5.4 How and Why Political Parties Change and Adapt

For much of American history, party leaders picked nominees, often in private, and voters supported the party's ticket. After the turbulent 1968 Democratic convention, reforms led by the McGovern-Fraser Commission pushed both parties toward choosing presidential nominees through primaries and caucuses open to ordinary voters.

The result is candidate-centered campaigns: candidates build their own organizations, raise their own money and appeal directly to voters. Parties still matter, but they now compete with candidates' own operations, outside groups and media for influence. Candidates can even win a nomination that party leaders opposed.

A coalition is the set of groups that together make up a party's base. Parties need majorities, so they adjust their messages to keep their coalition and add new groups. For example, both parties have stepped up outreach to Latino voters, who account for a large share of the electorate's growth in recent decades, and to suburban voters who often decide close races.

Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal coalition, which included union members, urban workers, white Southerners, Black voters (who shifted to the Democrats in the 1930s), Catholics and Jewish Americans, kept Democrats dominant for decades. Coalitions can break apart when issues divide their members.

A critical election is one that signals a sharp, lasting change in which groups support which party. The lasting change is a realignment. Commonly cited critical elections include 1860 (the Republican Party's rise, centered on opposing slavery's expansion), 1896 (Republican dominance built on industrial and business interests) and 1932 (the New Deal coalition).

Some realignments are gradual. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the white South, long solidly Democratic, shifted over several decades toward the Republican Party. Dealignment is the opposite trend: voters weakening their ties to any party, shown by the growing number who call themselves independents, though most independents lean toward one party.

• Campaign finance changes: the 2002 ban on soft money to national parties (5.11) cut off a major source of party funds, and after Citizens United (2010), super PACs and other outside groups became major spenders. Parties now share the field with groups they don't control.
• Voter data: parties maintain huge databases of voters' registration, voting history and consumer information. Campaigns use this for microtargeting, sending tailored messages to small groups of likely supporters or persuadable voters.
• Communication technology: from television to email to social media, each new tool changed how parties raise money and reach voters. Online platforms make small-dollar fundraising easier, giving candidates who connect with grassroots donors a path independent of party leaders.