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Interparty Competition in Pennsylvania, 1954-68: a Historical and Political Perspective

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Interparty Competition in Pennsylvania, 1954-68: a Historical and Political Perspective INTERPARTY COMPETITION IN PENNSYLVANIA, 1954-68: A HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE By ROBERT L. HEALY* HE dynamics of Pennsylvania politics have been examined T from numerous vantage points. A survey of the literature would incorporate historical descriptions of significant state political events,. biographical studies of leading political per- sonalities, 2 journalistic accounts of machine power politics,3 studies of political party organization,4 and treatises concerning the Gen- eral Assembly-its participants, its operation, and its relationship with other governing institutions. 5 One aspect of Pennsylvania politics has held a continuing interest for political scientists-the competition for votes between the two major political parties. Scholarly analysis has usually focused on county voting patterns; these studies had their genesis in the 1940's with the publication of a pamphlet series that researched imterparty county competition from 1922-1944.' These studies and *The author lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. ' See Sylvester K. Stevens, Pennsylvania History in Outline (Harrisburg, 1960). Also, Norman B. Wilkinson, Bibliography of Pennsylvania (Harris- burg, 1957), Pennsylvania Manual, Vol. 97, 63. 2For a summary of state bosses, see E. F. Cooke and G. E. Janosik, Guide To Pennsylvania Politics (New York, 1957), 6-19. Also, Frank Hawkins, "Lawrence of Pittsburgh: Boss of the Mellon Patch," Harper's Magazine, LV (August, 1955). ' Beverly Smith, "How to House Clean a State," Saturday Evening Post, April 14, 1951, 38-39. 'Frank J. Sorauf, Party and Representation (New York, 1963). 'William Keefe, "Parties, Partisanship, and Public Policy in the Penn- sylvania Legislature," American Political Science Review, XLVIII (June, 1954), 452. Kenneth T. Palmer, "The Pennsylvania General Assembly," Pennsylvania Assembly on State Legislatures in American Politics (Pitts- burgh, 1968). Malcolm Jewell, "Party Voting in American State Legis- latures," American Political Science Review, XLVIX (September, 1955), 773-779. Thomas Dye, "A Comparison of Constituency Influence in the Upper and Lower Chambers of a State Legislature," Western Political Quarterly, XIV (June, 1961), 473-480. 'H. F. Alderfer and Robert Sigmond, Presidential Elections by Pennsyl- vania Counties, I920-I940 (State College, Pennsylvania, 1941). See also, H. F. Alderfer and Fannette H. Luhr, Gubernatorial Elections in Pennsyl- vania, 1922-1942 (State College, Pennsylvania, 1946). 352 INTERPARTY COMPETITION IN PENNSYLVANIA 353 a subsequent article published in PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY' at- tempted to answer such questions as: In which counties are the parties most competitive? In which counties are the parties least competitive? In which counties are the Democrats strong? In which counties are the Republicans strong? This article is an updating of the previous works through the 1968 elections in order to give a current perspective on the status of interparty competition in Pennsylvania. In any analytical scheme, the validity of the findings rests on key operational decisions. Decisions crucial to this study are (1) the time span to examine, (2) selection of electoral offices around which to (3) construct indices of competition and (4) establish categories for county competiveness classification. For two reasons, the interval from 1954 to 1968 was selected for analysis: First, earlier studies of competition in Pennsylvania counties had covered the years 1922 to 1944 and 1944 to 1958. A study covering the years 1954 to 1968 was a logical extension of the other works. Second, 1954 seemed to 'have been a turning point in the political climate of the state. In that year, and for the first time since 1934, Democrats captured a major political office-the governorship. Two years later, Democrats managed to wrestle a senatorial post away from the Republicans; then, in 1958, Democrats retained control of the governor's chair. A second decision is that of the contests to be studied. The earlier studies of county electoral behavior have employed in various combinations presidential, senatorial and gubernatorial contests; yet, there is a question whether or not all of these con- tests would yield an accurate representation of political competition in the counties. The assumption is that different races and offices affect the electorate in different manners. Examining only the presidential contest, for example, might tend to skew the findings and accent oddities associated with high stimulus presidential elections. This study chose to examine all in-state, statewide races be- tween 1954 and 1968. Elections used were senatorial, four gubernatorial, four races for Secretary of Internal Affairs, four races for State Treasurer and State Auditor General. 