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108 Pol. Sci. Q. 1 (1993-1994)

handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry108 and id is 1 raw text is: The 1992 Vote for President Clinton: Another Brittle Mandate? EVERETT CARLL LADD Three decades ago, Angus Campbell and his colleagues, acknowl- edging a debt to V. 0. Key, Jr., classified U.S. presidential elections as three basic types: maintaining, deviating, and realigning.' With one large amendment, this scheme seems to me to provide a useful way of locating the 1992 presidential contest. With incumbent President George Bush losing to Democratic challenger Bill Clinton by 5.5 percentage points in the popular vote, the election was evi- dently not maintaining. But with little happening to the mix of party identifica- tion, the alignment of social groups, or the configuration of policy preferences, neither was it realigning. It can, however, be thought of as deviating. The pre- vailing balance of power in presidential electioneering was rocked by short-term demands for change strong enough to give the out-of-power party control of the Executive Branch for the first time in a dozen years. The success of Ross ' See Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, TheAmerican Voter (New York: John Wiley, 1960), 531-38; and Campbell et al., Elections and the Political Order (New York: John Wiley, 1966), 63-67. The authors defined a maintaining election as one in which the pattern of partisan attachments prevailing in the preceding period persists, and the majority party wins the presidency. In contrast, a realigning election is one where the basic partisan commitments of a portion of the electorate change, and a new party balance is created. See also James L. Sundquist, Needed: A Political Theory for the New Era of Coalition Government in the United States,Political Science Quarterly 103 (Winter 1988-89): 613-635; Demetrios Caraley, Elections and Dilemmas of American Democratic Governance: Reflections, Political Science Quarterly 104 (Spring 1989): 19-40. EVERETT C. LADD teaches political science at the University of Connecticut and is executive director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. He is the author of numerous books and articles on parties and elections. This article is the fourth in a series of analyses on presidential elections beginning with The Brittle Mandate: Electoral Dealignment and the 1980 Presidential Election, which appeared in the Spring 1981 Political Science Quarterly. Political Science Quarterly Volume 108 Number 1 1993

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