Realigning election

A political realignment, often called a critical election, critical realignment, or realigning election, in the academic fields of political science and political history, is a set of sharp changes in party ideology, issues, party leaders, regional and demographic bases of power of political parties, and the structure or rules of the political system, such as voter eligibility or financing. The changes result in a new political power structure that lasts for decades, replacing an older dominant coalition. Scholars frequently invoke the concept in American elections and occasionally those of other countries. American examples include the 1896 United States presidential election, when the issues of the American Civil War political system were replaced with those of the Populist and Progressive Era, and the 1932 United States presidential election, when the Populist and Progressive Eras were replaced by the New Deal-era issues of New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism. Realigning elections typically separate (what are known in the field of comparative politics as) party systems—with 1828, for example, separating the First Party System and the Second Party System in the US. It is generally accepted that the United States has had five distinct party systems, each featuring two major parties attracting a consistent political coalition and following a consistent party ideology, separated by four realignments.

Political realignments can be sudden (1–4 years) or can take place more gradually (5–20 years). Most often, however, particularly in V. O. Key Jr.'s (1955) original hypothesis, it is a single "critical election" that marks a realignment. By contrast, a gradual process is called a ''secular realignment''. Political scientists and historians often disagree about which elections are realignments and what defines a realignment, and even whether realignments occur. The terms themselves are somewhat arbitrary, however, and usage among political scientists and historians does vary. In the US, Walter Dean Burnham argued for a 30–38 year "cycle" of realignments. Many of the elections often included in the Burnham 38-year cycle are considered "realigning" for different reasons.

Other political scientists and quantitative elections analysts reject realignment theory altogether, arguing that there are no long-term patterns. Political scientist David R. Mayhew states, "Electoral politics is to an important degree just one thing after another ... Elections and their underlying causes are not usefully sortable into generation-long spans ... It is a Rip Van Winkle view of democracy that voters come awake only once in a generation ... It is too slippery, too binary, too apocalyptic, and it has come to be too much of a dead end."

Sean Trende, senior elections analyst at '' RealClearPolitics'', who argues against realignment theory and the "emerging Democratic majority" thesis proposed by journalist John Judis and political scientist Ruy Teixeira in his 2012 book ''The Lost Majority'' states, "Almost none of the theories propounded by realignment theorists has endured the test of time... It turns out that finding a 'realigning' election is a lot like finding an image of Jesus in a grilled-cheese sandwich – if you stare long enough and hard enough, you will eventually find what you are looking for." In August 2013, Trende observed that U.S. presidential election results from 1880 through 2012 form a 0.96 correlation with the expected sets of outcomes (i.e. events) in the binomial distribution of a fair coin flip experiment. In May 2015, statistician and '' FiveThirtyEight'' editor-in-chief Nate Silver argued against a blue wall Electoral College advantage for the Democratic Party in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and in post-election analysis, Silver cited Trende in noting that "there are few if any permanent majorities" and both Silver and Trende argued that the "emerging Democratic majority" thesis led most news coverage and commentary preceding the election to overstate Hillary Clinton's chances of being elected.

Realignment theory

The central holding of realignment theory, first developed in the political scientist V. O. Key Jr.'s 1955 article, "A Theory of Critical Elections", is that American elections, parties and policymaking routinely shift in swift, dramatic sweeps.

Key, E. E. Schattschneider, James L. Sundquist, Walter Dean Burnham are generally credited with developing and refining the theory of realignment. Though they differed on some of the details, earlier realignments scholars generally concluded that systematic patterns are identifiable in American national elections such that cycles occur on a regular schedule: once every 36-years or so. This period of roughly 30 years fits with the notion that these cycles are closely linked to generational change. Some, such as Schafer and Reichley, argue that the patterns are longer, closer to 50 to 60 years in duration, noting the Democratic dominance from 1800 to 1860, and Republican rule from 1860 to 1932. Reichley argues that the only true realigning elections occurred in 1800, 1860, and 1932. Given the much longer length of time since the last generally accepted realignment in 1932, more recent scholars have theorized that realignments don't in fact operate on any consistent time scale, but rather occur whenever the necessary political, social, and economic changes occur.

