The Long
Realignment

01 · The party crisis

The Republican Party began in a different political world

In 1854, opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act helped form the Republican Party. They opposed the spread of slavery into the western territories. The Act reopened a national conflict that existing parties had struggled to contain, and the old Whig coalition broke apart. The National Archives explains the act and the Republican Party’s formation.

In 1860, the Democratic Party split between Northern and Southern tickets. Abraham Lincoln won the presidency as a Republican; slaveholding states then seceded. The Civil War and the political struggle over emancipation and Reconstruction reshaped what both parties meant.

Related story: Slavery, the territories and the road to secession (Slavery Hub)

02 · 1865-1877

Reconstruction opened political life – and provoked a violent backlash

After the Civil War, Republicans in Congress fought over how the former Confederate states would return to the Union and what rights formerly enslaved people would have. During Reconstruction, Black men voted and won public office, including seats in Congress. Southern Republican governments included Black officeholders and voters, white Southern Republicans and people who had moved South after the war.

That political opening faced organized violence, intimidation and efforts to suppress Black voting. By the end of Reconstruction, white Democratic rule had returned across much of the South. For generations, Black Southerners were denied meaningful political power through violence, discriminatory laws and other forms of disenfranchisement. The Senate’s Reconstruction history and the House history of Black political activism document this contested period.

Planned companion: Reconstruction and Black political power

03 · 1930s-1940s

The New Deal reshaped the Democratic coalition

Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal brought labor, farmers, urban voters and other groups into a broader Democratic coalition around a larger federal role in the economy. Black voters, historically aligned with the Republicans, increasingly supported Democrats. By 1936, most Black voters had moved away from their historic Republican allegiance, particularly in Northern cities where they could vote more freely. The Library of Congress traces that shift.

The New Deal coalition also contained a deep contradiction: many Southern Democrats remained committed to segregation and white supremacy. Some federal programs excluded or disadvantaged Black Americans. A party could expand its coalition while still containing powerful factions opposed to equal rights.

Planned companion: How the New Deal changed Black voting patterns

04 · 1948

The Dixiecrat revolt was a visible break, not the whole realignment

At the 1948 Democratic convention, delegates from the South opposed the party’s civil-rights plank and walked out. They formed the States’ Rights Democratic Party – the Dixiecrats – and nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond. Thurmond won Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, earning 39 electoral votes. The revolt exposed a major fracture inside the Democratic coalition; it did not mean every Southern Democrat changed parties.

The National Archives records the state-by-state Electoral College result. It also records the separate third-party vote, a detail that gets lost when a modern party label is simply projected backward onto the past.

Planned companion: The Dixiecrat revolt of 1948

05 · 1964-1965

Civil-rights legislation crossed party lines – and divided them by region

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed with support from members of both parties. Southern Democrats were among its strongest opponents, and Republican votes were needed in the Senate to end the filibuster. Its passage cannot be reduced to one party supporting civil rights and the other opposing it: region mattered, and each party contained conflicting blocs. The Senate’s account of the bill’s passage explains the bipartisan coalition.

In the 1964 presidential election, Lyndon Johnson won a national landslide, while Republican Barry Goldwater carried Arizona and five states in the Deep South. The result showed a break in the old Southern Democratic pattern, but it did not instantly move every Southern voter or politician into the Republican Party. The next year, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Planned companion: The Civil Rights Act, the Senate filibuster and the 1964 vote

06 · 1968

Wallace turned regional discontent into a national campaign

George Wallace ran for president in 1968 as the American Independent Party candidate. He won 46 electoral votes across five Southern states. His campaign offered a third-party route for voters responding to civil-rights change and federal authority, while also campaigning beyond the South. The National Archives’ official results preserve the separate Wallace vote.

Planned companion: George Wallace, the American Independent Party and the 1968 election

07 · 1970s onward

The Southern realignment took decades

Southern voting did not change in one election. Republican presidential strength grew before the party consistently dominated many state and local offices. Democratic officeholders remained in place in parts of the South for years after presidential voting began to shift. Political scientists describe a gradual, uneven process, with different timing across elections and levels of government.

Civil rights, racial attitudes, federal power, economic policy, religion, migration and party organization all mattered. The exact weight and timing of those causes remain debated. The evidence does not support a single date when the two parties exchanged identities.

Planned companion: How the Republican Party built strength in the South