political parties in the us essay

Political Parties in the United States Essay

The two-party system in the United States has been historically dominant for a variety of reasons. Firstly, most prominent political issues in the United States, starting with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, typically had two sides to them, lending themselves to the two-party split (Harrison 281). Secondly, the two-party system has been fueled by the winner-take-all nature of the elections in the U.S., as opposed to the proportional representation system present in many other countries (Harrison 282). Thirdly, the election system has been created by the members of the two dominant parties, which makes it difficult for any third-party candidate to gain traction (Harrison 284). These can be summed up as the main reasons for the historical prevalence of the two-party system.

A certain argument can be made regarding whether there is currently a sixth-party system. The fifth-party system is said to have ended in 1968 with the election of Richard Nixon (Harrison 277). The previous party systems have been characterized by the dominance of one party over the other. In comparison, the main aspects of the post-Nixon election period are “intense party competition” and “a divided government” (Harrison 277). These distinctions could indicate that there is currently a sixth-party system.

The new developments in technology have notably shifted the political landscape in the U.S. Both parties employ big data to gather information about the attitudes of their voters in order to better potential target supporters (Harrison 291). Moreover, with the parties making an effort to communicate with the population via social media and mobile apps, the focus of political networking seems to have shifted to these new channels (Harrison 291). These are the changes in how the parties interact with their constituents.

Recent polls have shown low approval for President Joe Biden. Certain “fundamentalists” have claimed that based on these findings and other fundamentals, such as previous election results, the most likely outcome of the Congress elections would be a Democratic loss (Silver). However, despite being based on statistics, this approach has several flaws. Although certain Democrats disapprove of Biden (The Economist), it is unlikely that they would vote for Republicans in Congress (Silver). Moreover, other statistical evidence points out that “presidential approval and the race for Congress have diverged, not converged” (Silver). These are the main reasons why “fundamentalists” could be right or wrong regarding their prediction.

Works Cited

Harrison, Brigid C., et al. American Democracy Now . 6th ed., McGraw-Hill Education, 2019.

Silver, Nate. “ Biden Is Very Unpopular. It May Not Tell Us Much about the Midterms. ” FiveThirtyEight , 2022. Web.

“Why Young Democrats Disapprove of Joe Biden.” The Economist , 2022. Web.

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Political Parties: What They Are, and Why They Matter

W. David Griggs

Adjunct Professor at UNT Dallas College of Law

During an election year, the media constantly bombards us with the latest breaking news from the campaign trail.  Sometimes that news is hard to comprehend, especially if we don’t fully know the context of the issue being discussed, or if we have not been paying close attention.  Often, the news is colored by “spin,” or propaganda, from political parties or their surrogates who may have generated the news in the first place to promote their cause. If you are new to politics, or if you are just trying to stay informed, you may wonder why there is so much emphasis on political parties. 

The reason is that we have a two-party system of government in the United States and generally always have. ¹ “Control” of a legislative body, meaning a majority of members elected from a specific political party, determines leadership, and, therefore, defines the agenda.  Maintaining that “control” by winning elections is vital for the effectiveness and longevity of the party leadership in the majority. In the federal government at the presidential level, the political party of the winning candidate has enormous influence on the administration’s philosophy by influencing the appointment of executive officials, guiding administrative rule making, and in implementing public policy. Judicial appointments are also heavily influenced at all levels by political philosophy. Therefore, all three branches of government at the state and national levels are heavily dependent on the power and influence of our political parties. 

How did the present-day Democratic and Republican parties develop and become so entrenched in our political system? Why are there only two major parties? How does party structure and participation make these particular parties so dominant?  And why does it all matter? Let’s first turn back the clock to learn about how the political phenomenon of parties began and how it developed.

I. What are political parties, and how did they form in the United States?

Political parties are coalitions of like-minded people who organize to elect candidates and attempt to win control of the government in order to implement their policies. Basically, they are organizations of people who work to win elections. ²

Ironically, the U.S. Constitution does not refer to political parties. ³  Given all the controversy and political dissent over the years about party factions, the nation’s supreme law does not even mention them. The reason is likely that the founding fathers did not trust factions, another name for political parties. In fact, factions were seen as a threat to the new democratic government in James Madison’s Federalist Papers, No. 10, where he warned of “the violence of faction” and called it a “dangerous vice.” ⁴ The causes of a faction were thought to be “sown in the nature of man.” ⁵

A common thought among Federalists who pushed for ratification was that government by the masses was unstable due to factions, or conflicts among rival parties, and that the only way to deal with the causes of faction was to control their effects . ⁶  Thus, Madison and others called for ratification of the new democratic government as set forth by the Constitutional Convention in the form of a “republic,” or representative democracy, where factions of a small minority could be defeated in an election by the diverse interests of a larger population. ⁷ President George Washington warned at the end of his second term in his farewell address that Americans should avoid partisan politics due to the dangers of people who intensely advocate for their own interests over those of the majority. ⁸ Washington was a talented and greatly respected leader who was the first and probably last president to be able to circumvent the latent partisan divide. The factions were there then as they are now, and they could not be ignored for long.

II. How did our political parties develop?

Despite the warnings from two of our early presidents, political parties formed almost from the beginning, and the first two parties emerged during the first test of the Republic—the ratification of the Constitution. ⁹  The Federalists favored a strong national government and the Anti-Federalists (later known as the Jeffersonian-Republicans) favored a weaker national government, with more power reserved to the states. ¹⁰   Federalists were backed by New England merchants who supported tariffs to protect domestic production, while the Jeffersonian-Republicans favored free trade and the continued practice of slavery by the southern states. ¹¹  

The Federalist Party began to wane with the election of Jeffersonian-Republicans in the early 1800s. ¹²  By 1828 with the election of Andrew Jackson, the Jeffersonian-Republicans evolved into the Democratic Party ¹³ , known as the party that fought for the rights of common working people. Shortly thereafter, groups opposing Jackson’s party formed the Whig Party as the Democrats’ opposition. ¹⁴   The Whigs had some of the same support the Federalists had and were generally seen as their successors. ¹⁵  

The contentious issue of slavery continued to haunt the country throughout the first half of the nineteenth century and beyond. The issue delayed the Republic of Texas, formed in 1836 after independence from Mexico, from coming in as the 28th state until 1845. ¹⁶ Conflicts over slavery caused deep divisions in both rival parties until the 1850s when the Whig party dissolved. The Republican Party was formed in 1854 in Wisconsin as the next rival to the Democrats by a group of civic and community leaders who opposed slavery. ¹⁷   The newly formed Republican Party chose Abraham Lincoln of Illinois in 1860 as its first presidential nominee. ¹⁸  The Republicans won the election that year, and the Civil War began soon after. ¹⁹  

The currently named political parties emerged out of the Civil War, but the parties have had significant changes in policy positions and membership over the past 160 years. The Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson was the conservative party of that era—still supporting states’ rights and agrarian policies of the South. The Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln championed liberal voting rights for the freed slaves during and after Reconstruction and developed its base in the northern states. ²⁰

Throughout the rest of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries up until the Great Depression, the philosophical divide and voting alignment by the members of the two parties on issues remained relatively unchanged. However, Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s offered a new twist on issues for party affiliation, and Democrats began to attract minorities, labor, and liberals from the Republican base who saw the expanded federal government’s role in the New Deal politically attractive. ²¹  Progress on civil rights and voting rights reform in the 1960s continued the shift in party affiliation as the Democrats championed these liberal issues. The remaining conservatives and moderates, once the backbone of the Democratic Party, began their slow migration to the Republican Party, especially in the South. ²²  With the presidency of Barack Obama, the exodus of moderates from the Democratic Party accelerated, and after the influences of the Tea Party and the Trump presidency, the transformation of the political realignment of conservatives, especially social conservatives, to the Republican Party was complete. 