The alignment of 1860, with Republicans winning a series of close presidential elections, yielded abruptly in 1896 to an era of more decisive GOP control, in which most presidential elections were blowouts, and Democratic Congresses were infrequent and brief. Thirty-six years later, that system was displaced by a cycle of Democratic dominance, lasting throughout the Great Depression until Ronald Reagan's election as president in 1980 and the House election of 1994 when Republicans regained the majority for the first time in 40 years.

Voter realignments

A central component of realignment is the change in behavior of voting groups. Realignment means the switching of voter preference from one party to another, in contrast to ''dealignment'' (where a voter group abandons a party to become independent or nonvoting). In the US and Australia, as the ideologies of the parties define many of the aspects of voters' lives and the decisions that they make, a realignment by a voter tends to have a longer-lasting effect.

In Britain and Canada, on the other hand, voters have a tendency to switch parties on a whim, perhaps only for one election, as there is far less loyalty towards a particular party.

United States

Political realignment in United States history

Here is presented a list of elections most often cited as "realigning", with disagreements noted:
* 1800 presidential election — Thomas Jefferson
** This election completed the turnover of power in the First Party System from the Federalist Party, led by Alexander Hamilton, to Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party. The center of power shifted from New England to the South and Jeffersonian democracy became the dominant ideology.
** Republicans gained 19.7% of House seats in 1800, 9.4% in 1802 and 9.7% in 1804, for a total gain of 38.8% in 3 elections.
** As late as 1812, the Federalists came within one state of winning. A larger shift in electoral politics arguably came in the 1812–1816 period, as the Federalists became discredited after opposing the War of 1812.
* 1828 presidential election — Andrew Jackson
** This election redefined the party system in the United States, setting up the Second Party System, which was dominated by Jacksonian democracy. The Democratic-Republicans split into two parties, later renamed as the Democratic Party and the Whig Party. The Democrats were led by Andrew Jackson of Tennessee and Martin Van Buren of New York. By 1834 the Whigs emerged as the opposition to Andrew Jackson, led by Henry Clay of Kentucky.Silbey (1991)
* 1860 presidential election — Abraham Lincoln
** After the Whigs collapsed after 1852, party alignments were in turmoil, with several third parties, such as the Know Nothings and the Opposition Party. The system stabilized in 1858 and the presidential election marked the ascendence of the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln beat out three other contenders — but even if they had somehow united he still had the majority of the electoral vote. The Republican party was pledged to the long-term ending of slavery, which was proximate cause of secession. Republicans rallied around nationalism in 1861 and fought the American Civil War to end secession. During the war the Republicans, under Lincoln's leadership, switched to a goal of short-term ending of slavery. By 1864, the Republicans had a coalition built around followers of the "free labor" ideology, as well as soldiers and veterans of the Union Army. (Since then, the military establishment has favored the Republicans.)
*** The Republican Party went from 18.3% of the House in 1854, to 38.0% in 1856, 48.7% in 1858, and 59.0% in 1860, for a total gain of 40.7% in 4 elections.
* 1896 presidential election — William McKinley
