Party Pursuits and The Presidential-House Election Connection, 1900-2008

Jeffrey M. Stonecash is Maxwell Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University. He is the author of Reassessing the Incumbency Effect (Cambridge University Press, 2009), Political Parties Matter: Realignment and the Return of Partisan Voting (2005), Political Polling: Strategic Information in Campaigns (2005) and The Emergence of State Government: Parties and New Jersey Politics, 1950–2000 (2002). He co-authored Counter Realignment: Political Change in the Northeast (with Howard L. Reiter, Cambridge University Press, 2011), Dynamics of American Political Parties (with Mark D. Brewer, Cambridge University Press, 2009), Split: Class and Cultural Divides in American Politics (with Mark D. Brewer, 2007) and Diverging Parties: Realignment, Social Change, and Political Polarization (with Mark D. Brewer and Mark Mariani, 2002). He is the editor of New Directions in American Political Parties (2010).

• Part I. Election Patterns and Interpretive Frameworks: 1. Disconnecting and reconnecting presidential-House election results; 2. The study of presidential-House elections; 3. Reconsidering conclusions: a critique; 4. Explaining change: the role of party pursuits; Part II. Explaining a Changing Relationship: 5. The Democratic pursuit of the North; 6. Expanding the Democratic base; 7. Republican and Democratic pursuits of new constituents; 8. The consequences of changing electoral bases; 9. Regional patterns of change; 10. Realignment and converging election results; 11. Party pursuits and American democracy; Appendix I. Presidential-House election data by House districts; Appendix II. The presidential-House relationship and uncontested House races; Appendix III. Alternative explanations of change.

'A valuable historical perspective … Stonecash demonstrates that the decline and re-emergence of the connection between presidential and U.S. House elections over the past sixty years was a product of shifts in the ideological underpinnings of the American party system - driven by party leaders. A must-read for anyone wanting to understand our current polarized party system.' Alan Abramowitz, Emory University