Counter Realignment

Howard L. Reiter is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Connecticut, where he taught for 35 years. He received his BA from Cornell University and his AM and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He has also taught at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Essex (UK), the University of Tartu (Estonia), and Uppsala University (Sweden). He is the author of Selecting the President (1985) and Parties and Elections in Corporate America (1987, 1993), as well as numerous book chapters and articles in such journals as the American Political Science Review, the British Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Theoretical Politics, on the subject of political parties and elections. Among his academic honors are a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Western Europe (1987), a Fulbright Distinguished Chair (2001–02) in Uppsala, Sweden, and an Outstanding Academic Book award from Choice magazine (1986–87). He has lectured widely in Europe, Asia and Latin America. In 2010–2011 he will be President of the New England Political Science Association. Jeffrey M. Stonecash is Maxwell Professor in the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. He does research on political parties, changes in their electoral bases, and how these changes affect political polarization and public policy debates. His recent books are Class and Party in American Politics (2000), Diverging Parties (2002), Political Polling (2003), Parties Matter (2005), Split: Class and Cultural Divisions in American Politics (2007), Reassessing the Incumbency Effect (2008), Dynamics of American Political Parties (2009), Understanding American Political Parties (2012) and Party Pursuits and the Presidential-House Election Connection, 1900–2008 (2013). He has done polling and consulting for political candidates for over twenty-five years.

“In Counter Realignment, Howard Reiter and Jeffrey Stonecash show readers how the once heavily Republican Northeast has become a principal stronghold of the modern Democratic party. Their book is a valuable assessment of a little-studied topic.” —Earl Black, Rice University, co-author of Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle in American Politics

• 1. Party strategies and transition in the Northeast; 2. Party pursuits and the sources of change; 3. The first Republican losses: Democratic gains in the 1930s; 4. Searching for a majority: the rise of conservatives and second Republican losses; 5. Interpreting the Goldwater election and pursuing the South; 6. Social change, party response, and further Republican losses; 7. National parties and the position of the Northeast; 8. The process of change and the future.