III.  Why are there only two major parties today?  Why not a third?

There have been many third-party experiments throughout our history. None have survived viability. In the nineteenth century, we had brief appearances by National Republicans, Prohibitionists, and Populists. We also had the Anti-Masonic, Liberty, Free Soil, and Greenback labor parties offer candidates. In the twentieth century, we had the most significant impact of a third party to date at the presidential level: Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Bull Moose party garnered more than 27% of the popular vote in 1912, good enough for second place, and 88 electoral votes. ²³  We also had third party efforts from the Progressive Party, the Socialist Party (again), the States’ Rights (Dixiecrats) Party, George Wallace’s American Independent Party, Ross Perot’s United We Stand and Reform Parties, the Green Party, and the Libertarian Party. ²⁴ Third parties have occasionally won electoral votes, but none have ever come close to garnering enough electoral votes to win the presidency. 

So why only two?  In our system of general election voting, the candidate who receives the highest number of votes wins regardless of whether they received a majority. ²⁵  This is not the case in some primary election contests, such as in Texas, where the state mandates a primary runoff to determine who gets a majority of the votes to be the party’s representative in the general election. ²⁶  In the United States, where a plurality of the votes wins the fall general election, studies have shown that this supports a stable two-party system. ²⁷  In contrast, parliamentary systems, popular in Europe, are generally based on a proportional representation model in multimember districts that allows each political party representation in proportion to its percentage of the total vote. ²⁸  Proportional systems often result in multiple parties being represented . ²⁹

In the 1950’s, French political scientist Maurice Duverger developed “Duverger’s Law,” which concluded that “systems in which office is awarded to a candidate who received the most votes in a single-ballot election will produce a two-party system, rather than a multi-party one.” ³⁰   This is based on a rational-choice model that assumes that voters do not want to waste their votes on candidates who stand little chance of winning. Rather than voting for a third-party candidate who might be their first choice, a voter in a “plurality, winner take all system,” like in general elections in the United States, will more likely vote for a candidate from one of the two major parties who has a realistic chance to win. ³¹ Thus, voters do not vote sincerely, but strategically. ³² This concept is still relevant today; it helps explain why Americans are so devoted to their political camps (parties) and why the two-party system perpetuates itself.

IV. Why are the two parties so entrenched as the only real political choices?

In recent years, the political divide in the country has become more pronounced. Social issues have become front and center in the debate, and various media outlets have taken opposing positions according to the values of their perceived audiences. We have become a polarized nation with two sides on almost every issue. One of the largest factors stirring the pot on this is the influence of cable television news, and, to some extent, social media. People who have strong opinions prefer to hear cable television commentators and politicians who feed those biases. The same goes for social media posts from those who espouse their views. This constant desire for electronic media to throw “red meat” to their viewers and subscribers has exacerbated a “tribe-like” obsession with the “news” outlets that cater to the philosophy of the voters. Candidates who buy in to this phenomenon only perpetuate the effect, and, unfortunately, add some credence to the propaganda by often appearing to speak for their political party. This often leads to false narratives and misinformed voters. However, the loyalty factor remains, regardless of the truth. That leads to even more entrenched political viewpoints on both sides.

An institutional reason why the two-party system is so entrenched is because legislators have chosen to make it that way. In Texas, only the Democratic and Republican parties have qualified to hold primaries in which the voters choose their nominees. The Texas Election Code dictates that only parties whose “nominee for governor in the most recent gubernatorial general election received 20% or more of the total number of votes received by all candidates for governor in the election” must be  nominated by primary election. ³³   Texas election law also allows for the candidates of smaller parties whose nominee for governor received at least 2%, but less than 20%, of the most recent vote for governor, may be  nominated by primary election. However, holding a statewide primary in 254 Texas counties is a daunting and expensive process, and a challenging endeavor. Smaller parties, often strapped for resources, opt to select their nominees by convention. ³⁴  Thus, little attention is paid to their nominating efforts, while all the TV ads, media coverage, and general voter interest is on the “two” major party primaries. 

Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court has generally been supportive of states that attempt to use reasonable means to limit access to the ballot by independent and third parties. In 1971, in Jenness v. Fortson , the Court upheld a Georgia law that required independent candidates to obtain signatures from electors equal to 5% of the number of registered voters in the district. ³⁵  In Munro v. Socialist Workers Party , the Court in 1986 upheld a Washington state law that required independent candidates to receive at least 1% of the vote in an open primary as a precondition to general election ballot access. ³⁶  The Court made it clear that states could “condition ballot access by minor-party and independent candidates upon a showing of a modicum of support among the potential voters for the office.” ³⁷

V.  How does party structure and participation perpetuate party dominance?

Party structure and participation provide a powerful mechanism to keep the two major parties in control of the political process and in fierce competition with each other. Their rules allow for the mobilization of thousands of volunteers in party conventions and grassroots activism who help motivate the party faithful and turn out the vote.

The two national parties are governed by their national committees: the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Republican National Committee (RNC). Each coordinates party activities at the national level, plans for the national conventions, and adopts the national party platform. They also provide support for candidates, especially federal candidates, and coordinate with state committees. Each committee has a chair who presides at the meetings and at the national convention and serves as national spokesperson. DNC and RNC members are mostly elected by delegates at various state party conventions. ³⁸

In Texas, the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) and the Texas Democratic Party (TDP) are governed by their state committees: the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) ³⁹  and the State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC). ⁴⁰  Those committee representatives are elected at their respective state party conventions every two years. The state convention also elects a state chair for each party who leads the conventions, presides over the state committees, and runs the party business, including fundraising and hiring the state party staff. ⁴¹  The state conventions also adopt the respective party platforms of the RPT ⁴²  and the TDP. ⁴³

State and national parties recruit candidates to run for office, help them raise money to get elected, and work to get out the vote (GOTV) for their respective races. They also provide grassroots leadership opportunities for thousands of party volunteers eager to help their parties gain and maintain power. Opportunities for elective or appointive party service include, inter alia ⁴⁴ , precinct, county and state chairs, national and state committee members, and delegates to precinct, county, district, state and national conventions. ⁴⁵ These volunteer party officials, together with thousands of campaign staff and volunteers, create an army of activists knocking on doors, making phone calls, sending texts and social media posts, all designed to motivate voters to participate in the election and vote for their party’s candidates.

