Opinion | Ruy Teixeira on the Democratic Majority That Never Emerged

Nobody knew it in 1992, but 30 years later it’s clear that year’s election began a new era in American politics. The previous 24 years, starting in 1969, had been an age of divided federal government, with Republicans in the White House for five of six terms and Democratic House majorities the entire time. That was preceded by 36 years, going back to 1933, of dominance by Democrats, who held the White House for 28 of those years and the House for 32.

The new era is one of narrow and frequently shifting majorities. Partisans in the 1990s and 2000s saw the promise of a permanent realignment under a succession of young leaders—Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush, Barack Obama—and in 2016 Donald Trump was supposed to doom the GOP. But none of those expectations panned out. Joe Biden is the fifth consecutive president whose immediate predecessor was from the other party, and it will be a surprise if he doesn’t become the fifth incumbent in a row to see his party lose its House majority in a midterm election. If Republicans take the Senate, it will be the seventh time in 30 years that chamber’s majority has flipped.