Throughout our nation’s history, there have been political cycles when one political party dominated the electoral landscape.

In the 19th century, there were several such cycles: the Jacksonian coalition (1828-1856), the Lincoln coalition (1860-1876) and the McKinley coalition (1896-1932).

Each of these cycles commenced with landslide elections.

But over time there appeared rifts in the coalition that sparked a decline in its political hegemony. Eventually, a new alliance based on demographics and national issues emerged.

In modern times, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition, consisting of urban Catholics, Jews and Blacks, and Southern whites racked up victories between 1932 and 1948.

In the post-war era, cracks began to appear in the fragile coalition.

Urban and Suburban Catholics, tired of New Deal social engineers, and Southerners, opposed to the growing civil rights movement and federal challenges to states’ rights, turned to Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Ike’s landslide victories in 1952 and 1956 foreshadowed the emerging Republican majority.

The last gasp of the New Deal coalition was Lyndon Johnson’s victory in 1964.

He beat Barry M. Goldwater, 61% to 38%.

However, by the end of the decade, Republican Richard M. Nixon coalesced, under one tent, urban and suburban Catholics, Southern populists, and Western conservatives.

The result: Nixon beat George McGovern in 1972, 60.7% to 35.5%.

That electoral fusion gave Ronald Reagan landslide victories in 1980 and 1984.

Like previous alliances, it ran out of gas.

By 1992, Nixon and Reagan Democrats were dying and the West Coast, which was reliably red since 1952, turned deep blue.

However, to this day, there have been no landslide elections that would have indicated the dawn of a new and lasting electoral coalition.

Democrat Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 with only 43% of the vote and re-elected in 1996 with 49%.

In 2000, George W. Bush won a majority of Electoral College votes but lost the popular vote to Al Gore, 47.9% to 48.4%.

He was reelected with only 50.7%.

Barack Obama’s election did not bring about a lasting Progressive majority.

In 2008, he garnered 52.9% of the vote and in 2012, it dropped to 51.1%.

Donald Trump’s election in 2016 was also a close call. While he carried the Electoral College 304 to 227, Hillary Clinton outpolled him by 3 million popular votes.

Biden beat Trump in 2020 by barely carrying the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The vote totals: Biden 51.3%; Trump, 46.8%.

Despite these close elections, there have been signs of the making of a new majority coalition led by populist voters.

In their new book, “The Emerging Populist Majority,” political activists Troy Olson and Gavin Wax explain why a new political era could be populist and increasingly Republican.

Since the late 19th century, there have been various populist movements of ordinary people against overbearing and self-serving elites.

There was William Jenning Bryan’s silver money crusade in 1896 and Huey Long’s “Every Man a King” movement in the 1930s.

In 1968, George Wallace’s populist cry that there was “not a dime’s worth of difference between Washington Democrats and Republicans” struck a chord.

Ten million working-class folks cast their votes for him.

Ross Perot, running as a populist in 1992 and 1996, received, respectively, 19.7 million votes (18.9%) and 8 million votes (8.4%).

Reacting to the Obama administration’s far-left turn, Tea Party populist chapters sprouted up throughout the nation.

The Great Red Wave of 2010, that cost Democrats seven Senate seats, 63 House seats, six governor chairs, and 20 State Legislative chambers, was due to the outpouring of self-proclaimed populists.

Olson and Wax argue that the growing populist movement is not a political left versus a political right but “rather between the elite and the people, between a top-down and grass tops versus Main Street and grassroots.”

They also hold that the populist movement is not a “whites only” phenomenon.

Working-class non-whites —  who Democrats have assumed are in their political back pockets in urban and suburban centers — are joining the populist fight.

A recent Gallup poll revealed that “Democrats’ party advantages among Black and Hispanic voters are at a new low.”

Twenty percent of working-class blacks and 35% of Hispanics lean towards the GOP —  all-time highs.

Additionally, populists are taking over Republican Party organizations in numerous states.

They proved their clout last week when they elected a national GOP chairman and vice chairman who were not members of the old Republican guard.

The great question is, can the GOP’s transition to the party of parents, of Main Street, of uniformed service members, and of rural folks, and become a majority governing party

Olson and Wax say yes.

But to achieve that end, the authors concluded, it must become a party of “common sense, a common philosophy, culture, and history; [that has] respect for the common people (self-governance) to chart their own destiny.”

This year’s presidential race will test the Olson and Wax thesis.

If Trump doesn’t blow the election, and populist ground troops don’t self-destruct, the movement could become the political force that decides elections for the next generation.

George J. Marlin, a former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the author of “The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact,” and “Christian Persecutions in the Middle East: A 21st Century Tragedy.” Read George J. Marlin’s Reports — More Here.

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