When the Whig Party collapsed in the 1850s, it was largely attributable to a defection of Southern Whigs to the Democratic Party over the issue of slavery. The remaining anti-slavery Whigs banded together with Northern Democrats who were anti-slavery, as well as a few other smaller political groups, to form a new party, christened the Republican Party, for the 1856 Presidential Election.

The election of 1964 is incredibly important, in terms of realignment and the South. Before getting into it, however, we need to examine a decent amount of background information.

Remember: Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, comes to be associated with abolition and winning the civil war, among many other things. For some strange reason, he was not popular among Southern whites (hopefully you can see why this is true).

Remember: The South, in the wake of the Civil War and after the end of Reconstruction, aligned with the Democrats. This make sense, if you think about it: Republicans (anti-slavery, civil war victors) and Democrats (fought a war in part based off of slavery, lost the civil war) were natural enemies. Thus, after the end of Reconstruction, southern whites voted exclusively for Democrats—on all levels of government. Southern blacks, then, came to associate the Democratic Party with racial oppression (Jim Crow), as Democrats controlled southern governments and brutally enforced race laws. Many political scientists describe the political atmosphere of the south (during this time) as existing in a vacuum—it stayed basically the same, while Democrats in the rest of the country evolved differently.

We see this difference in a particularly bright light with the policies of FDR during the New Deal. FDR, a Democrat, appeals nearly nationwide and managed to weave incredibly diverse groups together with the New Deal. His liberal policies appealed particularly strongly to northern African Americans (among other groups). Political scientists generally refer to this as one of the first major racial realignments, as northern African Americans realigned (that is, changed party allegiances) to the Democratic Party. Southern African Americans, however, did not realign with the Democratic Party. Remember: southern blacks lived day-to-day under the oppressive politics of Democrats at a STATE level, thus making a realignment (from being Republican) to that party relatively unlikely.

The election of 1964, however, marks the beginning of a massive change. LBJ, a democrat—from Texas no less!—runs on a platform that stresses civil rights. Barry Goldwater, however, a Republican from Arizona, runs on a platform that stresses states’ rights. It’s around this time that southern blacks realize that the Republican Party may no longer be their party of choice, and whites in the Deep South vote for a Republican president. 

Party realignment occurs when the dominant party is displaced and ousted from power by the minority party. Such shifts usually happen as the result of what is known as a critical election– a shakeup of an election in which fissures caused by new issues and/or disagreements within the majority party conspire to divide voters, so that some voters end up deserting the party altogether. This desertion weakens the majority party from the inside out and ultimately prevents it from maintaining its governmental dominance. In turn, this allows the minority party to take advantage of the newly-opened power vacuum and thus rise to prominence by in fact becoming the new majority party.

In the modern American two-party system, a "third party" candidate, someone who is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, has a few major disadvantages. Many of these are related to the fact that most third party candidates do not have the strong base of financial, political, and electoral support that a major party candidate can enjoy. One place where a third party candidate can have an advantage is that their political ideology and platform does not need to be tied to the strict limits of a major party.

The Republican Party generally controlled the Presidency and the Legislature from 1860 to 1932. The key here is to remember that 1860 was the outbreak of Civil War when the Republican Party came to represent preservation of the Union, the Northern war effort, rights of former slaves, and so on. The Democratic Party at this time was dominant in the South, but elected only two Presidents in the time period. By 1932, however, the nature of the political parties had greatly altered. The Great Depression ushered in the Democratic Party under Franklin D. Roosevelt who dramatically changed the nature of the Party and of United States’ government itself.

Supporters of the Republican Party are very likely to support lower taxes, especially for the wealthy. They are also very likely to support an increase in military spending; however, most supporters of the Republican Party favor tougher sentences being handed out to all criminals. Leniency towards criminal sentences for offences related to drug use is not particularly well supported by either Republicans or Democrats (although it is much more likely to be supported by Democrats). It is the kind of issue where a politician can too easily be called “soft on crime,” so most do not want to touch the issue.

The Free-Soil Party was created to oppose the expansion of slavery into the territories and carried a significant proportion of the vote in the election of 1848. The Green Party still exists today and has an impact on contemporary elections, directly by promoting the issue of environmentalism as a primary political issues and indirectly, some would argue, by taking votes from the Democratic party. The Socialist Party was prominent in America around the time of World War One and was led by Eugene Debs. The Progressive Party, led by Theodore Roosevelt, carried more than a quarter of the popular vote in the election of 1912 and probably cost the Republicans the election.  

Each candidate must set aside room in his or her budget to pay for all forms of advertising – in today’s high-tech world, it’s vital to establish oneself on all forums, including TV, radio, and several social media platforms. There is also much to be gained from seeking out the attention the media world provides to candidates for free. Candidates are seen as desirable guests and/or contributors, especially for attracting good public notice, so nearly every single media outlet (from cable news to newspapers to online blogs) will gladly interview or otherwise host a candidate for free. Taking advantage of these opportunities will grant a candidate a great deal of public attention and hopefully favorable media coverage.

John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson were the two key players in the so-called Corrupt Bargain, a scandal concerning the 1824 electoral results. The Presidential election of that year was a bitter one, with John Quincy Adams (the son of past-President John Adams) and Andrew Jackson both running as members of the same political party, the Democratic-Republicans, against two additional candidates. When it came time to tally the results, it was revealed that none of the four candidates had won a majority in the Electoral College and so, as per the Constitution’s instructions, the House of Representatives was charged with electing the rightful winner. Influential Senator Henry Clay, who was himself a candidate, dropped out of the race but then threw his support behind John Quincy Adams, who was ultimately selected as the next President by the House. Incensed at both his loss and its circumstances, Andrew Jackson suspected corruption, especially when the newly-elected Adams named Clay as his Secretary of State. Despite Jackson’s claims, no evidence of actual corruption has ever been discovered, but the allegations won many supporters over to Jackson’s side.

Party identification, or the tendency of voters to feel an affiliation with a party label such as "Republican" and "Democrat" is a strong influence on voter choice. None of the other options listed are strong influences, some of them are not even true!