The Great Depression marked an abrupt end to the era of Republican dominance. Herbert Hoover's handling of the Depression was a disaster, so people flocked to the polls to vote for FDR. Urban dwellers, labor unions, Catholics and Jews, the poor, Southerners, African Americans, and immigrants. New Deal coalition made the Democrat Party the clear majority for decades. It is important to note that urban dwellers and African Americans had been important parts of the Republican coalition. Their movement into the Democratic Party marked a major party realignment that continues to the present day. The New Deal coalition did not include Northern business leaders and wealthy industrialists.
