Red Fighting Blue How Geography and Electoral Rules Polarize American Politics

The national electoral map has split into warring regional bastions of Republican red and Democratic blue, producing a deep and enduring partisan divide in American politics. In Red Fighting Blue, David A. Hopkins places the current partisan and electoral era in historical context, explains how the increased salience of social issues since the 1980s has redefined the parties' geographic bases of support, and reveals the critical role that American political institutions play in intermediating between the behavior of citizens and the outcome of public policy-making. The widening geographic gap in voters' partisan preferences, as magnified further by winner-take-all electoral rules, has rendered most of the nation safe territory for either Democratic or Republican candidates in both presidential and congressional elections - with significant consequences for party competition, candidate strategy, and the operation of government.

1. A nation votes, Ohio decides; 2. Solid states: the regional bases of the American parties; 3. The geographic roots of party strength and cohesion; 4. Mapping the cultural battlefield: how social issues fuel the regional divide; 5. Regional polarization and partisan change in the US congress; 6. Rural red, big-city blue, and the pivotal purple midwest; 7. A locked-up nation.

David A. Hopkins is Associate Professor of Political Science at Boston College, Massachusetts, where he has taught since 2010. He is the co-author of Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats (with Matt Grossmann, 2016) and Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American Politics (with Nelson W. Polsby, Aaron Wildavsky, and Steven E. Schier, 2015). He frequently serves as an expert commentator on American politics for news media organizations such as the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Vox, and National Public Radio, and blogs regularly about current events at HonestGraft.com.