VI. Why do political parties matter?

Political parties matter because without them, representative democracy as envisioned in the Constitution, would be hard to achieve. Parties provide for the voice of the people in electoral politics. What was once thought of by our founding fathers as a “dangerous vice” ⁴⁶   quickly became an essential element of our governance. Today, party politics pervades all branches of government at all levels and provides a way for citizens to get involved in government and make a difference. 

Participation in government and attempts to influence the making of public policy, however, should require both an engaged public and attentive and knowledgeable representatives. That was a goal of a “republic.” As Ben Franklin once said to the press at the end of the Constitutional Convention—you have “a republic, if you can keep it.” ⁴⁷  Have we achieved this goal after more than 235 years of experimentation? Does our representative democracy still work? Have we overcome the dangerous vice of factions that Madison and Washinton warned us about? Has the growing, divisive nature of party politics and the polarization of our two “sides,” or “factions,” made this goal harder to reach?

Stay tuned, for this journey is not complete. Political parties, however, like them or not, appear to be here to stay.

Suggested Citation: W. David Griggs, Political Parties: What They Are, and Why They Matter , ACCESSIBLE LAW, Spring 2024, at 1.

[1]  The United States has generally always had two active parties during most of our history with the exception of a short period of about 20 years in the early 1800s after 1812 when the Federalist Party dissolved. This left the Jeffersonian-Democrats, who later evolved into the Democratic Party in 1828, as the primary political party prior to the formation of its new competition, the Whig Party, in the 1830s. See Benjamin Ginsberg, Theodore J. Lowi, Margaret Weir, Caroline J. Tolbert, Andrea L. Campbell, Megan Ming Francis & Robert J. Spitzer, We the People 227–232 (W.W. Norton & Co., 14th ed. 2022).

[2]   See id .

[3]  Richard L. Hasen, Examples & Explanations for Legislation, Statutory Interpretation, and Election Law  251   (Aspen Publishing, 2nd ed. 2019).

[4]  Daniel Hays Lowenstein, Richard L. Hasan, Daniel P. Tokaji & Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Election Law: Cases and Materials  4­–7 (Carolina Acad. Press, 7th ed. 2022).

[6]   Id.  at 6.

[7]   Id.  at 5-6.

[8]  Ginsberg et al., supra note 1, at 226; see also  Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela S. Karlan, Richard H. Pildes, Nathaniel Persily & Franita Tolson, The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process  372–374 (Found. Press, 6th ed. 2022).

[9]   Creating the United States , Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating-the-united-states/formation-of-political-parties.html  (last visited Mar. 21, 2024).

[11]  Ginsberg et al., supra note 1, at pg. 228.

[12]   The Federalist and the Republican Party , PBS American Experience, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/duel-federalist-and-republican-party/  (last visited Mar. 21, 2024).

[13]  Alison Eldridge , United States presidential election of 1828, Britannica , https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1828   (last updated Feb. 20, 2024).

[14]   Whig Party , History, https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/whig-party  (last updated July 29, 2022).

[15]  Ginsberg et al., supra note 1, at 228–229.

[16]  Anthony Champagne, Edward J. Harpham, Jason P. Casellas and Jennifer Hayes Clark, Governing Texas  48–49 (W.W. Norton & Co., 6th ed. 2023).

[17]  Republican Party founded , History, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/republican-party-founded   (last updated Mar. 14, 2024).

[18]   See id.  

[19]  See Champagne et al., supra  note 16, at 229–230.

[20]  Republican Party , History, https://www.history.com/topics/us-government-and-politics/republican-party  (last updated Feb. 1, 2021).

[21]   The New Deal Realignment , Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/instructors/setups/notes/new-deal.html  (last visited Mar. 21, 2024).

[22]   Democratic Party , History, https://www.history.com/topics/us-government-and-politics/democratic-party  (last updated Jan. 20, 2021).

[23]  The Presidential Election of 1912 , Teaching American History, https://teachingamericanhistory.org/resource/election-of-1912?/  (last visited Mar. 21, 2024).

[24]  See Champagne et al., supra  note 16, at 229–230.

[25]  Roger Gibbons, Heinz Eulau, Paul David Webb, Plurality and majority systems , Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/election-political-science/Plurality-and-majority-systems  (last updated Mar. 28, 2024).

[26]  The Texas Election Code mandates that a majority vote is required for the winners of primary elections.  Therefore, a runoff primary is required if no candidate receives a majority in the general primary election. Tex. Elec. Code Ann. §§ 172.003, 172.004.

[27]  Sarah Pruitt, Why Does the US have a Two-Party System, History (Jan. 12, 2024), https://www.history.com/news/two-party-system-american-politics .

[28]   Plurality and majority systems , supra note 25.

[29]  Ginsberg et al., supra note 1, at 227.

[30]  Issacharoff et al., supra note 8, at 372–374.

[31]   Id . at 373.

[32]   Id .

[33]  Tex. Elec. Code Ann.. § 172.001.

[34]  Furthermore, the Code states that “[i]f any nominee of a party is nominated by primary election, none of that party’s nominees may be nominated that year by convention.” Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 172.002(b). This makes it hard for smaller parties to find candidates ahead of primary filing dates to qualify for the March primary ballot.  Thus, for smaller parties to have a chance to file as many candidates as possible, the smaller parties generally have conventions scheduled just in time to get their nominees on the fall general election ballot.

[35]  Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U.S. 431, 442 (1971).

[36]  Munro v. Socialist Workers Party, 479 U.S. 189, 196–97 (1986).  

[37]  Id . at 193.

[38]   See Call of the 2024 Republican National Convention , The Republican National Committee, 4–5 (2023), https://www.gop.com/rules-and-resolutions/ ; s ee generally Who We Are , Democratic National Committee, https://democrats.org/who-we-are/  (last visited Mar. 21, 2024).

[39] General Rules for All Conventions and Meetings , The Republican Party of Texas, https://texasgop.org/rules/  (last visited Mar. 20, 2024).

[40]  Texas Democratic Party Rules , Texas Democrats, https://www.texasdemocrats.org/party-rules  (last updated Feb. 15, 2024).

[41]   See id. ; see General Rules for All Conventions and Meetings , supra  note 39.

[42]  Platform and Resolutions as Amended and Adopted by the 2022 State Convention of the Republican Party of Texas , The Republican Party of Texas, https://texasgop.org/platform/  (last visited Mar. 20, 2024).

[43]  Texas Democratic Party 2022–2024 Platform , Texas Democrats (Aug. 6, 2022), https://www.texasdemocrats.org/platform .

[44]  Inter alia means “among other things.” Inter alia , Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).

[45]  Champagne et al., supra  note 16, at 48–49.

[46]  Lowenstein et al.,  supra  note 4, at 4.

[47]  September 17, 1787: A Republic, If You Can Keep It , National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/constitutionalconvention-september17.htm  (last visited Mar. 20, 2024).

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10.1 History of American Political Parties

Learning objectives.

After reading this section, you should be able to answer the following questions:

• What is a political party?
• What were James Madison’s fears about political factions?
• How did American political parties develop?
• How did political machines function?