** The status of this election is hotly disputed; some political scientists, such as Jerome Clubb, do not consider it a realigning election. Other political scientists and historians, such as Kleppner and Burnham consider this the ultimate realignment and emphasize that the rules of the game had changed, the leaders were new, voting alignments had changed, and a whole new set of issues came to dominance as the old Civil War-era issues faded away. Funding from office holders was replaced by outside fund raising from business in 1896 — a major shift in political history. Furthermore, McKinley's tactics in beating William Jennings Bryan (as developed by Mark Hanna) marked a sea change in the evolution of the modern campaign. McKinley raised a huge amount of money from business interests, outspending Bryan by 10 to 1. Bryan meanwhile invented the modern technique of campaigning heavily in closely contested states, the first candidate to do so. Bryan's message of populism and class conflict marked a new direction for the Democrats. McKinley's victory in 1896 and repeat in 1900 was a triumph for pluralism, as all sectors and groups shared in the new prosperity brought about by his policy of rapid industrial growth.
** While Republicans lost House seats in 1896, this followed a massive two-election gain: from 25.9% in 1890 to 34.8% in 1892 and 71.1% in 1894, for a total 45.2% gain. Republicans lost 13.4% in 1896, but still held 57.7% of House seats.
** In terms of correlations among counties, the election of 1896 is a realignment flop, but this is only a problem if realignment is considered to occur in single elections. Rather, if realignment is thought of as a generational or long-term political movement, then change will occur over several elections, even if there is one "critical" election defining the new alignment. So, as pointed out above, the 1896 realignment really began around 1892, and the 130 seat GOP gain in 1894, the all-record for a house election, meant there were almost no seats left to pick up in 1896. However, the presidential election in 1896 is usually considered the start of the new alignment since the national election allowed the nation to make a more conscious decision about the future of industrial policy by selecting McKinley over Bryan, making this the defining election in the realignment. The election of 1876 passes the numbers test much better compared to 1896 alone, and Mayhew (2004) argues it resulted in far more drastic changes in United States politics: Reconstruction came to a sudden halt, African-Americans in the South would soon be completely disenfranchised, and politicians began to focus on new issues (such as tariffs and civil service reform).
* 1932 presidential election — Franklin D. Roosevelt
** Of all the realigning elections, this one musters the most agreement from political scientists and historians; it is the archetypal realigning election.Schafer (1991) FDR's admirers such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. have argued that New Deal policies, developed in response to the crash of 1929 and the miseries of the Great Depression under Herbert Hoover, represented an entirely new phenomenon in American politics. More critical historians such as Carl Degler and David Kennedy see a great deal of continuity with Hoover's energetic but unsuccessful economic policies. In many ways, Roosevelt's legacy still defines the Democratic Party; he forged an enduring New Deal Coalition of big city machines, the White South, intellectuals, labor unions, Catholics, Jews, and Westerners. In 1936, African-Americans were added to the coalition (African-Americans had previously been denied the vote or voted Republican). For instance, Pittsburgh, which was a Republican stronghold from the Civil War up to this point, suddenly became a Democratic stronghold, and has elected a Democratic mayor to office in every election since this time.
** The Democrats went from controlling 37.7% of House seats in 1928 to 49.6% in 1930 and 71.9% in 1932, for a total gain of 34.2% in two elections.
** In the Senate, the Democrats went from controlling 40.6% of seats in 1928 to 49% in 1930 and 61.5% in 1932, for a total gain of 20.9% in two elections.

Other possible political realignments

Some debate exists today as to what elections could be considered realigning elections after 1932. Although several candidates have been proposed, there is no widespread agreement:

