On Saturday former President Donald Trump handily defeated former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in the 2024 South Carolina Republican presidential primary. Trump gained 60% of the vote compared to Haley’s 40% giving him 47 of 50 delegates. While this only gives Trump 110 of the 1215 delegates he needs to win the nomination, Haley’s inability to win in her home state combined with Trump’s victory in every primary so far makes it unlikely that she poses a legitimate threat to him winning the Republican nomination. However, despite his strong showing in the primaries to date, Trump’s popularity within his party may not be as strong as some think. Haley appears to believe this, refusing to drop out of the race and stating that her 40% showing does not represent “some tiny group. There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative." Various polls appear to back this with Republican satisfaction with Trump falling between 69% and 72%. What’s more, many within the Republican establishment view Trump as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) and lament that the Party of Reagan is no more. While Biden is not universally popular amongst Democrats and many have started calling for him to step aside, unlike Trump, he has not inspired a “Never Biden” camp or drawn accusations that he will be the death of his party.
Whether or not Trump wins the election – his nomination seems a foregone conclusion – his impact on the Republican party is arguably greater than any single politician since Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election created the “Reagan Democrats.” Should Trump win in 2024 the Republican Party will be his to do with as he pleases (if it isn’t already). A bigger question is what happens if he loses…again? Could it really be the death of the GOP?
American politics has been dominated by two parties since shortly after its founding, however the nickname of the Republican Party, the Grand Old Party (GOP) gives the impression that it is the oldest party and has been around forever. Neither is the case. The “Party of Lincoln” (Reagan? Trump?) as it is sometimes called, was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists and after losing its first election to Buchanan dominated presidential politics for much of the next 70 years.
Author: ChrisnHouston
Despite the 167-year history of the Republican Party and the 195-year history of the Democratic Party, historians of U.S. politics divide American history into six or seven “political eras.”
Putting aside the Federalist Party, the Democratic-Republicans, the Whigs, The National Republicans, and several other smaller and independent parties who largely predate the two contemporary parties, there have been 4 or 5 political eras since the Democrats and Republicans first began to compete at the presidential level. While the majority of citizens have voted for one of these two parties in most elections, the type of voter that each has attracted (ex. Anti-Slavery/Civil Rights activists) has changed over time. An examination of some of the major shifts in platforms and voting can provide insight into what Trump may ultimately mean for the Republicans and what the “death of the GOP” might look like.
The Great Depression
After winning 7 of 9 Presidential elections during the Fourth Party System, including a landslide victory by Herbert Hoover in 1928, the Fifth Party System began in 1932 with the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Visually, the transformation was quite stark.
Many rightly point to Hoover’s failure to deal with the Great Depression as a key factor in Roosevelt’s victory, however had that been the sole issue it is unlikely that the Democrats would have won 7 of the next 9 Presidential elections. More important to the longer-term success of the Democratic party was Roosevelt’s ability to leverage the support of what became known as “the New Deal coalition.” The coalition consisted of blue-collar workers, intellectuals, labor unions, liberal white Southerners, and religious minorities, leaving the Republicans with the business community and rich Protestants.
While the exact demographic and political shifts from the Republicans to the Democrats is beyond the scope of this article, it is important to highlight that Republicans winning 14 of 19 Presidential elections during the Third- and Fourth-Party Systems (1856 – 1932) did not mean the death of the Democratic Party, nor would the Dems winning the next 7 of 9 elections mean the Death of the Republican Party.
Civil Rights and the Southern Strategy
What American economist Herbert Stein once said about economic trends may be equally accurate about political ones, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." Historians differ on the exact date that the Fifth Party System ended, however end it did. Its successor, the Sixth Party System (are we beginning to see a pattern here? Historians aren’t always the most creative when it comes to naming eras) is variously dated as beginning somewhere between the late 1960s and the 1994 "Gingrich Revolution.” I’m partial to dating the start as 1980 when Reagan won a landslide election with the help of working-class voters dubbed "Reagan Democrats." Regardless of the exact starting date, there are certain factors that are generally agreed to have contributed to the Sixth Party System including civil rights, crime and drugs, economic malaise, and Vietnam. Broadly speaking these can be categorized into a few areas including “Law and Order” politics, “the Southern Strategy” and a “failure of Big Government.” “Law and Order” politics sought to pry working-class whites away from Democrats in the north while “the Southern Strategy” sought to do the same with working-class whites in the south. The “failure of Big Government” was apparent in the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Church Committee, and the inability to deal with the stagflation of the 1970s. Reagan most famously remarked in his first inaugural address that “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” The successful transition from the New Deal to the new economic policy of neoliberalism is made clear by Democratic President Bill Clinton’s comment during his January 1996 State of the Union Address, “We know big government does not have all the answers. We know there's not a program for every problem.... The era of big government is over.”