Political parties are enduring organizations under whose labels candidates seek and hold elective offices (Epstein, 1986). Parties develop and implement rules governing elections. They help organize government leadership (Key Jr., 1964). Political parties have been likened to public utilities, such as water and power companies, because they provide vital services for a democracy.

The endurance and adaptability of American political parties is best understood by examining their colorful historical development. Parties evolved from factions in the eighteenth century to political machines in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, parties underwent waves of reform that some argue initiated a period of decline. The renewed parties of today are service-oriented organizations dispensing assistance and resources to candidates and politicians (Aldrich, 1995; Eldersveld & Walton Jr., 2000).

The Development of Political Parties

A timeline of the development of political parties can be accessed at http://www.edgate.com/elections/inactive/the_parties .

Fear of Faction

The founders of the Constitution were fearful of the rise of factions, groups in society that organize to advance a political agenda. They designed a government of checks and balances that would prevent any one group from becoming too influential. James Madison famously warned in Federalist No. 10 of the “mischiefs of faction,” particularly a large majority that could seize control of government (Publius, 2001). The suspicion of parties persisted among political leaders for more than a half century after the founding. President James Monroe opined in 1822, “Surely our government may go on and prosper without the existence of parties. I have always considered their existence as the curse of the country” (Hofstadter, 1969).

Figure 10.1

<<a href="/app/uploads/sites/193/2016/10/533c8686f8d280ce42699201aeb7f938.jpg">img src=”https://open.lib.umn.edu/app/uploads/sites/193/2016/10/533c8686f8d280ce42699201aeb7f938.jpg” width=”300″ alt=”A newspaper cartoon depicting conflicts that arose between the Federalists and Republicans, who sought to control the government.”/>

Newspaper cartoons depicted conflicts that arose between the Federalists and Republicans, who sought to control government.

Source: http://www.vermonthistory.org/freedom_and_unity/new_frontier/images/cartoon.gif .

Despite the ambiguous feelings expressed by the founders, the first modern political party, the Federalists, appeared in the United States in 1789, more than three decades before parties developed in Great Britain and other western nations (Chambers & Burnham, 1975). Since 1798, the United States has only experienced one brief period without national parties, from 1816 to 1827, when infighting following the War of 1812 tore apart the Federalists and the Republicans (Chambers, 1963).

Parties as Factions

The first American party system had its origins in the period following the Revolutionary War. Despite Madison’s warning in Federalist No. 10, the first parties began as political factions. Upon taking office in 1789, President George Washington sought to create an “enlightened administration” devoid of political parties (White & Shea, 2000). He appointed two political adversaries to his cabinet, Alexander Hamilton as treasury secretary and Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state, hoping that the two great minds could work together in the national interest. Washington’s vision of a government without parties, however, was short-lived.

Hamilton and Jefferson differed radically in their approaches to rectifying the economic crisis that threatened the new nation (Charles, 1956). Hamilton proposed a series of measures, including a controversial tax on whiskey and the establishment of a national bank. He aimed to have the federal government assume the entire burden of the debts incurred by the states during the Revolutionary War. Jefferson, a Virginian who sided with local farmers, fought this proposition. He believed that moneyed business interests in the New England states stood to benefit from Hamilton’s plan. Hamilton assembled a group of powerful supporters to promote his plan, a group that eventually became the Federalist Party (Hofstadter, 1969).

The Federalists and the Republicans

The Federalist Party originated at the national level but soon extended to the states, counties, and towns. Hamilton used business and military connections to build the party at the grassroots level, primarily in the Northeast. Because voting rights had been expanded during the Revolutionary War, the Federalists sought to attract voters to their party. They used their newfound organization for propagandizing and campaigning for candidates. They established several big-city newspapers to promote their cause, including the Gazette of the United States , the Columbian Centinel , and the American Minerva , which were supplemented by broadsheets in smaller locales. This partisan press initiated one of the key functions of political parties—articulating positions on issues and influencing public opinion (Chambers, 1963).

Figure 10.2 The Whiskey Rebellion

Farmers protested against a tax on whiskey imposed by the federal government. President George Washington established the power of the federal government to suppress rebellions by sending the militia to stop the uprising in western Pennsylvania. Washington himself led the troops to establish his presidential authority.

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WhiskeyRebellion.jpg .

Disillusioned with Washington’s administration, especially its foreign policy, Jefferson left the cabinet in 1794. Jefferson urged his friend James Madison to take on Hamilton in the press, stating, “For God’s sake, my Dear Sir, take up your pen, select your most striking heresies, and cut him to pieces in the face of the public” (Chambers, 1963). Madison did just that under the pen name of Helvidius. His writings helped fuel an anti-Federalist opposition movement, which provided the foundation for the Republican Party. This early Republican Party differs from the present-day party of the same name. Opposition newspapers, the National Gazette and the Aurora , communicated the Republicans’ views and actions, and inspired local groups and leaders to align themselves with the emerging party (Chambers, 1963). The Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, staged by farmers angered by Hamilton’s tax on whiskey, reignited the founders’ fears that violent factions could overthrow the government (Schudson, 1998).

First Parties in a Presidential Election

Political parties were first evident in presidential elections in 1796, when Federalist John Adams was barely victorious over Republican Thomas Jefferson. During the election of 1800, Republican and Federalist members of Congress met formally to nominate presidential candidates, a practice that was a precursor to the nominating conventions used today. As the head of state and leader of the Republicans, Jefferson established the American tradition of political parties as grassroots organizations that band together smaller groups representing various interests, run slates of candidates for office, and present issue platforms (White & Shea, 2000).

The early Federalist and Republican parties consisted largely of political officeholders. The Federalists not only lacked a mass membership base but also were unable to expand their reach beyond the monied classes. As a result, the Federalists ceased to be a force after the 1816 presidential election, when they received few votes. The Republican Party, bolstered by successful presidential candidates Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, was the sole surviving national party by 1820. Infighting soon caused the Republicans to cleave into warring factions: the National Republicans and the Democratic-Republicans (Formisano, 1981).

Establishment of a Party System

A true political party system with two durable institutions associated with specific ideological positions and plans for running the government did not begin to develop until 1828. The Democratic-Republicans, which became the Democratic Party, elected their presidential candidate, Andrew Jackson. The Whig Party, an offshoot of the National Republicans, formed in opposition to the Democrats in 1834 (Holt, 2003).

The era of Jacksonian Democracy , which lasted until the outbreak of the Civil War, featured the rise of mass-based party politics. Both parties initiated the practice of grassroots campaigning, including door-to-door canvassing of voters and party-sponsored picnics and rallies. Citizens voted in record numbers, with turnouts as high as 96 percent in some states (Holt, 2003). Campaign buttons publically displaying partisan affiliation came into vogue. The spoils system , also known as patronage, where voters’ party loyalty was rewarded with jobs and favors dispensed by party elites, originated during this era.

