James A. Thurber

The New American Electorate: Partisan, Sorted, and Polarized

• The United States has entered a new era of electoral competition in the twenty-first century. • The key features of the new era of electoral competition are a closely divided electorate at the national level, one-party domination of most states and congressional districts, and a high degree of consistency in the outcomes of elections over time and across different types of elections. • These features of electoral competition reflect the growing strength of partisanship within the American electorate – party loyalty and straight-ticket voting have reached record levels in recent years. • The partisan behavior of the electorate is based on a growing divergence between the Democratic and Republican electoral coalitions along racial, cultural, and ideological lines. In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the United States has entered a new era of electoral competition. This new era of competition has three main characteristics that distinguish it from the patterns of electoral competition that were evident for half a century following the end of World War II. First, there is a close balance of support for the two major political parties at the national level, which has resulted in intense competition for control of Congress and the White House. Second, despite the close balance of support between the parties at the national level, there is widespread one-party dominance at the state and local levels. Third, there is a high degree of consistency in the outcomes of elections over time and across different types of elections. These three characteristics are closely related. All of them reflect the central underlying reality of American electoral politics in the current era: an electorate that is strongly partisan and deeply divided along racial, ideological, and cultural lines (White 2003; Hood, Kidd, and Morris 2004; Abramowitz and Saunders 2006; Brewer and Stonecash 2007; Jacobson 2007; Hillygus and Shields 2008, ch. 5; Abramowitz 2013; Jacobson 2013). COMPETITIVE ELECTIONS Recent national elections in the United States have been highly competitive. Shifts in party control of both chambers of Congress and the White House have been fairly regular, and popular vote margins in presidential elections have been relatively close. Between 1948 and 1992, shifts in party control of the White House occurred quite regularly, with party control changing in 1952, 1960, 1968, 1976, 1980, and 1992.

Congressional Budget Reform: Impact on the Appropriations Committees

The congressional budget process has undergone several major reforms in the last twenty years: the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 and 1987 (Gramm-Rudman-Hollings I and II) and the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (BEA) that have had a direct impact on the Appropriations Committees and the appropriations process. This article evaluates that impact on the decision-making capacity and power of the Appropriations Committees.

The Consequences of Budget Reform for Congressional-Presidential Relations

The struggle between Congress and the president over spending and taxing was altered significantly by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the impact of these reforms on congressional-presidential budgeting. The analysis answers two questions: What are the major budgetary reforms that have influenced congressional-presidential relations, and what have been the consequences of these changes? The article concludes that the budget reforms have strengthened the congressional role vis-à-vis the presidents role in the budget-making process. Macro-budgetary and macro economic trade-offs between Congress and the president are highlighted. In sum, the reforms have made budgeting between the president and Congress more difficult. They have increased the number of budgetary participants, made the budget process more open, forced the president to work more closely with Congress, and allowed Congress gradually to tighten control over executive spending discretion.

Party Activists, Interest Groups, and Polarization in American Politics

• Parties are more than their formal structures. They cannot be understood without attention to the role of both activists and party-aligned interest groups. • The policy preferences of activists and interest groups are both shaped by and shape the behavior of elected officials. Sometimes activists and lobbies take cues from politicians, but their actions also reinforce and contribute to polarization in important ways. • The polarization of Democrats and Republicans reflects the incorporation of new groups in party coalitions since the 1970s. Polarization is visible in many aspects of American politics, from Congress to the courts to state legislatures and even the electorate. The common thread linking all of these settings is political parties. Polarization is a party story. Yet understanding American parties is a challenging endeavor. Parties, unlike the branches of government or even the electorate, are not well-bounded entities. Individuals and groups with no formal role or place on the organization chart play important roles in parties. In this chapter, I argue that activists and interest groups are key elements of political parties. Activists and party-aligned interest groups work within parties to advance their policy goals via candidate selection and lobbying elected officials. Unlike the formal party structure and some elements closely linked to it, activists and interest groups are a force for polarization. I review delegate and donor surveys as well as trends in interest group campaign contributions revealing evidence of polarization among activists and lobbies. Elected officials’ relationships with party activists and interest groups are not one-sided. Even more than highly informed voters, activists take cues from politicians, and interest group leaders are subject to pressure from elected officials. Still, evidence suggests that activists and party-linked interest groups promote polarization. AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES: REVIVED AND POLARIZED American political parties, once seen to be in terminal decline, have been reinvigorated in recent decades. In the same period that polarization emerged, party organizations have grown far better funded and staffed (Herrnson 2013). Mann and Corrado (2014) find that in the 1976 campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC), and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) raised

A Perfect Campaign: The Role of Money, Organization, and Strategy

52.8 million,

Introduction from the Guest Editors

4.1 million, and

The Battelle Memorial Institute's Human Affairs Research Centers

3.8 million, respectively (all sums are in 2012 dollars). By 2012, the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC raised

Untangled Web: Internet Use during the 1998 Election

290.4 million,

Crowded Airwaves: Campaign Advertising in Elections

145.9 million, and

Campaigns and Elections American Style

183.8 million in 2012 dollars, respectively.