Electoral congruence and the autonomy of American state party systems

This research examines whether electoral incongruence within American state party systems exists between presidential and state-level elections. Recen t research by James Gimpel suggests that the states are developing autonomo us party systems in which electoral cleavages in state-wide races are incre asingly dissimilar to those at the national level. In this research, county -level two-party voting patterns are used as measures of the geographic con tinuity of partisan electoral cleavages for all presidential, gubernatorial , and senatorial elections over the last decade (1986-1996) from the 10 sta tes examined most closely in Gimpel's work. However, a factor analysis of t hese data fail to confirm two hypotheses implied by this intrastate autonom y phenomenon. A single dominant factor appears to underlie the partisan cle avages in both the Western and Northern states. Consequently, although more variable, the partisan divisions in elections are likely to he very simila r to the contours of those at the presidential level.