The two-party system consisting of the Democrats and Republicans was in place by 1860. The Whig Party had disintegrated as a result of internal conflicts over patronage and disputes over the issue of slavery. The Democratic Party, while divided over slavery, remained basically intact (Holt, 2003). The Republican Party was formed in 1854 during a gathering of former Whigs, disillusioned Democrats, and members of the Free-Soil Party, a minor antislavery party. The Republicans came to prominence with the election of Abraham Lincoln.

Figure 10.3 Thomas Nast Cartoon of the Republican Elephant

The donkey and the elephant have been symbols of the two major parties since cartoonist Thomas Nast popularized these images in the 1860s.

Source: Photo courtesy of Harper’s Weekly , http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NastRepublicanElephant.jpg .

Parties as Machines

Parties were especially powerful in the post–Civil War period through the Great Depression, when more than 15 million people immigrated to the United States from Europe, many of whom resided in urban areas. Party machines , cohesive, authoritarian command structures headed by bosses who exacted loyalty and services from underlings in return for jobs and favors, dominated political life in cities. Machines helped immigrants obtain jobs, learn the laws of the land, gain citizenship, and take part in politics.

Machine politics was not based on ideology, but on loyalty and group identity. The Curley machine in Boston was made up largely of Irish constituents who sought to elect their own (White & Shea, 2000). Machines also brought different groups together. The tradition of parties as ideologically ambiguous umbrella organizations stems from Chicago-style machines that were run by the Daley family. The Chicago machine was described as a “hydra-headed monster” that “encompasses elements of every major political, economic, racial, ethnic, governmental, and paramilitary power group in the city” (Rakove, 1975). The idea of a “balanced ticket” consisting of representatives of different groups developed during the machine-politics era (Pomper, 1992).

Because party machines controlled the government, they were able to sponsor public works programs, such as roads, sewers, and construction projects, as well as social welfare initiatives, which endeared them to their followers. The ability of party bosses to organize voters made them a force to be reckoned with, even as their tactics were questionable and corruption was rampant (Riechley, 1992). Bosses such as William Tweed in New York were larger-than-life figures who used their powerful positions for personal gain. Tammany Hall boss George Washington Plunkitt describes what he called “honest graft”:

My party’s in power in the city, and its goin’ to undertake a lot of public improvements. Well, I’m tipped off, say, that they’re going to lay out a new park at a certain place. I see my opportunity and I take it. I go to that place and I buy up all the land I can in the neighborhood. Then the board of this or that makes the plan public, and there is a rush to get my land, which nobody cared particular for before. Ain’t it perfectly honest to charge a good price and make a profit on my investment and foresight? Of course, it is. Well, that’s honest graft (Riordon, 1994).

Enduring Image

Boss Tweed Meets His Match

The lasting image of the political party boss as a corrupt and greedy fat cat was the product of a relentless campaign by American political cartoonist Thomas Nast in Harper’s Weekly from 1868 to 1871. Nast’s target was William “Boss” Tweed, leader of the New York Tammany Hall party machine, who controlled the local Democratic Party for nearly a decade.

Nast established the political cartoon as a powerful force in shaping public opinion and the press as a mechanism for “throwing the rascals” out of government. His cartoons ingrained themselves in American memories because they were among the rare printed images available to a wide audience in a period when photographs had not yet appeared in newspapers or magazines, and when literacy rates were much lower than today. Nast’s skill at capturing political messages in pictures presented a legacy not just for today’s cartoonists but for photographers and television journalists. His skill also led to the undoing of Boss Tweed.

Tweed and his gang of New York City politicians gained control of the local Democratic Party by utilizing the Society of Tammany (Tammany Hall), a fraternal organization, as a base. Through an extensive system of patronage whereby the city’s growing Irish immigrant population was assured employment in return for votes, the Tweed Ring was able to influence the outcome of elections and profit personally from contracts with the city. Tweed controlled all New York state and city Democratic Party nominations from 1860 to 1870. He used illegal means to force the election of a governor, a mayor, and the speaker of the assembly.

The New York Times , Harper’s Weekly , reform groups, and disgruntled Democrats campaigned vigorously against Tweed and his cronies in editorials and opinion pieces, but none was as successful as Nast’s cartoons in conveying the corrupt and greedy nature of the regime. Tweed reacted to Nast’s cartoon, “Who Stole the People’s Money,” by demanding of his supporters, “Stop them damned pictures. I don’t care what the papers write about me. My constituents can’t read. But, damn it, they can see pictures” (Kandall, 2011).

“Who Stole the People’s Money.” Thomas Nast’s cartoon, “Who Stole the People’s Money,” implicating the Tweed Ring appeared in Harper’s Weekly on August 19, 1871.

Source: Photo courtesy of Harper’s Weekly , http://www.harpweek.com/09cartoon/BrowseByDateCartoon-Large.asp?Month=August&Date=19 .

The Tweed Ring was voted out in 1871, and Tweed was ultimately jailed for corruption. He escaped and was arrested in Spain by a customs official who didn’t read English, but who recognized him from the Harper’s Weekly political cartoons. He died in jail in New York.

Parties Reformed

Not everyone benefited from political machines. There were some problems that machines either could not or would not deal with. Industrialization and the rise of corporate giants created great disparities in wealth. Dangerous working conditions existed in urban factories and rural coal mines. Farmers faced falling prices for their products. Reformers blamed these conditions on party corruption and inefficiency. They alleged that party bosses were diverting funds that should be used to improve social conditions into their own pockets and keeping their incompetent friends in positions of power.

The Progressive Era

The mugwumps, reformers who declared their independence from political parties, banded together in the 1880s and provided the foundation for the Progressive Movement . The Progressives initiated reforms that lessened the parties’ hold over the electoral system. Voters had been required to cast color-coded ballots provided by the parties, which meant that their vote choice was not confidential. The Progressives succeeded by 1896 in having most states implement the secret ballot. The secret ballot is issued by the state and lists all parties and candidates. This system allows people to split their ticket when voting rather than requiring them to vote the party line. The Progressives also hoped to lessen machines’ control over the candidate selection process. They advocated a system of direct primary elections in which the public could participate rather than caucuses , or meetings of party elites. The direct primary had been instituted in only a small number of states, such as Wisconsin, by the early years of the twentieth century. The widespread use of direct primaries to select presidential candidates did not occur until the 1970s.

The Progressives sought to end party machine dominance by eliminating the patronage system. Instead, employment would be awarded on the basis of qualifications rather than party loyalty. The merit system, now called the civil service , was instituted in 1883 with the passage of the Pendleton Act. The merit system wounded political machines, although it did not eliminate them (Merriam & Gosnell, 1922).

Progressive reformers ran for president under party labels. Former president Theodore Roosevelt split from the Republicans and ran as the Bull Moose Party candidate in 1912, and Robert LaFollette ran as the Progressive Party candidate in 1924. Republican William Howard Taft defeated Roosevelt, and LaFollette lost to Republican Calvin Coolidge.

Figure 10.4 Progressive Reformers Political Cartoon

The Progressive Reformers’ goal of more open and representative parties resonate today.

Source: Photo courtesy of E W Kemble, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Theodore_Roosevelt_Progressive_Party_Cartoon,_1912_copy.jpg .

