Politics in the USA, Sixth Edition

The nature of American politics 25

of Mid-Western states. The election of Bill Clinton in 1992 also illustrates
the underlying sectional nature of American politics. Clinton gained only
43% of the total vote as opposed to 38% for George Bush and 19% for Ross
Perot. Clinton won every West Coast State, all the northeastern states except
Maine (the home state of George Bush), and a strip of Mid-West states. Bush
won most of the states in the South and a number of Mid-West and moun-
tain states. In 1996 the sectional pattern was even clearer. Clinton won every
northern state except Indiana, and the states of the Far West; Robert Dole
won seven states of the old Confederacy plus a block of ten western states.
Sectionalism was particularly evident in the very close election of 2000. In
the words of Gerald M. Pomper, ‘Not only two candidates, but virtually two
nations confronted each other’. The Democratic candidate, Al Gore, won 20
states in the North and East and on the Pacific coast; George W. Bush won all
the states in the South, the Border states, the Mid-West and the West, with
the exception of New Mexico (see Map 2.3).
The evidence suggests, therefore, that the United States has become pro-
gressively more of a nation in the political sense since the Second World War.
Increasingly, the tides of opinion sweep across the country, swamping the
regional differences that were once so dominant in American politics. Nev-
ertheless, the extent of this ‘nationalisation’ of American politics should not
be exaggerated. When election results are close and the nation is uncertain
about its choice of a leader, it tends still to divide along regional lines, the
old differences re-emerging. Furthermore, the nationalisation of politics is
apparent at the presidential level, but it does not extend down to the con-
gressional level. Popular Republican presidential candidates like Eisenhower
and Reagan found that their popularity did not translate into victories for
their party in Congress. Thus in 1980 the great landslide for Ronald Reagan

Alaska

Ha waii

K ennedy (Democrat)

Nixon (Repub lican)

Byrd (Unpledged Electors)

Map 2.2 The election of 1960