Realignment and macropartisanship

Aggregate party identification (macropartisanship) has exhibited substantial movement in the U.S. electorate over the last half century. We contend that a major key to that movement is rare, massive, research, which is based on time-series data that employ the classic measurement of party identification, shows that the 1980 election triggered a systematic growth of Republican identification that cut deeply into the overwhelming Democratic lead dating back to the New Deal realignment. Although short-term fluctuations in macropartisanship are responsive to the elements of everyday politics, neither presidential approval nor consumer sentiment is found responsible for the 1980 shift. Realignments aside, macropartisanship is guided by a stable, not a continuously moving, equilibrium.