¹University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

Although the 2008 election brought partisan change to Washington, it also furthered a long-term trend of increasingly large and stable regional alignments in both presidential and congressional elections. The growing dominance of the Democratic Party in the Northeast and coastal West, especially within large metropolitan areas, has effectively countered Republican electoral strength in the South and interior West, reducing the number of highly competitive states. In House and Senate contests, Democratic gains across the North and West have produced an ideologically diverse majority party as well as a congressional Republican Party increasingly dominated by southern conservatives, raising serious questions about the future ability of the GOP to compete effectively in much of the nation.