* 1874 elections
** The 1874 elections saw a resurgence of the Democratic Party. Discontent with the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant and the economic depression known at the time as the Panic of 1873, and the slow return of disillusioned Liberal Republicans from their 1872 third party ticket, all energized the Democrats. The Democrats had not controlled either chamber of Congress since before the War. The realignment meant the Democrats generally controlled the House of Representatives from 1875 to their massive defeat in 1894. Republicans eked out very narrow wins in most of the presidential elections in that period. The Civil Rights Act of 1875, enacted in the lame-duck session of Congress following the 1874 elections, was the last major Reconstruction law, and it was chiefly of symbolic value. The new strength of the Democrats marked the end of Reconstruction legislation. With the end of Reconstruction, the 11 former states of the Confederacy became a dominant-party system known as the Solid South. The tariff and especially monetary policy emerged as the great ideological debates after 1874.
* 1964 and 1968 presidential elections — Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon
** The 1968 election is often cited due to the innovative campaign strategy of Nixon. In running against Hubert Humphrey, he used what became known as the Southern strategy. He appealed to white voters in the South with a call for " states' rights", which they interpreted as meaning that the federal government would no longer demand the forced busing of school children as ordered by federal courts. Democrats protested that Nixon exploited racial fears in winning the support of white southerners and northern white ethnics. Roosevelt's New Deal coalition had lasted over 30 years but after the urban riots and Vietnam crisis of the mid-1960s one by one the coalition partners peeled away until only a hollow core remained, setting the stage for a GOP revival. Nixon's downfall postponed the realignment which came about under Reagan, as even the term "liberalism" fell into disrepute.
** Including this as a realignment preserves the roughly 30-year cyclical pattern: 1896 to 1932, 1932 to 1964, and 1964 to 1994.
** For political scientists, 1964 was primarily an issue-based realignment. The classic study of the 1964 election, by Carmines and Stimson (1989), shows how the polarization of activists and elites on race-related issues sent clear signals to the general public about the historic change in each party's position on Civil Rights. Notably, while only 50% of African-Americans self-identified as Democrats in the 1960 National Election Study, 82% did in 1964, and the numbers are higher in the 21st century. The clearest indicator of the importance of this election was that Deep Southern states, such as Mississippi, voted Republican in 1964. In contrast, much of the traditional Republican strongholds of the Northeast and Upper Midwest voted Democratic. Vermont and Maine, which stood alone voting against FDR in 1936, voted for LBJ in 1964.
** Many analysts do not consider 1968 a realigning election because control of Congress did not change; the Democrats would control the Senate until 1980 (and again from 1986 to 1994) and the House until 1994. Also missing was a marked change in the partisan orientation of the electorate. Importantly, these two elections are consistent with the theory in that the old New Deal issues were replaced by Civil Rights issues as the major factor explaining why citizens identified with each party. Other scholars contend that this is the beginning of a thirty-year dealignment, in which citizens generally moved towards political independence, which ended with the 1994 election.
* 1980 presidential election — Ronald Reagan
** In this election, Ronald Reagan won a sweeping victory over Democrat Jimmy Carter, who won only six states (plus the District of Columbia), which accounted for just 10% of the electoral vote. Republicans also took control of the Senate for the first time in over 25 years. (See Reagan's coattails.)
** The 1980 election can be seen as an ideological realignment, as it marked the beginning of the Reagan Era and marked a realignment towards conservatism and conservative policies. In addition, Reagan Democrats are a result of his presidency and campaigns. Many scholars viewed Reagan's policies as sufficiently new to consider this a realigning election.
** On the other hand, critics like Mayhew (2004) note that control of the House did not change, nor even come close to changing, at this time. Republicans actually held fewer House seats in 1983 than they held in 1973. In addition, the Republicans lost the Senate again only six years later, leading some to conclude that the Senators simply rode in on Reagan's coattails, and did not represent a true shift in the ideological preferences of their constituents. Also absent was a shift in partisan alignment from public opinion polls. Both liberals, such as Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, and conservatives, such as Reagan communications director Pat Buchanan, would also argue that Nixon's victory in 1968 set the stage for Reagan's victory, and the fact that Reagan did so well in Southern states, traditionally a Democratic stronghold, as well as the fact that some of Reagan's rhetoric involving law and order and states' rights seemed to mirror Nixon's Southern Strategy seem to bear this fact out.
* 1992 presidential election — Bill Clinton
