Over the last several decades, the composition of the Democratic and Republican parties has changed in important ways. A major partisan shift has occurred in the South, but other demographic changes have also been identified, such as the percentage of House seats for Democrats has trended down, as well as the percentage of presidential electoral votes for Democrats going down.
Southern voters from 1948 to 200 were electing Democratic candidates to Congress more frequently than choosing Democratic candidates for the presidency. Even though Southern voters were voting for Republican republican presidential candidates, they continued to vote for Democratic congressional candidates because of the incumbency advantage. Gerrymandering also created safe seats for democrats because of districts lines creating safe seats and minority-majority districts. Even though there were more Republican voters in statewide presidential elections the southerners still voted for Democrats.
Over the past few decades, party composition has changed with respect to Catholics, Women, Labor Union members and social conservatives. Catholics have contributed to party composition change because they have become less reliable Democratic voters, along with Labor union members. Women on the other hand have become more reliable Democratic voters and have become a larger percentage of the Democratic voting bloc. Social conservatives were nonexistent but have become reliable Republican voters.
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap10_us_govt_politics_scoring_guidelines.pdf
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