ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on electoral realignment in the Mountain region, with special attention on voting in House and Senate elections. Analysis of the Mountain region is frustrated by the small number of cases included in any year's study. A striking and unique pattern of change in party identification is evident in the Mountain region. Ticket splitting behavior dropped in the Mountain region while increasing nationwide. Defection rates were relatively high in the mid-1960s as many Democrats in the Mountain West departed from their long-term commitment to the Democrats and voted for GOP presidential and House candidates. Regional variations have attracted considerable attention among contemporary scholars, with special attention focused upon the South. Certainly one problem with examining electoral change in the Mountain West is that adequately large samples from the region are difficult to come by. The Mountain area emerged in the 1980s as the most Republican region, and the region with the most competitive partisan balance in party identification.
