ISBN: | 978-5-5139-1678-9 |
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Fifth Party System refers to the era of American national politics that began with the New Deal in 1933. This era emerged from the realignment of the voting blocs and interest groups supporting the Democratic Party into the New Deal Coalition following the Great Depression. For this reason it is sometimes called the New Deal Party System. It followed the Fourth Party System, usually called the Progressive Era. Experts debate whether it ended in the mid-1960s (as the New Deal coalition did), the early 1980s (when the Moral Majority was formed), the mid-1990s, or continues to the present. The System was heavily Democratic through 1964 and mostly Republican at the presidential level since 1968, with the Senate switching back and forth after 1980. The Democrats usually controlled the House except that the Republicans won in 1946, 1952, 1994-2004, and 2010 elections. Both chambers went Democratic in 2006. Of the twenty presidential elections since 1932, the Democrats won 7 of the first 9 (through 1964), with Democratic control of Congress as the norm; while the Republicans won 7 of the 11 since 1968, with divided government as the norm.