Political Realignments

Report Outline
Prospective Shifts in Political Line-up
Party Splits Since the Civil War
The Democratic Party and the New Deal

Prospective Shifts in Political Line-up

Bolt of Democrats to G. O. P. Presidential Ticket

Nomination of President Roosevelt for a third term and of Secretary of Agriculture Wallace as his running-mate touched off a, quick bolt of conservative Democrats to the Republican candidates, Wendell L. Willkie and Charles L. McNary. Whether this movement will develop into a full-fledged party split or will be confined to a small group of prominent Democrats no longer influential in the party's councils is at present a matter for speculation. In any event, the President appears to welcome the shift of conservative Democrats to the Republican standard and to regard the bolts thus far announced as evidence of an impending realignment of the major parties on a liberal-conservative basis. By his insistance on the nomination of Wallace, in preference to other prospective vice presidential candidates more closely identified with the regular party organization, the President served warning that he is determined to reconstruct the Democratic party along New Deal lines.

The Democratic bolt to the Republican camp began immediately after Roosevelt's renomination, with the announcement by Senator Burke of Nebraska that he would support Willkie because “it is essential for our country to maintain the two-term limitation on the tenure of office of the President.” A bitter foe of the New Deal, Burke was defeated when he ran for renomination in the Nebraska Democratic primary in April. Many other prominent Democrats, objecting both to violation of the third-term tradition and to the economic principles of the New Deal, have subsequently declared their intention to vote the Republican ticket. Some of Willkie's Democratic supporters, notably Alfred E. Smith, John J. Raskob, James A. Reed, and Lewis W. Douglas, opposed Roosevelt's reelection and endorsed the Republican ticket in the last campaign, but many others remained loyal to their party's nominee in 1936.

Willkie has made it plain that an appeal to dissident Democrats and to independent voters will be a major feature of his campaign. At a press conference at Colorado Springs, July 29, he said: “I do not know of any reason why any Democrat who subscribed to and believed in the 1932 Democratic platform or believes in the historic principles of the Democratic party should not vote for me in preference to the President…on the basis of what he and I respectively believe and advocate.” The Republican candidate declared, August 1, that the percentage of independent voters was increasing annually, expressing a belief that in this year's election fully one-half of the voters would cross party lines. Willkie's acceptance speech, August 17, endorsed many domestic measures of the New Deal and asked the help in his campaign of every American—“Republican, Democrat, or Independent—Jew, Catholic, or Protestant—people of every color, creed and race.”