** Clinton carried several states that had previously been Republican or swing states in both the Northeast and on the West Coast. Most notably, the largest state California switched from being a reliably Republican state to being consistently Democratic: it has been carried by Democratic candidates ever since. Other states that switched and have remained with the Democrats since include Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, and Vermont. In contrast, despite the fact Clinton came from the South, he only carried four of the former Confederate states: Arkansas (his home state), Louisiana, Tennessee (his vice president's home state) and Georgia, confirming it as a Republican base of support.
** Since 1992, the Democratic candidate has won the national popular vote in every presidential election except 2004, suggesting some manner of national realignment away from the Republican domination of the 1970s and 1980s. This national tendency toward Democratic presidential candidates did not necessarily translate to Democratic victories in congressional elections. However Republicans remained competitive nationally, making historic gains in the 1994 and 2010 midterms, although the composition of the electorate in presidential versus midterm elections vary significantly.
* 1994 House of Representatives and Senate electionsJenkins et al. (2006)
** This election is now generally seen as a realigning election by political scientists. Republicans won majorities in both the House and the Senate, taking control of both chambers for the first time since 1954. In addition, control of the House continued until 2007. Newt Gingrich, who promoted a "Contract with America", successfully nationalized the campaign by coordinating races around the country. The overwhelming nature of the Republicans' victory points to a realignment; the party gained 54 seats, while neither party would gain more than a handful of seats in any election until 2006.
** The GOP gained seats in 43 of 46 state houses. These gains continued into the next decade, so that by 2002 the GOP held the majority of state legislative seats for the first time in fifty years.
** Notably, the period of party decline and mass dealignment appears to have ended in the 1990s. Strength of partisanship, as measured by the National Election Study, increased in the 1990s, as does the percentage of the mass public who perceive important differences between each party.
** This election also indicates the rise of religious issues as one of the most important cleavage in American politics. While Reagan's election hinted at the importance of the religious right, it was the formation of the Christian Coalition (the successor to the Moral Majority) in the early 1990s that gave Republicans organizational and financial muscle, particularly at the state level. By 2004 the media portrayed the political nation as divided into "red" (Republican) and "blue" (Democratic) states, with reputed differences in cultural attitudes and politics between the two blocs.
** The Republicans made historic inroads in the Solid South where they picked up total of 19 House seats. Going into the election, House Democrats outnumbered House Republicans. Afterwards, the Republicans outnumbered Democrats for the first time since Reconstruction.
* 2008 presidential election — Barack Obama
** In the 2008 elections, the Democrats expanded their majorities in the Congress, and won the presidency decisively. This was due to the momentum carried over from the Democrats' 2006 successes, as well as the continued unpopularity of President George W. Bush, whose administration was now faced with a financial crisis and economic recession. Some people believe that 2008 is possibly a realigning election with a long-lasting impact, just as the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt was in 1932 and the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 were. President Obama was reelected in the 2012 election as well, becoming only the third Democrat to win an absolute majority of the popular vote more than once while losing only two entire states that he had won in 2008.
** On the other hand, the Republican Party experienced major gains two years later in 2010, retaking the house with a gain of 63 seats, the largest Republican gain in 80 years. Additionally, the Republican Party gained 6 seats in the Senate, slimming the Democratic majority. Despite Obama's reelection in 2012, the Republicans had another strong performance in the 2014 midterms; they not only increased their majority in the House and recaptured the Senate, but also made gains in the gubernatorial races and other statewide and local races, resulting in 31 Republican governorships and 68 state legislative houses under Republican control, thus increasing their influence to the largest Republican majority in the entire country in nearly a century.
* 2016 presidential election — Donald Trump
** In this election, Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, won Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, all Midwestern and/or Rust Belt states that some had previously considered safely Democratic, though those states were close in several prior elections. Trump also came close to winning New Hampshire, Minnesota and Maine and outperformed previous Republican candidates in Connecticut and Rhode Island, winning more counties and towns in the Northeast than any Republican since 1988.
** The Republican Party maintained their lead in both the House and Senate.
*** The Republicans set a modern record of holding 33 governorships and fully controlling 32 state legislatures.
** However, like with the 2008 Obama election, two years later in the 2018 United States elections, the Republican Party lost control of the House in a loss of 40 seats, but gained two seats in the Senate, so the full effect of the 2016 election and Trump Presidency as a critical election remains to be seen.
**Furthermore, Donald Trump lost to former vice president and Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 United States presidential election. In particular, Trump lost the three states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that were cited as key to his victory in 2016, although by relatively narrow margins compared to the Obama era.

