Presidential and congressional candidates were seeking to alter the geographical electoral bases of their parties. How successful were the parties in creating change? How did the process of change affect the relationship between presidential and House election results? To assess these questions, several analyses are relevant. Is there evidence of broad national changes in the geographical bases of support for the parties? Did the changes initiated in the 1960s persist? Did presidential and House elections change at the same rates, or did they proceed at different rates and create a separation of results? This chapter deals largely with national results. Changes within regions are dealt with in the next chapter.

Shifting Geographical Bases

The first issue is the extent of change in geographical electoral bases. Table 8.1 indicates the broad changes in presidential and House electoral bases by 1972. This repeats a table presented earlier as an introduction to the issue of national changes. The baseline is 1940 because it is after the initial surge in support for Democrats in 1932 and 1936 had subsided. The relative levels of partisan support for the parties within states in 1940 was similar to 1900 so the grouping of states provides a baseline for comparison with 1972, the year Richard Nixon sought to create a new coalition.