Sorting

Fiorina suggests that sorting can explain the increasingly polarized nature of elections and recent voting trends. I think he is on to something. Recently people have begun to really sort themselves out and the parties have recognized this sorting and adapted. Despite the recent trend, this is not the first time in U.S. history that this has happened. FDR's New Deal coalition brought rural and urban laborers together with African-Americans. Because of the poor state of the Great Depression he was able to get all of them to recognize their shared economic interests. But even prior to FDR, the country has sorted itself around common interests.

If we think back to the pre-Civil War era when the Democrats were the only truly strong party, they were popular in all parts of the nation. But eventually the sides began to even themselves out geographically. Because the Democrats were Southern in their roots, they naturally allied with the institution of slavery (while the Whigs were stronger in the North). As this issue grew hotter, northerners began to rally in their opposition to slavery. Before the Republican Party was created Southern Whigs and Northern Democrats were forced to make a decision. Were Southern Whigs going to continue to favor larger government involvement in the economy, but continue to support slavery? Or were they going to abandon their party and join the Democratic coalition. While on the other hand, northern Democrats were forced to choose to remain in their party and accept slavery (much to the chagrin of their constituents)? Or were they going to bolt the party and either join the Whigs (which were fading away) or the GOP. It culminated in 1860 when Lincoln put together a dominant northern coalition and the Confederacy supported the Democrat.

In the 1930s FDR was able win in a landslide based on broad support from urban and rural workers who coalesced based on economic issues. This coalition remained largely intact until the 1960s when southerners began to abandon the party because of Lyndon Johnson's passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Since then people have been sorting themselves out based on contemporary issues. Southerners, who have always adopted a smaller government, lower taxes ideology began to work around those and other conservative issues. On the other hand, the other two significant fragments of the Democratic Party (urban workers and African-Americans) have remained with the party.

Because of the fraction of the New Deal coalition, people with conservative ideologies have abandoned the Democratic Party in favor of the Republican Party and liberals have largely left the GOP for the Dems. Thus there has been a natural shift on behalf of both parties. Because there are fewer liberals in the Republican Party, it has naturally moved to the ideological right. The same is true for the Democratic Party. Since fewer conservatives consider themselves Democrats, the party has naturally moved to the left.

This was clearly demonstrated in 2000 and 2004. In 2000 George W. Bush received 81% of the conservative vote. In 2004 that number jumped to 84%. Not a significant increase, but still a rise. Something similar could be said about the 2008 presidential election. Barack Obama received 88% of the votes of those who consider themselves liberals. By contrast, John Kerry received 85% of the votes of liberals. So again, not a significant jump, but it was an increase nonetheless.

Another interesting way to look at sorting is by looking at the religion of the candidates. In 2000 George W. Bush received 56% of the Protestant vote. That number increased to 59% in 2004. But when those are compared to the 2008 election, which was essentially about the economy (especially after the collapse of some major investment firms in October), the number of protestants who voted Republican fell to 54%. In addition to Protestants, Catholics, who based on the church's strong stance on abortion should vote for the Republican candidate, voted for Barack Obama by a 9 point margin 54-45. That was a 7 point drop for the Republican candidate. This could be the result of many contributing factors, but one of them certainly includes them voting based on their economic interests.

The final significant "sort out" I will focus on is based on gender. In 2004 Bush made significant gains with women voters. He won 48% of their votes even though they are supposed to be strong Democrats. This trend reversed itself and sorted out in 2008. John McCain only managed to pick up 43% of the women's vote. This is a significant drop.

The trend among women to go back to voting for the Democrat in Presidential elections actually began in the 2006 Congressional Elections. That year, women voted for Congressional Democrats by similar 8 point margin. In fact Republican candidates received 43% of the vote in that election as well.

In addition to the gender shift back to the Democrats, was the ideological shift. In 2006 87% of liberals voted for Congressional Democrats. Again, that was a precursor to the 2008 election. The same can be said among religions. Protestants favored Republicans by margins similar to 2004 & 2008. But Catholics, much as they did again in 2008, came back to the Democratic Party.

The two parties have evolved out of the New Deal coalition into true ideological centers. This is demonstrated best by the distant defections of southern Democrats to the Republican Party (as a whole and at the elected level, Senator Richard Shelby for instance) and the more recent defections to the Democratic Party (primarily in the Northeast, see Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chaffee). They may be elites who are trying to get re-elected (or in Chaffee's case, elected to something different), but they would not ditch their current parties if their constituents were not evolving. One other point that makes this case is the fact that there are ZERO Republican Congressman from New England. Christopher Shays lost in the 2008 election and he was basically a RINO. So Fiorina is correct, geographically and ideologically the two parties have been and continue to sort themselves out from each other and as a result, they are becoming much more polarizing.