Canada

The history of the critical realigning elections in Canada, both nationally and in the provinces, is covered by Argyle (2011).

Federal

According to recent scholarship, there have been four party systems in Canada at the federal level since Confederation, each with its own distinctive pattern of social support, patronage relationships, leadership styles, and electoral strategies. Steve Patten identifies four party systems in Canada's political history
* The first party system emerged from pre-Confederation colonial politics, had its "heyday" from 1896 to 1911 and lasted until the Conscription Crisis of 1917, and was characterized by local patronage administered by the two largest parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives.
* The second system emerged following the First World War, and had its heyday from 1935 to 1957, was characterized by regionalism and saw the emergence of several protest parties, such as the Progressives, the Social Credit Party, and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.
* The third system emerged in 1963 and had its heyday from 1968 to 1983 and began to unravel thereafter. The two largest parties were challenged by a strong third party, the New Democratic Party. Campaigns during this era became more national in scope due to electronic media, and involved a greater focus on leadership. The dominant policy of the era was Keynesian economics.
* The fourth party system has involved the rise of the Reform Party, the Bloc Québécois, and the merger of the Canadian Alliance with the Progressive Conservatives. It saw most parties move to one-member-one-vote leadership contests, and a major reform to campaign finance laws in 2004. The fourth party system has been characterized by market-oriented policies that abandoned Keynesian policies, but maintained the welfare state.

Clarkson (2005) shows how the Liberal Party has dominated all the party systems, using different approaches. It began with a "clientelistic approach" under Laurier, which evolved into a "brokerage" system of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s under Mackenzie King. The 1950s saw the emergence of a "pan-Canadian system", which lasted until the 1990s. The 1993 election — categorized by Clarkson as an electoral "earthquake" which "fragmented" the party system, saw the emergence of regional politics within a four party-system, whereby various groups championed regional issues and concerns. Clarkson concludes that the inherent bias built into the first-past-the-post system, has chiefly benefited the Liberals.

