A major political party in the United States can only exist and thrive through the votes, funding, and public support of its constituencies. A constituency to the Republican or Democratic party can either be an extremely large group of people such as racial minorities, conservatives, liberals, and middle class workers. A constituency can also be a group smaller than an entire ethnic background, but still have an extremely powerful voice in elections such as supporters for abortion, feminists, environmentalists, and other groups that are active in progressive social causes. Republicans and Democrats have long been the two dominating political parties in the U.S., but they wouldn't be here today if they hadn't identified with the groups of citizens that weren't being well served, and built strong alliances with them. The Republicans have always been known as the conservatives when compared to the Democrats. In the Reagan era, they built their support base around white southerners, economic conservatives and social conservatives. Some other constituencies that support the Republican party are the working class whites, multinational corporations, and small and large businesses. Republicans believe that the big businesses and corporations have a positive impact on everyone. Their philosophy is that by giving big business big tax breaks, they will create more jobs and the money will spread down to the poor people naturally, which is why businesses have always been a constituency of the Republicans. They have also always supported religion and that draws the vote of the white southerner. Democrats have been in constant battles with Christian morality, especially in the area of abortion and now homosexuality. The Democratic Party’s main constituencies consist of unionized workers, women, ethnic minorities (African Americans, Hispanics, Jews, etc.), and groups that are active in social causes (supporters of gay/abortion rights, feminism, environmentalism). The majority of minorities are in the lower class financially. The Democrats publicly offer them help and assistance, while the Republican’s support for the upper class turn those voters to the democratic side. Our current president Barak Obama is African American, and received the majority votes from the black community as well as hispanics in the last election, and it was a heavily deciding factor in winning the presidency and is a good example of why having strong constituencies is important. The Democrats and union workers have a history of giving