The Big Sort: Where you live, how you vote.

Realignment? Nope. Just More of The Same.

A few days after the 2006 election, the Washington Post announced, " 'God gap' in American politics has narrowed substantially."

By 2006, so went the theory, evangelicals were disgruntled with George W. Bush. All the fundamentalists, charismatics, megachurchers, and Southern Baptists were shifting away from the Republicans. The evangelical church was undergoing some kind of fundamental change, and their votes were there for the Democratic taking.

Oh yeah? Seventy percent of white evangelicals voted Republican in House races in 2006, according to exit polls. Back in 2004—when it was abundantly clear to every angry lefty that the religious right was taking over the country—Republican support among white evangelicals was only four percentage points higher.

There was no shift among churchgoers, despite the hype. White evangelicals voted for Democrats in 2006 in the same percentage as gays and lesbians voted for Republicans, both at about 25 percent.

Reporters wanted there to be a big story in 2006, something besides the Democratic takeover of Congress. But, really, the tale of 2006 wasn't about big changes. Instead, the election was decided by small shifts that reached across the board. Democrats picked up three points, five points, seven points among each of the demographic or geographic subgroups of the American electorate. Gallup found the 2006 vote to be a "rising Democratic tide that lifted support in almost all key subgroups."

The few true independents remaining in the electorate voted Democratic, explained Gary Jacobson at U.C. San Diego. Talking with MSNBC.com, Jacobson said the election was "more of an accumulation of small shifts of a few points that added up to a larger trend. ..." There was no one group that switched allegiance, that realigned from Republican to Democratic. Democrats were a bit more loyal. Republicans a bit less.

Well, maybe Ds were a lot more loyal. In my old hometown of Louisville, Ky., Democrat John Yarmuth beat a five-term incumbent. Louisville has a large black population, and Yarmuth won that vote, but in no greater margins than usual. And he didn't make any broad inroads in Republican parts of town. Yarmuth didn't carry a single precinct where Republicans had a majority of registrants, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Yarmuth won in '06 because white, liberal neighborhoods "got even more liberal," giving the Democrat "astounding" majorities, according to a former chair of the local Republican Party.

Democratic voters got rid of all those with Rs behind their names. Ideology, policy, voting records—none of that mattered. Liberal Iowa Rep. Jim Leach lost. So did liberal Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chaffee. Before 2006, Republicans had held 18 seats in House districts where John Kerry won in 2004. After 2006, Democrats had reduced the number of so-called split districts to eight.

Partisanship in the country didn't begin to break down in 2006. It hardened.

Tomorrow: Democrats like to think that their Senate candidates in Missouri, Virginia, and Montana won in '06 because of a special ability to connect with rural voters. Nice story, but what's the real lesson for Obama from the "Redneck Caucus"?

If This Is a "Change" Election, Then What's Changed?

Let's consider what's not new in this election.

There's a lot. The last five or six elections have been pushed along by trends that have been in place since the mid-1970s. Despite the extraordinary circumstances this year, the basic political contours of the country haven't changed (or haven't changed yet!).

If anything, 2008 appears to be more an extension of the 2006 midterms, an election that changed little in the country's basic political makeup from 2004—except, of course, for the name of the winning party. More on that tomorrow. Today, let's consider how static our politics have been.

Churchgoers Are Still Republicans
Thirty years ago, how often you went to church didn't mark you as a Democrat or a Republican. Evangelicals didn't have a party.

As the parties sorted according to lifestyle instead of class, weekly churchgoers and evangelicals became reliably Republican voters in presidential races. There's no evidence this is changing. Oh, there have been plenty of stories about the breakup of the evangelical vote. I'd read the stories, but the more hardheaded pollsters and religion scholars would find, as John Green did last month, that "Barack Obama's attempt to reach out to Christian voters ... is failing."

In the fall of 2004, George Bush had a 60.4 percent to 19.6 percent edge over John Kerry among evangelicals. This year, Green found, McCain leads Obama 57.2 percent to 19.9 percent. Maybe that will change, but it hasn't yet, according to Gallup. Evangelicals and churchgoers may be "lukewarm" about McCain, but they are still supporting him in numbers just a smidgen below 2004 levels.

Women Voting Democratic
In the 1970s, more women voted Republican than men. Over the past 30 years, they have increasingly voted Democratic. Again, there was a spate of stories about a reversal in this arrangement, but by late September Gallup had women supporting Obama 52 percent to 39 percent.

Fewer Genuine Independents
Political reporters love the story about the rise of the independent voter and the "decline of parties." But over the past 30 years, the number of true independents has declined, and allegiance to party has grown stronger. (Princeton's Larry Bartels wrote the most important paper on this phenomenon.)

Yes, there are more people who register as independent or tell pollsters they are independent. But almost all these people vote reliably for one party or the other. People tell pollsters that they are independents, but when pressed, they admit that they almost always vote for the same party.

Split-Ticket Voters Disappearing
Split-ticket voting has been declining for the past 30 years, too. We are less inclined to pick and choose between parties. People are picking sides and voting that way up and down the ballot. That was especially true in 2006, when Democrats, especially, cast large numbers of straight-ticket votes in New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Rural Is Still Republican
Rural voters have been moving toward the Republican Party since the '70s. That trend continues, too. 

Replay 2006
Democrats thought the 2006 midterms were a turning point. They weren't. All these trends stayed in place. Just the results changed. Tomorrow we'll see why 2006 is a good model for 2008.