Agenda Today

• Lecture: Political Parties
• Top Hat: Readings for this week

Agenda Next Week

• Monday/Tuesday: Lecture 15: Elections

• Monday/Tuesday Top Hat - this week’s lectures plus three Midterm Extra Credit questions

• Wednesday and Thursday: No class - Top Hat will be online, open note, open book over the readings

• Readings

    - Review: Chapter 5: Campaigns and Elections (GT)
    - Democraticy Party Platform 2024: Preamble and Table of Contents
     - Republican Party Platform 2024: Preamble and Table of Contencts
    - Review: Chapter 8: Political Participation and Voting (WTP)
    - https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/about
    - https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/gerrymandering-explained 

Announcements

• No class October 29 and 30 - Top Hat will be online, open note, open book
• There are some items for you to review on the topics we’ve covered that I have made available. If you expect to need points on the final, this would be a great time to take a look.

What are Political Parties?

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What are Political Parties?

• Private Organizations: At their core, political parties in the United States are private, voluntary organizations. They are not part of the government.

• Common Interests: They consist of organized groups of people who share broadly common interests and goals.

• Public Purpose: Despite being private, they serve the critical public function of contesting elections to control government and influence policy.

• Freedom of Association: As private entities, parties have First Amendment rights, including the freedom of association. This means they have the right to determine their own membership, leadership, and internal rules.

Courts and Political Parties

• Limited Interference: Because parties are private organizations, courts generally do not interfere with their internal rules or how they decide their interests.

• Constitutional Limits: However, when a party’s actions violate constitutional rights, courts can and do intervene.

• Landmark Case: Smith v. Allwright (1944): The Supreme Court ruled that the Texas Democratic Party’s “white primary,” which excluded African Americans, was unconstitutional. This established that when private parties perform a state function like running a primary to select candidates for a general election, they must follow constitutional rules.

Party Organization in the U.S.

American political parties are organized from the grassroots up.

• Local Level: It starts with local party committees, whose members are often chosen in primary elections or local caucuses.

• State Level: These local committees elect delegates to state conventions and members of state party committees.

• National Level: In turn, the state party committees and conventions select members for the national party committee (like the DNC and RNC) and choose delegates to attend the national presidential nominating convention.

The U.S. Two-Party System

• Historical Development: The U.S. has been dominated by two major parties for most of its history, from the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans to the Democrats and Republicans today.

• Structural Cause - Duverger’s Law: Electoral rules - countries with single-member districts and “winner-take-all” elections tend to have two dominant parties.

  • Mechanical Effect: Votes for third-party candidates are usually more spread out

  • Psychological Effect: Strategic voting to avoid “wasted votes”

Party System in Texas: A History of Change

The political landscape in Texas has undergone a dramatic transformation.

A Century of Democratic Dominance (1870s-1970s)

    - Following Reconstruction, Texas became part of the "Solid South," dominated entirely by the Democratic Party.

    - Winning the Democratic primary was equivalent to winning the general election. The real political fights were between the conservative and liberal factions *within* the Democratic Party.

Transition to a Two-Party State

    - The shift began in the mid-20th century as the national Democratic Party embraced civil rights, alienating many conservative white Texans.

    - Voters started splitting their tickets, supporting Republican presidential candidates like Eisenhower while still voting for Democrats in state races (the "Presidential Republicans").

Modern Republican Dominance (1990s-Present)

    - By the 1990s, the realignment was complete. The Republican Party became the dominant force in Texas.

    - Today, Republicans hold every statewide elected office and majorities in both houses of the state legislature.

The Role of Conventions

• Purpose: National party conventions are held every four years to formally nominate the party’s candidates for President and Vice President.

• Delegates: The attendees, known as delegates, are selected through state-level primary elections and caucuses. Most delegates arrive “pledged” to support a specific candidate based on the results of their state’s vote.

• Party Platform: Delegates also work to draft and approve the official party platform—a document outlining the party’s principles and positions on key issues.

• Modern Formality: In modern politics, the convention is usually a formality. Thanks to the long primary process, the identity of the nominee is almost always known well in advance.

The Democratic Convention & Superdelegates

• Superdelegates: The Democratic Party uses “superdelegates” (now called automatic delegates), who are party leaders and elected officials not pledged to a candidate.

• 2016 Outcome: While Bernie Sanders performed strongly and won many pledged delegates in the primaries, Hillary Clinton secured the support of the vast majority of superdelegates. Their votes were crucial in her winning the nomination. This led to significant debate within the party about their role.

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The Democratic Convention & Superdelegates

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The Republican Convention & The Outsider

• No Superdelegates: The Republican Party does not use superdelegates in the same way.

• 2016 Outcome: Donald Trump, a former Democrat running as a political outsider, was able to win the Republican nomination by securing a plurality (the most votes, but less than 50%) in many state primaries.

• “Hostile Takeover”: Without a mechanism like superdelegates to act as a check, there was no way for the established party leadership (the “GOP establishment”) to block his nomination, effectively allowing him to take over the party from the outside and radically reshape its platform and priorities.

The Republican Convention & The Outsider

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Authorship and License

• Author: Tom Hanna

• Website: tomhanna.me

• License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Do not submit to Quizlet, Chegg, Coursehero, or other similar commercial websites.

Graphics are from Norton Publishers, produced using Google resources including nano banana, Gemini, or NotebookLM, or original work unless otherwise noted.