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Voter Coordination and the Rise of the Republican Party: Evidence from New England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2015

Adam Chamberlain
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Abstract

The development of the Republican Party is a significant event in American political history. While scholars describe its formation as a realignment caused by the slavery issue, this article reinterprets this perspective. Focusing on gubernatorial elections in New England from 1840 to the mid-1850s, I present evidence that the rise of the Republican Party in the region was due to a lack of strategic voting coupled with third-party, antislavery voting that did not consistently affect the Whigs across states. A counterfactual argument suggests that Whig elites would have sought to change the nature of party politics and, had the distribution of third-party voting affected the Whigs similarly across states, then the Republicans may not have formed. Thus, the distribution of antislavery, third-party voting was more important than the presence of antislavery sentiment. This finding is important for understanding American party development and how strategic voting fits into the study of US elections.

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Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 38 , Issue 3-4 , Fall/Winter 2014 , pp. 311 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association, 2015 

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