Beginning with the 1980 presidential campaign, the Republican coalition became dramatically more heterogeneous by the incorporation of white Evangelical Protestants. Galvanized by the desire to promote traditional moral values, these new Republicans were characterized by lower social status and less libertarian values than many regular Republicans.

Thus, this Republican-white Evangelical alliance contained, from the beginning, a strong potential for conflict and division. Its success has depended on the ability of Republican candidates to manage these differences. Such management, in turn, depends on the issues raised, candidate strategies, media agenda-setting, and the underlying state of public opinion. Two opposite outcomes have always been possible.

One possibility might be termed the “rosy scenario,” where economic and social conservatives combine to pursue common electoral and policy goals (see Nesmith 1994, 129-32). Models for this scenario are Reagan's victories in 1980 and 1984, as well as George Bush's election in 1988. This scenario might mean Republicans could take advantage of a public climate combining a “reaction against modernity” and the “moral emptiness of the public square” with “a general renewal of confidence in the market” (Reichley 1986, 35; Hutcheson 1988). At a minimum it would require a measure of pragmatism by all party factions, accepting and supporting each other's candidates regardless of divisions over specific issues. The chance of overturning Democratic control, either locally or nationally, could cement such interfactional cooperation.