'Edward F. Cooke, "Patterns of Voting in Pennsylvania Counties, 1944- 58," Pennsylvania History, XXVII (January, 1960), 69-87. 354 PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY The third decision is designing operational indices. Two types of indices are required: dominance and competition. To construct a measure of party dominance, the following county-row electoral offices were examined: Commissioner, Treasurer, District Attorney, Sheriff, and Coroner. These offices were selected because they were the only ones, during the time period under study, that were elected in every county. As a quantitative measure of party dominance, this paper employs an index of percent offices won; a political party is classified dominant, senmi-dominant, or non- dominant in a county according to the following scale: Dominant - Won over 80o of offices listed Semi-Dominant - Won from 60 to 79.9% of offices listed Non-Dominant -- Won from 50 to 59.9%o of offices listed The Party Dominance Index (PDI) has two functions. It com- plements the Party Competition Index (explained below) to in- crease the descriptive power of the study; and, it will be used to break mathematical ties in the construction of the Party Com- petition Index (PCI). In the literature, three main variables have been used to con- struct Party Competition Indices (PCI) : alternation of parties in office, percentage of elections won, and percentage of votes won.' This article takes the position that any measure of com- petition calculated from percent elections won or percent terms in control or a rank ordering of election results is primarily a function of votes cast. This study will calculate the Party Com- petition Index from percentage of votes won over all in state- wide races.9 The last decision is that of category specification. The following categories were chosen because the percentages represent the most natural breaks among the clustering of total mean pluralities: S Austin Ranney and Wilmoore Kendall, "The American Party Systems," American Political Science Review, XLVIII (June, 1954), 477-485; Joseph Schlesinger, "A Two Dimensional Scheme for Classifying States According to the Degree of Interparty Competition," American Political Science Re- view, XLIX (December, 1955), 1120-1128; Robert T. Golembiewski, "A Taxionomic Approach to State Political Party Strength," Western Political Quarterly, XI (December, 1958), 494-513; Richard Hofferbert, "Classifica- tion of American Party Systems," Journal of Politics, XXVI (August, 1964), 550-567. 'David G. Pfeiffer, "Measurement of Interplay Competition and System Stability," American Political Science Review, LXI (June, 1967), 457. INTERPARTY COMPETITION IN PENNSYLVANIA 355 Plurality Percent Categories for Winning Party Strong Two-Party County 0 to 4.9 Weak Two-Party County -- 5 to 7.9 Weak One-Party County 8 to 11.9 Strong One-Party County 12 to 19.9 Exceptionally Strong One-Party County 20 and over Thus a county is classified as a strong two-party county-com- petition between parties is at a peak-when a plurality of two-party vote is less than five percent for the winning party. Yet, in terms of partisan status, these categories are not too meaningful; they do not, for example, tell whether or not a county is Democratic or Republican. Hence, a modification of the above index was devised: Plurality Percent Categories for Winning Party One-Party Democratic County Over 20 Modified One-Party Democratic County 8 to 19.9 Weak One-Party Democratic County ------ 5 to 7.9 Two-Party County - -- --- 0 to 4.9 Weak One-Party Republican County -- 5 to 7.9 Modified One-Party Republican County - 8 to 19.9 One-Party Republican County --- - Over 20 A county is classified as One-Party Democratic if the plurality between the two parties is twenty percent or over and if the winning party is Democratic. Ties in the rankings of counties on the PCI index were broken *on the basis of the dominant party (PDI) in the county. If, for example, after all the statewide races had been scaled, Clarion and Clearfield were to tie as to PCI, then the tie would be broken by looking at the party relationships within the county. If Clear- field were a dominant Democratic county and Clarion a semi- dominant Republican county, the tie would be broken by awarding Clarion the more competitive position. Counties were then classi- fied according to natural breakings in the pluralities. * * * * * Historically, electoral politics in Pennsylvania has been non- competitive. Pennsylvania has long served as a loci of Republican- ism; the Democratic party has been benignly dormant. In the last thirty to forty years though, statewide interparty electoral 356 PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY competition has markedly increased. Yet, even during the Roose- velt years Pennsylvania retained much of its Republican orienta-
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