ↩
Republican Vice President Dick Cheney provided a tie-breaking vote, giving Republicans a majority until June 6, 2001, when Jim Jeffords left Republicans to join the Democratic Caucus. /wiki/Dick_Cheney ↩
Includes Independents caucusing with the Democrats."Elizabeth Warren's 11 Commandments of Progressivism". National Journal. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2014. /wiki/Independent_Democrat ↩
Includes Independents caucusing with the Democrats."Elizabeth Warren's 11 Commandments of Progressivism". National Journal. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2014. /wiki/Independent_Democrat ↩
Includes Independents caucusing with the Democrats."Elizabeth Warren's 11 Commandments of Progressivism". National Journal. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2014. /wiki/Independent_Democrat ↩
Includes Independents caucusing with the Democrats."Elizabeth Warren's 11 Commandments of Progressivism". National Journal. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2014. /wiki/Independent_Democrat ↩
Includes Independents caucusing with the Democrats."Elizabeth Warren's 11 Commandments of Progressivism". National Journal. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2014. /wiki/Independent_Democrat ↩
Includes Independents caucusing with the Democrats."Elizabeth Warren's 11 Commandments of Progressivism". National Journal. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2014. /wiki/Independent_Democrat ↩
Includes Independents caucusing with the Democrats."Elizabeth Warren's 11 Commandments of Progressivism". National Journal. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2014. /wiki/Independent_Democrat ↩
Includes Independents caucusing with the Democrats."Elizabeth Warren's 11 Commandments of Progressivism". National Journal. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2014. /wiki/Independent_Democrat ↩
Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris provided a tie-breaking vote, giving Democrats a majority throughout the 117th Congress. /wiki/Kamala_Harris ↩
Includes Independents caucusing with the Democrats."Elizabeth Warren's 11 Commandments of Progressivism". National Journal. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2014. /wiki/Independent_Democrat ↩
Includes Independents caucusing with the Democrats."Elizabeth Warren's 11 Commandments of Progressivism". National Journal. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2014. /wiki/Independent_Democrat ↩
While there was no official Democratic nominee, the majority of the Democratic electors still cast their electoral votes for incumbent Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson."State Partisan Composition," Archived July 4, 2023, at the Wayback Machine May 23, 2023, National Conference of State Legislatures. Retrieved July 4, 2023 /wiki/Richard_Mentor_Johnson ↩
Although Tilden won a majority of the popular vote, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won a majority of votes in the Electoral College."Statehouse Democrats Embrace an Unfamiliar Reality: Full Power," Archived June 5, 2023, at the Wayback Machine January 18, 2023, New York Times, retrieved July 4, 2023 /wiki/Rutherford_B._Hayes ↩
Although Cleveland won a plurality of the popular vote, Republican Benjamin Harrison won a majority of votes in the Electoral College.Cronin, Tom and Bob Loevy: "American federalism: States veer far left or far right," Archived July 4, 2023, at the Wayback Machine, July 1, 2023, updated July 2, 2023, Colorado Springs Gazette, retrieved July 4, 2023 /wiki/Plurality_(voting) ↩
Although Gore won a plurality of the popular vote, Republican George W. Bush won a majority of votes in the Electoral College.Burn-Murdoch, John (November 7, 2024). "Democrats join 2024's graveyard of incumbents". Financial Times. Retrieved November 8, 2024. /wiki/Plurality_(voting) ↩
Although Clinton won a plurality of the popular vote, Republican Donald Trump won a majority of votes in the Electoral College.Benoit, Bertrand; Luhnow, David; Monga, Vipal (December 27, 2024). "The Progressive Moment in Global Politics is Over". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 27, 2024. Weak economic growth and record immigration are driving gains by the right, especially populists. /wiki/Plurality_(voting) ↩