New Deal and Cold War Eras

Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal program for leading the United States out of the Great Depression in the 1930s had dramatic effects on political parties. The New Deal placed the federal government in the pivotal role of ensuring the economic welfare of citizens. Both major political parties recognized the importance of being close to the power center of government and established national headquarters in Washington, DC.

An era of executive-centered government also began in the 1930s, as the power of the president was expanded. Roosevelt became the symbolic leader of the Democratic Party (Riechley, 1992). Locating parties’ control centers in the national capital eventually weakened them organizationally, as the basis of their support was at the local grassroots level. National party leaders began to lose touch with their local affiliates and constituents. Executive-centered government weakened parties’ ability to control the policy agenda (White & Shea, 2000).

The Cold War period that began in the late 1940s was marked by concerns over the United States’ relations with Communist countries, especially the Soviet Union. Following in the footsteps of the extremely popular president Franklin Roosevelt, presidential candidates began to advertise their independence from parties and emphasized their own issue agendas even as they ran for office under the Democratic and Republican labels. Presidents, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, won elections based on personal, rather than partisan, appeals (Caeser, 1979).

Candidate-Centered Politics

Political parties instituted a series of reforms beginning in the late 1960s amid concerns that party elites were not responsive to the public and operated secretively in so-called smoke-filled rooms. The Democrats were the first to act, forming the McGovern-Fraser Commission to revamp the presidential nominating system. The commission’s reforms, adopted in 1972, allowed more average voters to serve as delegates to the national party nominating convention , where the presidential candidate is chosen. The result was that many state Democratic parties switched from caucuses, where convention delegates are selected primarily by party leaders, to primary elections, which make it easier for the public to take part. The Republican Party soon followed with its own reforms that resulted in states adopting primaries (Crotty, 1984).

Figure 10.5 Jimmy Carter Campaigning in the 1980 Presidential Campaign

Democrat Jimmy Carter, a little-known Georgia governor and party outsider, was one of the first presidential candidates to run a successful campaign by appealing to voters directly through the media. After Carter’s victory, candidate-centered presidential campaigns became the norm.

Source: Used with permission from AP Photo/Wilson.

The unintended consequence of reform was to diminish the influence of political parties in the electoral process and to promote the candidate-centered politics that exists today. Candidates build personal campaign organizations rather than rely on party support. The media have contributed to the rise of candidate-centered politics. Candidates can appeal directly to the public through television rather than working their way through the party apparatus when running for election (Owen, 1991). Candidates use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to connect with voters. Campaign professionals and media consultants assume many of the responsibilities previously held by parties, such as developing election strategies and getting voters to the polls.

Key Takeaways

Political parties are enduring organizations that run candidates for office. American parties developed quickly in the early years of the republic despite concerns about factions expressed by the founders. A true, enduring party system developed in 1828. The two-party system of Democrats and Republicans was in place before the election of President Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

Party machines became powerful in the period following the Civil War when an influx of immigrants brought new constituents to the country. The Progressive Movement initiated reforms that fundamentally changed party operations. Party organizations were weakened during the period of executive-centered government that began during the New Deal.

Reforms of the party nominating system resulted in the rise of candidate-centered politics beginning in the 1970s. The media contributes to candidate-centered politics by allowing candidates to take their message to the public directly without the intervention of parties.

• What did James Madison mean by “the mischiefs of faction?” What is a faction? What are the dangers of factions in politics?
• What role do political parties play in the US political system? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the party system?
• How do contemporary political parties differ from parties during the era of machine politics? Why did they begin to change?

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Caeser, J. W., Presidential Selection (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979).

Chambers, W. N., Political Parties in a New Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963).

Chambers, W. N. and Walter Dean Burnham, The American Party Systems (New York, Oxford University Press, 1975).

Charles, J., The Origins of the American Party System (New York: Harper & Row, 1956).

Crotty, W., American Parties in Decline (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984).

Eldersveld, S. J. and Hanes Walton Jr., Political Parties in American Society , 2nd ed. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000).

Epstein, L. D., Political Parties in the American Mold (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), 3.

Formisano, R. P., “Federalists and Republicans: Parties, Yes—System, No,” in The Evolution of the American Electoral Systems , ed. Paul Kleppner, Walter Dean Burnham, Ronald P. Formisano, Samuel P. Hays, Richard Jensen, and William G. Shade (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981), 37–76.

Hofstadter, R., The Idea of a Party System (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 200.

Holt, M. F., The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).

Kandall, J., “Boss,” Smithsonian Magazine , February 2002, accessed March 23, 2011, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/boss.html .

Key Jr., V. O., Politics, Parties, & Pressure Groups , 5th ed. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1964).

Merriam, C. and Harold F. Gosnell, The American Party System (New York: MacMillan, 1922).

Owen, D., Media Messages in American Presidential Elections (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991).

Pomper, G. M., Passions and Interests (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992).

Publius (James Madison), “The Federalist No. 10,” in The Federalist , ed. Robert Scigliano (New York: The Modern Library Classics, 2001), 53–61.

Rakove, M., Don’t Make No Waves, Don’t Back No Losers: An Insider’s Analysis of the Daley Machine (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), 3.

Riechley, A. J., The Life of the Parties (New York: Free Press, 1992).

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American Government and Politics in the Information Age Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Essay: Political Parties

From the Founding to the present, Americans have always expressed a distrust of political parties. Hardly a day passes without someone’s—the president, a Senator, a Representative—attacking politics in Washington for the spirit of partisanship. If only elected officials, they sigh, would set aside their parochial, partisan interests, Washington could get down to the important business of doing what is best for America. For instance, in 2011 President Barack Obama said that Washington D.C. suffered from the “worst kind of partisanship, the worst kind of gridlock.” Of course President Obama and others make these complaints as members and leaders of their own parties. This complaint assumes that parties are powerful forces exercising immense influence over the behavior of those we elect to govern on our behalf. The reality is somewhat different. Complaining about partisanship is always good politics, but it is not clear that parties are as powerful as we think they are or that we could or would want to live in a world without political parties.

The Founders, as many complaints about partisanship point out, hoped for a nonpartisan system where candidates would be elected based on their individual merit.

Parties, the Founders feared, would either try to undermine the Constitution or foment unnecessary political animosities by “agitating in the community.” Parties could undermine presidential and congressional functions. A president might sacrifice his independent judgment to appease his party. And congressional deliberation could be undermined by representatives voting based on a party platform rather than the public good.

Despite these misgivings, party competition developed early in America. In George Washington’s own presidency, party competition developed between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. In fact even as he decried the “baneful spirit of party” Washington was lending his support to the Federalist Party. With Jefferson’s victory in 1800 the Federalist Party declined and became largely ineffectual after 1816 which led to a nonpartisan period known as the “Era of Good Feelings” (1817-1824). This superficial political comity masked problems that the election of 1824 exposed. Without parties nominating candidates, four major contenders, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay, sought the presidency, but none could win a majority in the Electoral College. Adams received 84 votes, Jackson 99, Crawford 41, and Clay 37. This sent the election to the House of Representatives since the Constitution mandates that when no one receives a majority of votes in the Electoral College the House selects the president with each state delegation receiving one vote. After going to the House, John Quincy Adams “won”—only to be accused of making a corrupt bargain by Andrew Jackson.

