THE SOCIAL AND IDEOLOGICAL BASES OF MIDDLE-CLASS POLITICAL REALIGNMENT IN THE UNITED-STATES, 1972 TO 1992

Research on the nature and bases of the political alignments of the mi ddle class in the United States has produced extensive disagreements b ut little resolution of fundamental controversies. We address unresolv ed questions about the political alignments of the middle class throug h an investigation of change in voting behavior among two of its princ ipal segments: managers and professionals. Among professionals, but no t among managers, there has been a long-term shift away from support f or Republican presidential candidates to support for Democratic candid ates. Competing hypotheses about the sources of these trends are reste d using data from the National Election Studies. Increasingly liberal attitudes reward social issues, not changes in economic evaluations or sociodemographic composition, explain the growing tendency of profess ionals to vote Democratic and their increasing divergence from manager s. Party identification and partisan affect substantially mediate the effects of social group membership, views of the welfare state, and at titudes towards social issues. The relevance of these findings to unde rstanding the Democratic realignment of professionals and the stable R epublican alignment of managers is discussed.