Once again, the details of shifts in voting patterns are less important to our understanding of the future of the US political system than is an understanding that these shifts happen every 30 or 40 years and that while they may seem catastrophic to the party losing voters, they are transitional in the long term. So, with that in mind, what does the rise of Trump mean for both parties?
The Seventh Party System?
Historians have not yet decided if the US remains in the Sixth Party System, has entered a Seventh Party System, or is in an unusual liminal period between the old and new systems. Regardless of what historians eventually decide, it is clear that voting patterns appear to be shifting. According to the Dec 2023 Split Ticket crosstab aggregator which compares the Aggregated Polling Lead (Dec 2023) to the 2020 Avg: Catalist/Pew/AP VoteCast" Trump has made significant gains in the following areas:
Black voters +29.5% (still less than 50% of this demographic though)
Moderates +15% (within 10% of Biden)
Urban +15% (behind Biden by 21.7%)
Hispanic voters +14.8% (within 10% of Biden)
Households earning less than $50k (beating Biden by 4.4%)
While Biden does not appear in danger of losing the overall black vote, Trump is polling at levels not seen by a Republican nominee in 40 years. What’s more, he is also starting to win voters aged 18-29 in a few polls. It’s not all good news though as Trump is losing some support amongst white college educated men and evangelicals.
Do these changes foretell a realignment of major voting blocks or are they driven by economic difficulties, Biden’s advanced age, and the black swan nature of Trump’s Presidency/candidacy? Only time will tell. Would it mean the death of the Republican Party? This is likely easier to answer. The unasked reciprocal to this question asked in fear/hope is “would this mean a decades long rule by the Democrats?” History says “no.” The last US political party to “die” was the Whigs which was dissolved in 1856 leading many party members to join the Republicans. A dissolution of the Republican Party though seems unlikely as does a long “ruling” period for the Democrats for one simple reason, the Democrats are far from united. The two-party system can lead to the false belief that people are either conservatives or liberals. This is far too simplistic, misunderstanding the extent to which both parties are coalitions. A 2021 Pew political typology infographic, while imperfect, provides some indication of the complexity of US voters.
A cynical, though I would argue realistic view of what would happen if the Republican Party were significantly weakened is that the major participants within the Democratic coalition would immediately turn on each other, weakening that party as well. It is already understood that the Progressive Left hates the moderate Left (and probably vice versa).
The inability of one party to withstand the internal disagreements of its coalition long enough to rule for much longer than 3 presidential cycles is a feature, not a bug. People may not vote their pocketbook, but it is rare that an incumbent president loses an election during a strong economy. At the same time, parties become lazy and/or corrupt the longer they rule which results in voters becoming disillusioned. What does this mean for the 2024 election and what is the long-term fortune of the Republican Party? I can’t answer either of these questions with any certainty. What I am certain of though is that while we may see a different Republican Party, reports of its death, to paraphrase Mark Twain, are likely greatly exaggerated.
Philip - parties change. They don’t die. Remember when Republicans were the ones freeing the slaves (Lincoln)? Or more recently, remember when Democrats filibustered to stop the passage of LBJ’s civil rights act? Or remember when Democrats owned the South until Reagan turned it Republican because social conservative Democrats hated the progressives?
GOP is re-invented as the working man populists just like they won the South. Because Democrats abandoned the white working class in favor of doubling down on their civil rights bet from the 60s.
Parties change. What never changes is the duality of mankind. There will always be opposition. The universe seems to be organized around tension. What names these oppositions take matters less.