* 1896 election
** 1896 saw a Liberal victory under Sir Wilfrid Laurier. From the 1867 election until 1896, the Conservative Party of John A. Macdonald had governed Canada, excepting a single term from 1873 to 1878. The Liberals had struggled to retake office, under Laurier and his predecessor, Edward Blake. 1896 was the first election held after the death of Macdonald in 1891, and the Conservatives had been in complete disarray in the ensuing years, with no fewer than four leaders. The Liberals would remain in office until 1911. Beyond that, political scientists often consider this election that made the Liberal Party the dominant force in Canadian politics, holding office for more than two thirds of the time between 1896 and 2006.
* 1984 election
** The election of 1984 not only saw Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives win a landslide majority, but their victory was aided in large part by a massive breakthrough in Quebec: winning 58 seats as compared to the one Quebec seat they won in 1980. Mulroney successfully campaigned in Quebec on a message that Trudeau's Liberals had "sold out" the province during the process of patriating the Canadian constitution in 1982, due to the fact that Quebec never formally signed on to the new constitution. The Liberals were cut down to only 17 seats, all but four of them in Montreal. Although Quebec had been a Liberal stronghold since 1896 (with the exception of 1958), from 1984 the Liberals did not win a majority of seats in the province until the 2015 election.
* 1993 election
** 1993 saw not only the sweeping success of the Liberals under Jean Chrétien, but also the fracturing of Progressive Conservatives' support base to regional parties in Quebec and the western provinces, resulting in a five party political system with the Liberals as the dominant party. The Conservative majority election victories in 1984 and 1988 were based on a "Grand Coalition" between socially conservative populists from the West, Quebec nationalists, and fiscal conservatives from Ontario and the Maritimes, making it difficult for the Mulroney government to balance these diverse interests. During his second term, Mulroney's policies were unpopular, while the failure of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords frustrated Quebec and stirred up Western alienation. New regional parties which formed in protest to Mulroney's government, the Bloc Québécois in Quebec and the Reform Party in the west won many seats formerly held by the PCs despite a lack of national support. The New Democratic Party, the longtime third party in parliament, fell from 43 seats to nine. The unpopularity of the provincial NDP governments in Ontario and BC reflected badly on the federal NDP, also their endorsement of the Charlottetown Accord and Quebec nationalism cost them support among organized labour and rural voters in the west, which switched their support to Reform. Meanwhile, the Progressive Conservatives were nearly wiped out, falling from 156 seats to only two—the worst defeat of a sitting government at the federal level.
** The Liberals under Chrétien would win a further two consecutive majorities in 1997 and 2000, while never being seriously challenged as the largest party. The Progressive Conservatives never recovered, winning 20 (of 301) seats in 1997 and 12 in 2000 before merging with the Reform Party's successor, the Canadian Alliance, to form the new Conservative Party of Canada in late 2003. Due to competition with the Liberals for left-leaning voters, the New Democrats had mixed successes in the next several elections, winning 21 in 1997 but dropping back to 13 in 2000, unable to approach their high-water mark showing until 2006.
* 2004 election
** While Paul Martin's Liberals retained enough seats to continue as the government, it saw the re-emergence of a united Conservative Party and the resurgence of Bloc Québécois, resulting in a four party system. This was also the first of three elections where no party managed a majority of seats.

Alberta

Alberta has had a tradition of one-party dominance, where a party forms government for an extended period before losing power. From 1905 to 2015, Alberta only changed governments (often called "dynasties") four times, with no party ever returning to government. The elections of 1921, 1935, 1971 and 2015 each marked the end of a particular dynasty and a realignment of the province's party system.

The 2019 election has also been suggested as a realignment: although the New Democratic Party was defeated after only one term, they retained a strong base of seats and remained competitive in opinion polling and fundraising, pointing to a possible development of a competitive two-party system against the United Conservative Party.

British Columbia

* 1991 British Columbia general election – End of Social Credit as an effective political force in British Columbia politics. The Socreds under Premier Rita Johnston was reduced to third party status, while the New Democratic Party of Mike Harcourt formed the government. Liberal Party leader Gordon Wilson surprised observers by leading his party to winning one-third of the votes cast. This was enough to not only return them to the legislature, but make them the official opposition.
* 2001 British Columbia general election - The centre-right coalesced around the BC Liberal Party, which won 77 of 79 seats and 57.6% of the popular vote. This essentially rebuilt much of the Socred coalition around the BC Liberal Party. At the same time, the NDP faced significant unpopularity after several scandals (such as the Fast Ferry Scandal), and failed to break the Liberal majority until 2017.

Quebec

A considerable number of Quebec general elections have been known characterized by high seat turnovers, with certain ones being considered realigning elections, notably:
* The 1936 election which ended 39 years of Liberal rule (16 of them recently under Louis-Alexandre Taschereau); and saw the rise of Maurice Duplessis's Union Nationale, which would go on to form government for all but one term until 1960.
* The 1960 election, which not only ended 15 continuous years of Union Nationale rule and precipitated its gradual decline, but ushered in the Quiet Revolution under Jean Lesage.
* The 1976 election, which saw René Lévesque's Parti Québécois not only make a breakthrough in the National Assembly. It also made sovereignty the dominant political issue from then on, with parties subsequently aligning themselves on a sovereignty–federalist spectrum.
*The 2018 election suggested the end of the sovereignty-federalist split due to the emergence of the Coalition Avenir Québec