Fifth Party System

The Fifth Party System refers to the era of American national politics that began with the New Deal in 1932 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 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 often called the New Deal Party System. It followed the Fourth Party System, usually called the Progressive Era. Experts debate whether the Fifth Party System ended (and thus a Sixth Party System emerged) in the mid-1960s, the early 1980s (when the Moral Majority took off), the mid-1990s, or possibly continues to the present.

The system was dominated by Democrats through 1965, and has been mostly Republican at the presidential level since 1968. Of the 20 presidential elections since 1932, the Democrats won 7 of the first 9 (through 1964), with Democratic control of Congress as the norm, based largely on Southern disenfranchisement of African Americans since the turn of the century. After politics was influenced by the 'social issues' of the Vietnam War and civil rights movements, the Republicans have won 8 of the 13 presidential elections from 1968 to 2016. Divided government has often been the result as their respective opposition party either gained or maintained control of Congress.

With Republicans losing support because of the Great Depression, the four consecutive elections, 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944, of Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the Democrats dominance. The conservative coalition generally controlled Congress from 1938 to 1964, again based on the powerful rural white control of the Democratic Party (and congressional representation) in the South, with its disfranchisement of blacks. The activist New Deal members promoted American liberalism, anchored in a New Deal Coalition of specific liberal groups—especially ethno-religious constituencies (Catholics, Jews, African Americans)—in addition to Southerners, well-organized labor unions, urban machines, progressive intellectuals, and populist farm groups.

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