The constitutional dangers exposed by that election led Martin Van Buren to propose an argument for a two-party system which changed America’s attitude towards parties and led to the establishment of permanent two-party competition. Van Buren argued that our constitutional system actually required party competition in order to function effectively and fulfill the aims of the founders. With two-party competition elections would not be decided by the House since one candidate would always win a majority in the Electoral College. Having a winner decided by the Electoral College would in turn ameliorate concerns about the legitimacy of the election and therefore the legitimacy of the president. Parties would also help control political ambition. In a non-partisan system, demagogues would have an advantage over statesmen. The Founders hoped to prevent practitioners of the low and “vicious arts” of politics, even though they could be vicious themselves, from being elected. Without political parties regulating nominations it paid to practice those vicious arts. Van Buren argued that fulfilling the Founders’ vision required parties to serve as a mediating institution to limit the effect of demagogic appeals.

Political parties also perform an educational function. It is impossible to expect to know how every candidate stands on every issue. When parties are organized around distinct governing philosophies, voters can get a general sense of candidates’ positions based on their partisan affiliation. And out of self-interest and concern for the common good political parties try to convince voters to support their candidates. To do that they must give voters information about why their agenda is better than the opposing party’s.  As a result, voters become better informed.

Parties thus inject intelligence into the voting process. This educational function is so important that some political scientists question whether mass democracy could function without political parties.

One very important controversial feature of party competition in the United States is that it has always been two-party competition. In fact, since the 1850s it has been the same two parties, the Democratic party and Republican party. Other western industrialized democracies typically have multi-party competition. Some critics, often disappointed third-party candidates such as Ralph Nader, have argued that the two major parties have conspired to prevent third parties from winning. The reality is not so dramatic.

The American system simply lends itself to two-party competition because of single-member districts and “first-past-the-post” elections. This means only one-person wins House and Senate races and that person is the one who receives the most votes.

A third-party candidate could receive twenty percent of the vote but would win zero percent of the power. This creates powerful incentives for candidates to seek election through one the two major competitive parties. In contrast, in parliamentary systems seats are allocated based on the proportion of votes a party receives. If a party receives twenty percent of the vote, it will receive approximately twenty percent of the seats in parliament. This allows third parties to potentially wield substantial power. Often no party receives a majority of the vote and forming a government requires creating a coalition among parties. Minor parties could be crucial for forming a majority coalition, which would allow them to extract significant concessions and cabinet positions.

In the United States, the major political parties have an incentive to reach out to third-party voters. Historically when third parties have formed and received substantial support, both major parties have attempted to draw their voters. But that is not a conspiracy; it is just self-interest. American parties, compared to parties in parliamentary systems, are diffuse and less ideologically pure.  Historically American parties have been “big tents” which have included a variety of factions and ideological interests. Thus they have been willing to bring more groups into their fold. Ross Perot’s Reform Party attracted a large number of voters in the 1996. Both parties made overtures to those voters and by the 2000 election the Reform Party ceased to be a serious force.  Subsequent research showed that most of the party’s voters moved to the Republican party.

One area of American political life that sometimes seems free of party competition is local politics.

As the result of early twentieth-century progressive reform movements many local jurisdictions made their elections officially non-partisan. Of course, it is often quite easy to identify the partisan leanings of candidates even when their party identification is not listed on the ballot. More fundamentally, local issues sometimes cut across or even bypass partisan and ideological lines. Basic quality of life issues such as law enforcement, education, transportation, and sanitation that are often the focus of local policymaking do not always seem to lend themselves to partisanship. Where to put a new sanitation treatment facility, for instance, is not necessarily an issue that one could expect guidance from in a national party platform. That does not mean that local politics is free of rancor. It can be just as contentious as state and national political politics, but the contentiousness is not traceable to parties.

Political parties have seen their power decline over the course of the twentieth century.  Changes to the nomination system and campaign finance regulations have made it increasingly difficult for parties to control their message. Moving from a convention to a primary based nomination system opened up the process to self-selected candidates.  That allowed insurgent candidates outside a party’s mainstream to secure nomination and were, thus, less beholden to their political party when in power. Now candidates often completely bypass their party and form their own independent campaign organizations when running for president. Campaign finance regulations also made it more difficult for parties to raise money. This undermined their ability to engage in party-building activities and to support their candidates. The effect here has actually been to strengthen interest groups at the expense of parties. Since donors are limited in how much they can donate to parties, they have created independent groups to support candidates and issues. MoveOn on the left and American Crossroads on the right are two of the more significant organizations that have formed in response to these restrictions.

While returning to the system prior to political primaries and campaign-finance reform is not possible, it is worth considering how political parties have helped our system to function and how that role could be strengthened.

Political parties historically helped forge ties across institutions and levels of government while not undermining separation of powers and federalism. Parties then allowed for cooperation and coordination. With the decline of parties our institutions have become even more divided leading to even more complaints about gridlock, which allegedly is caused by rampant partisanship. Thus while politicians decry partisanship, the measures they take to weaken parties actually exacerbates the problems they claim are caused by partisanship. Returning some control to parties over nominating candidates and funding campaigns could very well have salutary effects.

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From the Founding to the present, Americans have always expressed a distrust of political parties. Hardly a day passes without someone’s—the president, a Senator, a Representative—attacking politics in Washington for the spirit of partisanship.

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• Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology

Even in a polarized era, deep divisions in both partisan coalitions

Table of contents.

• 1. The Republican coalition
• 2. The Democratic coalition
• 3. Faith and Flag Conservatives
• 4. Committed Conservatives
• 5. Populist Right
• 6. Ambivalent Right
• 7. Stressed Sideliners
• 8. Outsider Left
• 9. Democratic Mainstays
• 10. Establishment Liberals
• 11. Progressive Left
• 12. Political engagement among typology groups
• 13. How the political typology groups view major issues
• 14. Demographics and lifestyle differences among typology groups
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix A: Survey methodology
• Appendix B: Typology group creation and analysis

Pew Research Center conducted this study to learn more about the complexity of the current political environment. While partisanship remains the dominant factor in politics, we sought to identify the fissures within both partisan coalitions. We did this by creating a political typology, which classifies the public into nine distinct groups based on their political values and attitudes. To learn more about the political typology, including its history and the statistical methods used to create the typology, see “ Behind Pew Research Center’s 2021 Political Typology .”

The study is primarily based on a survey of 10,221 adults conducted on Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel (ATP) from July 8-18, 2021; it also draws from several additional interviews with these respondents conducted since January 2020 (for more on the surveys used for analysis, see Appendix B and the detailed tables .

Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the ATP, an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used in the main typology survey , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

Partisan polarization remains the dominant, seemingly unalterable condition of American politics. Republicans and Democrats agree on very little – and when they do, it often is in the shared belief that they have little in common .

