Originally Posted by perotista
From 1933 until 1994 the Democrats controlled congress in 58 out of 62 years which included 40 straight years 1955-1994. But that was when the Democrats were the big tent party with both their conservative and liberal wings. The solid conservative Democratic south. Back when the Democrats made up on average 45% of the electorate from FDR until Reagan with two years making up 51% in 1961 and 1964.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/interactives/party-id-trend/

Since Reagan the Democratic share of the electorate has dropped from 45% average down to 29% today, which explains why flipping congress has become more normal than in the past. 1994, 2006, 2010 and 2018 are the years they flipped, or wave elections happened. Independents has also risen from 20% during JFK up to 42% today while Republicans have stayed around 27% average going up and down a few points during this time.

I'm old enough to remember the old conservative yeller dog democrats of the south who would vote for an old yeller dog before they would ever vote for a Republican. When the Democratic Party stopped being the big tent party was when flipping congress became the fad.


"Nice" that you left out the Nixon Southern Strategy.
A lot of those old "conservative yeller dog" Democrats of the South became today's Southern Republicans who are now the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol.


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