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 United States presidential election results between 2016 and 2024 (one possible span for the proposed Seventh Party System).Blue shaded states usually voted for the Democratic Party, whilered shaded states usually voted for the Republican Party. |
TheSeventh Party System is a proposed era ofAmerican politics that began sometime around the 2010s or 2020s. Its periodization, alongside theSixth Party System, is heavily debated due to the lack of an overwhelming change of hands in Congress since the end of theFifth Party System.
Theories as to the beginning date of the Seventh Party system range from 2008 to 2020.[citation needed]
Political scientists Mark D. Brewer andL. Sandy Maisel say, "In the wake ofDonald Trump's2016 presidential victory, there is now strengthening debate as to whether [the United States is] entering a new party system as Trump fundamentally reshapes theRepublican Party and theDemocratic Party responds and evolves as well."[1]
Donald Trump's2024 re-election has led to significant speculation and discussions about a potential political realignment due to shifts in voter demographics.[2] Trump's victories in all swing states, dominance with white working-class voters, and historic Republican gains with Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians have produced conversations on the emergence of the Seventh Party system in the American landscape. For example, in Florida'sMiami-Dade County, Trump significantly improved his margins among Hispanic voters in 2020 compared to 2016.[3]
In Texas'sRio Grande Valley, Republicans increased their support among predominantly Latino counties andZapata County (population less than 15,000) was the only county in South Texas that flipped red for the first time in a hundred years,[4] and exit polls nationwide indicated increases in Trump's support among Hispanic voters during the2020 presidential election.[5] Stating in 2025 that "'The Age of Trump' Enters Its Second Decade",Peter Baker ofThe New York Times wrote "In those 10 years, Mr. Trump has come to define his age in a way rarely seen in America, more so than any president of the past century other thanFranklin D. Roosevelt andRonald Reagan".[6]
The Republican Party has also made a decisive shift away fromfree trade to advocating forprotectionism, a historic Republican position that Trump has since revived. Trump cited PresidentWilliam McKinley as a political hero, noting hisMcKinley Tariff as a blueprint for protectionist industrial policy. As of August 2025, the United States currently has the highest effective tariff rate since 1935. This shift has increasingly compelled the rival Democratic Party to adopt a more positive stance towards free trade, replicating the divide of theFourth Party System of the late 19th and early 20th centuries on trade policy.[7]
Proponents of the shift to the Seventh Party System point to several recent demographic and voting pattern changes. Non-white voters, historically Democratic-leaning, have grown as a share of the population since the start of the Sixth Party System, and previously Republican-leaning secular college-educated white voters have moved leftward. At the same time, Republicans have made significant inroads with white voters without a college degree, while maintaining their favor withevangelical Christian voters.[8][9]
