The Fundamental Voter - American Electoral Democracy, 1952-2020

In The Fundamental Voter, John H. Aldrich, Suhyen Bae, and Bailey K. Sanders explain why the notion that we are divided into tribal loyalties is, at best, only partially correct, and discuss how the divisions rest on much more substantive politics than they once did. In the past, the American public based voting primarily on partisan loyalties; today they do so on five fundamental forces: party, ideology, issues, race, and economics. Since the 1980s, these fundamentals have grown increasingly important, such that voters are now sorted into two bitterly divided sides. Voters have come to deeply dislike the opposition, a state of affairs that threatens the peaceful progress of democratic politics in the United States.