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The Elections, the Economy and Public Opinion: 1984

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2022

Seymour Martin Lipset
Seymour Martin Lipset*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

Many commentaries on the recent American elections conclude that the United States has taken a long-term move to the right. This shift seemingly began in the late sixties as a reaction to the turmoil occasioned by militant, sometimes violent protest tactics used by the civil rights and antiwar movements, and by the sharp challenge to traditional values encompassed in the changes in family and sex behavior, dress styles, the increased use of drugs, and the like. The Republicans have been victorious in four out of the last five presidential elections, those held from 1968 on. Only one of these, that in 1968, was close, but in that contest a right-wing and racist candidate, George Wallace, received 13 percent. The one election of the five which the Democrats won, that in 1976, was the first one after Richard Nixon's resignation following the Watergate scandal.

Yet the conclusion that America has been in a conservative mood for some time is challenged by the results of the races for Congress and state offices and by the findings of the opinion polls. In 1984, in the same election in which Ronald Reagan received 59 percent of the vote, eight percent more than in 1980, his party lost two seats in the Senate and gained only 14 in the much larger House, leaving it behind the Democrats by 252 to 183. The Democrats still hold 34 of the 50 governorships, down by only one. Judged by which party holds most electoral offices, the Democrats remain the majority party.

Type
The 1984 U.S. Elections
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , Winter 1985 , pp. 28 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1985

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References

1 For a detailed review of public opinion findings from early 1981 to early 1984, see Lipset, S. M., “The Economy, Elections, and Public Opinion,” The Tocqueville Review, Fall-Winter 1983, pp. 431–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Drew, Elizabeth, “A Political Journal,” The New Yorker, May 9, 1983, p. 48 Google Scholar; Lipset, , “The Economy…,” p. 430.Google Scholar

3 Sussman, Barry, “President's Popularity High Despite Doubts on Policies,” Washington Post, January 20, 1985, pp. A1 and A14.Google Scholar

4 Wirthlin, Richard B., “The Republican Strategy and Its Election Consequences,” in Lipset, S. M., ed., Party Coalitions in the 1980s (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1981), p. 386.Google Scholar

5 Nelson, Jack, “Despite High Popularity, Reagan Faces Tough Race,” Los Angeles Times, September 25, 1983, p. 1.Google Scholar

6 CBS News/New York Times Poll, “Post-Election Poll, November 8–14, 1984,” p. 4.Google Scholar

7 Gwertzman, Bernard, “Senate Unit Chief Seeks Consensus on Foreign Policy,” The New York Times, January 24, 1985, pp. 1, 8.Google Scholar

8 Lipset, S. M. and Schneider, W., The Confidence Gap: Business, Labor and Government in the Public Mind (New York: The Free Press, 1983), pp. 13, 156, 338–339.Google Scholar

9 Lipset, S. M., “No Room for the Ins,” Public Opinion, October/November 1982, pp. 41–43.Google Scholar

10 See “Opinion Round Up” section of Public Opinion, February/March 1984, pp. 21–26.

11 Schneider, William, “An Uncertain Consensus,” The National Journal, November 10, 1984, pp. 21–30.Google Scholar

12 Harris, Louis, “Reagan Wins Reelection, Loses Bid for Republican Congress,” The Harris Survey, November 8, 1984, p. 1.Google Scholar

13 Walter Dean Burnham seems to have been the first to emphasize this phenomenon. See his Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics (New York: Norton, 1970), pp. 91–134. For a more recent treatment, see Wattenberg, Martin, The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952–80 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984).Google Scholar

14 Schneider, William, “Incumbency Staved off Disaster for Congressional Democrats in 1984 Elections,” The National Journal, December 8, 1984, p. 2364.Google Scholar

15 See “Moving Right Along? Campaign 84's Lessons for 1988. An Interview with Peter Hart and Richard Wirthlin,” Public Opinion, December/January 1985, pp. 8–11, 59–63.

16 See Lipset, S. M. and Raab, Earl, “The American Jews, the 1984 Elections and Beyond,” The Tocqueville Review, 6, no. 2 (1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 “Polls Reveal Labor Still Has Vote Clout,” New America, January/February 1985, p. 5.

18 See “Special Report on the Republicans,” The Baron Report, January 14, 1985, p. 2.

19 Schneider, William, “Half a Realignment,” The New Republic, December 3, 1984, p. 21.Google Scholar