ABSTRACT
Following his victory in the 1932 presidential election, Franklin Delano Roosevelt forged an electoral coalition that dominated American politics for the next thirty-six years. Between 1933 and 1969, the Democratic Party controlled the presidency for twenty-eight years and both chambers of Congress for thirty-two years. During these years Democrats also controlled a majority of the nation’s governorships and state legislative chambers along with most other state and local elected offi ces (Congressional Quarterly 2005).