Yet the gulf that separates Republicans and Democrats sometimes obscures the divisions and diversity of views that exist within both partisan coalitions – and the fact that many Americans do not fit easily into either one.

Republicans are divided on some principles long associated with the GOP: an affinity for businesses and corporations, support for low taxes and opposition to abortion. Democrats face substantial internal differences as well – some that are long-standing, such as on the importance of religion in society, others more recent. For example, while Democrats widely share the goal of combating racial inequality in the United States, they differ on whether systemic change is required to achieve that goal.

These intraparty disagreements present multiple challenges for both parties: They complicate the already difficult task of governing in a divided nation. In addition, to succeed politically, the parties must maintain the loyalty of highly politically engaged, more ideological voters, while also attracting support among less engaged voters – many of them younger – with weaker partisan ties.

Pew Research Center’s new political typology provides a road map to today’s fractured political landscape. It segments the public into nine distinct groups, based on an analysis of their attitudes and values. The study is primarily based on a survey of 10,221 adults conducted July 8-18, 2021; it also draws from several additional interviews with these respondents conducted since January 2020.

This is the Center’s eighth political typology since 1987 , but it differs from earlier such studies in several important ways. It is the first typology conducted on Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel , which provides the benefit of a large sample size and the ability to include a wealth of other political data for the analysis, including the Center’s validated voter study .

The four Democratic-oriented typology groups highlight the party’s racial and ethnic diversity, as well as the unwieldy nature of the current Democratic coalition. ( For complete descriptions of all nine typology groups see Chapters 3-11 ; for profiles of the Democratic and Republican coalitions see Chapters 1 and 2 of this report.)

They include two very different groups of liberal Democrats: Progressive Left and Establishment Liberals . Progressive Left, the only majority White, non-Hispanic group of Democrats, have very liberal views on virtually every issue and support far-reaching changes to address racial injustice and expand the social safety net. Establishment Liberals, while just as liberal in many ways as Progressive Left, are far less persuaded of the need for sweeping change.

Two other Democratic-aligned groups could not be more different from each other, both demographically and in their relationship to the party. Democratic Mainstays , the largest Democratic-oriented group, as well as the oldest on average, are unshakeable Democratic loyalists and have a moderate tilt on some issues. Outsider Left , the youngest typology group, voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden a year ago and are very liberal in most of their views, but they are deeply frustrated with the political system – including the Democratic Party and its leaders.

The four Republican-oriented groups include three groups of conservatives: Faith and Flag Conservatives are intensely conservative in all realms; they are far more likely than all other typology groups to say government policies should support religious values and that compromise in politics is just “selling out on what you believe in.” Committed Conservatives also express conservative views across the board, but with a somewhat softer edge, particularly on issues of immigration and America’s place in the world. Populist Right , who have less formal education than most other typology groups and are among the most likely to live in rural areas, are highly critical of both immigrants and major U.S. corporations.

Ambivalent Right , the youngest and least conservative GOP-aligned group, hold conservative views about the size of government, the economic system and issues of race and gender. But they are the only group on the political right in which majorities favor legal abortion and say marijuana should be legal for recreational and medical use. They are also distinct in their views about Donald Trump – while a majority voted for him in 2020, most say they would prefer he not continue to be a major political figure.

The only typology group without a clear partisan orientation – Stressed Sideliners – also is the group with the lowest level of political engagement. Stressed Sideliners, who make up 15% of the public but constituted just 10% of voters in 2020, have a mix of conservative and liberal views but are largely defined by their minimal interest in politics.

Here are the main findings from the new political typology:

Racial injustice remains a dividing line in U.S. politics. Perhaps no issue is more divisive than racial injustice in the U.S. Among the four Republican-oriented typology groups, no more than about a quarter say a lot more needs to be done to ensure equal rights for all Americans regardless of their racial or ethnic background; by comparison, no fewer than about three-quarters of any Democratic group say a lot more needs to be done to achieve this goal. However, Democrats differ over whether the changes to ensure equal rights for all can be achieved by working within the current system, or whether most laws and institutions need to be completely rebuilt. Progressive Left and Outsider Left are far more likely than the two other Democratic groups to say systemic change is needed to combat racial bias.

Democrats prefer bigger government – but how big? There are much bigger divides between parties than within them on opinions about the size of government. Democratic-aligned groups overwhelmingly prefer a bigger government providing more services; GOP groups, by similar margins, favor smaller government. But when asked if government services should be greatly expanded from current levels, Democrats are divided: A clear majority of Progressive Left (63%) favor greatly expanding government services, compared with about a third in other Democratic-oriented groups.

Economic policy – including taxes – divides the GOP. As noted, Populist Right diverge sharply from traditional GOP positions with their very negative views of corporations; just 17% say most corporations make a fair profit, which places this conservative group much closer to Democratic groups than to their Republican counterparts. And a majority of Populist Right (56%) favor raising taxes on household incomes above $400,000, as do 42% of Ambivalent Right (and substantial majorities in all Democratic-aligned groups).

Republicans’ complicated views of Trump. The Republican-oriented typology groups each supported Trump by wide margins in 2020. Yet the survey shows substantial differences among GOP groups over Trump’s future political role. In two of the four groups – Faith and Flag Conservatives and Populist Right – majorities want Trump to remain a major political figure and run for president again in 2024 . And only among Populist Right does a clear plurality view Trump as the best president of the past 40 years. Among other Republican-aligned groups, more either view Ronald Reagan as the best recent president (Committed Conservatives, Ambivalent Right), or are divided between Reagan and Trump (Faith and Flag Conservatives).

Stark differences among typology groups on U.S. global standing. When asked whether the U.S. is superior to all other countries, it is among the greatest countries, or there are other countries that are better, there is relative agreement across six of nine typology groups: About half or more in this very ideologically mixed set of groups – including Establishment Liberals and Populist Right – say the U.S. is among the greatest countries in the world. Faith and Flag Conservatives are the only group in which a majority (69%) says the U.S. stands above all other countries. Conversely, Progressive Left (75%) and Outsider Left (63%) are the only typology groups in which majorities say there are other countries better than the U.S.

Is there a ‘middle’ in politics today? Surveys by Pew Research Center and other national polling organizations have found broad support, in principle, for a third major political party. Yet the typology study finds that the three groups with the largest shares of self-identified independents (most of whom lean toward a party) – Stressed Sideliners, Outsider Left and Ambivalent Right – have very little in common politically. Stressed Sideliners hold mixed views; Ambivalent Right are conservative on many economic issues, while moderate on some social issues; and Outsider Left are very liberal on most issues, especially on race and the social safety net. What these groups do have in common is relatively low interest in politics: They had the lowest rates of voting in the 2020 presidential election and are less likely than other groups to follow government and public affairs most of the time.

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Key facts about Americans and guns

Americans see little bipartisan common ground, but more on foreign policy than on abortion, guns, little change in americans’ views of trump over the past year, majorities of americans prioritize renewable energy, back steps to address climate change, republicans leery of compromise with biden; majority want gop to focus on investigations, most popular, report materials.

• Political Typology Quiz
• How the political typology groups compare
• 2021 Typology Detailed Tables

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