About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


110 Pol. Sci. Q. 1 (1995-1996)

handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry110 and id is 1 raw text is: The 1994 Congressional Elections: The Postindustrial Realignment Continues EVERETT CARLL LADD The result of the 8 November 1994 balloting is at one level entirely clear and unequivocal: the Republicans won a major off-year election victory, making a net gain of fifty-two House seats, nine Senate seats, fourteen governor- ships, and eighteen state legislative houses. The implications of this huge partisan turnaround for the course of public policy, both nationally and at the state level, over the next two years are obviously great. Just where the 1994 election fits into the longer-term evolution of American partisan competition is far from apparent, however. The thinking of the U.S. electorate in 1994 was thoroughly examined in many hundreds of opinion surveys, including some of the very highest quality. The work of the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press, and of the Gallup Organization working for USA Today and CNN, deserves special commendation.' What's more, the contempo- rary political system in which last November's balloting took place has assumed increasingly clear and distinct form over the sequence of elections that began in 1968. We are no longer in the position of attempting to describe an abrupt political departure, but instead see the latest electoral display of a fairly mature parties and elections system. We don't have to applaud all the structural features of this system, of course, and we certainly don't need to like any particular election results it delivers. The system itself, nonetheless, should long-since have lost any real capacity to surprise. I Through the courtesy of these organizations, the entire collection of Times Mirror and Gallup surveys taken during 1994-along with those for earlier years as well-are available through the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, Storrs. EVERETT CARLL LADD is professor of political science at the University of Connecticut and executive director and president of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. He is the author of ten books on American political life, including American Political Parties and Transformations of the American Party System (second edition revised with Charles Hadley). He is editor of a just-published volume on the 1994 elections, America at the Polls, 1994. Political Science Quarterly Volume 110 Number 1 1995 1