AH Challenge: Stop the Switch of the Parties

I've always been interested that a lot of times when you look at an electoral map of an earlier twentieth century presidential election in the United States, the states seem to vote opposite of who they vote for now. Modern day Democratic strongholds like California and New York vote Republican, Texas votes Democrat.

I am aware that both the Republican and Democratic parties have gone through a lot of changes in the past hundred or so years, especially in regards to the Republican party and their values.

How can we keep the electoral map like it was for as long as possible, though? What would be needed to do that and how would that change things?

P.S. Sorry if this post is a little difficult to understand, I had a bit of a problem explaining it.
 
Have the Democrats be the dominant party when the Great Depression strikes. It's pretty much that simple.
 
Have the Civil Rights act(s) keep failing because of Democrats. Then try to make the Dems less secular while the Republicans do just the opposite.
 
As said before having the Democrats in power when the Great Depression strikes would be probably the best way, at the very least preventing the North-East going strongly Democrat.

However another good POD would be having the Republicans in power throughout the period 1960-1968 and having to work through civil rights issues. This would certainly prevent Nixon's Southern Strategy.
 
There are two easy points. The first is FDR. Have someone else be the usual Democratic politician and there's no New Deal and no shift of the Democratic Party to the left where—inevitably—it must confront civil rights and lose the South.


The second would probably centre on 1960. Rockefeller takes the nomination away from Nixon which leaves Goldwater and co. steaming while on the Democratic side LBJ gains the support of Adlai and wins at the convention.

This leaves a more Southern Democratic Party with a more Northern Republican Party and retains the tensions for some longer period. The South, as long as the Dems care about Civil Rights, wants to defect but as long as moderate Northern Republicans who also care about—at least—urban blacks are around their alternatives are limited.

Meanwhile the Republicans are stuck with people quite a bit more right-wing—Goldwater—but are unable to embrace them/win the South with Rockefeller as President.


I imagine this state of affairs doesn't persist longer than another couple terms before the two parties shake themselves out into either OTL configurations, New Deal style configurations (albeit more likely with a Dem Party unable to carry the South, but retaining "Reagan Democrats") or back to their pre-New Deal voting blocs.
 
Top