Unstable Majorities Continue

Overview

The United States is experiencing a period of electoral instability unprecedented in our history. In contrast to the relatively stable party majorities that characterized preceding eras, since 1992 the country has experienced unstable institutional majorities, where presidential candidates earn narrow margins of victory and control of the House and Senate fluctuates.

Unstable Majorities Continue: The Trump Era examines the current pattern of volatile party control. It follows the author’s 2017 book Unstable Majorities, which first identified this development. 

Fiorina shows that today’s parties are different organizations from those that operated in the past—more homogeneous internally and more distant from each other and from the general public—in both policy and ideology. Arguing that voter positions are generally moderate, the author dispels the commonly held belief that American voters have become the “Divided States of America.” The parties have polarized; the electorate has not.

Author Biography

Morris P. Fiorina is the Wendt Family Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution. His research focuses on public opinion and elections and how they relate to democratic representation.