![]() ![]() ![]() Yet, according to opinion polls, even those who say that they are independents normally have partisan leanings toward one party or another.Īn exception to this general rule can be found at the local level, particularly in small cities and towns where candidates may not be required to declare any party affiliation or may run as part of a slate of like-minded office-seekers under the banner of a particular local initiative - such as downtown redevelopment or school construction.Īlthough the two major parties organize and dominate the government at the national, state, and local levels, they tend to be less ideologically cohesive and programmatic than parties in many democracies. In recent decades, increasing numbers of individual voters classify themselves as “independent,” and they are permitted to register to vote as such in many states. The number of independent or third-party members of Congress or of state legislatures is extremely low. Rarely do any of the 50 states elect a governor who is not a Democrat or a Republican. For instance, every president since 1852 has been either a Republican or a Democrat, and in the post-World War II era, the two major parties’ share of the popular vote for president has averaged close to 95 percent. With rare exceptions, the two major parties control the presidency, the Congress, the d the state legislatures. Today, the Republican and Democratic parties - both of them heirs to predecessor parties from the 18th and 19th centuries - dominate the political process. Thus, parties in America emerged as a part of democratic expansion, and, beginning in the 1830s, they became firmly established and powerful. Political parties became institutionalized to accomplish this essential task. As the electorate expanded, the political parties evolved to mobilize the growing mass of voters as the means of political control. Over the decades, the right to vote was extended to ever larger numbers of the adult population as restrictions based on property ownership, race and sex were eliminated. In the early days of the republic, only male property owners could vote, but that restriction began to erode in the early 19th century as the result of immigration, the growth of cities and other democratizing forces, such as the westward expansion of the country. The development and expansion of political parties that followed was closely linked to the broadening of voting rights. In spite of the Founders’ intentions, the United States in 1800 became the first nation to develop nascent political parties organized on a national basis to accomplish the transfer of executive power from one faction to another via an election. Indeed, they sought through various constitutional arrangements - such as separation of powers among the executive, legislatifffve and judicial branches federalism and indirect election of the president by an Electoral College (see below) - to insulate the new republic from parties and factions. ![]() Constitution, they did not envision a role for political parties. When the Founders of the American Republic drafted and ratified the U.S. Voters in New Hampshire listen to Democratic presidential aspirant (2008) John Edwards
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