Examples might include Constitutional Amendments or perhaps when large percentages of incumbents were thrown out of Congress which brought about significant changes to legislation + the direction of the country (this is subjective but would be curious to know your definitions). How did the changes happen? Who were leaders in those movements? What conditions were in place prior and afterward? What techniques were used to advocate and rally support for change?
Would love to hear about any book or blog recommendations on the topic (especially books with compelling lessons learned + interesting stories about strategy and tactics and human behavior vs. a recitation of facts like many history books).
When it lasted the Anti-Masonic Party threw out a lot of incumbents and took some American states into an interesting direction.
The Anti-Masonic Party grew rapidly when it was founded in 1828 and had significant success in north-eastern states. During the decade of 1828-1838 Anti-Masonic candidates were not only elected to the House of Representatives but won gubernatorial elections in Vermont and Pennsylvania. Moreover, John Q. Adams, the 6th President of the United States, was a delegate of the party.
For a complete list of the Anti-Masons who were elected to the House, please refer to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
The Anti-Masonic Party was the first major "third party" in the States. It was viewed as an alternative to the options available at the time. The public's distrust of Freemasonry and elitism acted as the foundation of the party. But the catalyst of the party's popularity was the Morgan Affair.
While in power Anti-Masons in both Congress and State Houses urged states to revoke the charters of Masonic Lodges and called for the compile of members, meetings, and activities of all Masonic Lodges. Some states even banned masonic oaths. The main goal for most Anti-Masons was to ensure that no Mason could hold office, for reasons I explained below.
Although the party only lasted a decade, it has been credited with popularizing nomination conventions and party platforms. The party is also seen as the unofficial predecessor of the Whig Party.
Sources:
Encyclopedia of American History by Richard B. Morris (1961). Pages 170-171.
Right-wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort by Berlet, Lyons (2000). Pages 36-40.
One great example is the rise and fall of "The Solid South." From about 1877 to 1964, there is some dispute about the exact years, The south was a bastion of the Democratic Party. That ended when Lyndon B. Johnson used the assassination of JFK to push forward civil rights legislation. This ended the Democrats hold on the south and allowed the Republican Party to take their now dominant position in the south by pushing moral/religious legislation. This resonated well with the largely rural South as they perceived the counter-culture movement as a sign of sin/degradation threatening their way of life. this blog article sums it up pretty nicely although it may not go into strategy as much as you like.
Some honorable mentions are
FDR and "The New Deal". The GOP had a hard time recovering from being blamed for the great depression. This gave the Democrats control of the presidency the house and the senate by a pretty wide margin. The throughout the 1930's the only real force opposing FDR and The New Deal in politics were the four horsemen in the supreme court.
The election of Lincoln caused or precipitated a Civil War. I think that qualifies as both "fed up" and as a major change in the status quo. On the other hand much of the voting was done with muskets so it may not count.
It's too recent for this subreddit but I believe the 2007 election of Barack Obama and the 2009 mid term elections may also be a good example of what you are looking for.
Wikipedia has a pretty good entry on the phenomenon you're describing, which political scientists call "realigning elections:" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_realignment#Realigning_elections_in_United_States_history
That link is also nice since it notes the disputes that different political scientists and historians have had over whether or not certain re-elections were in fact realignments.
The elections that are pretty much not in dispute would include the election of 1800 which ended the First Party System, the election of 1828 which swept Andrew Jackson into the White House and led to the extension of the franchise to all white men, the 1860 election which triggered the Civil War, and the 1932 election which helped frame the modern party system and usher in the era of modern economic liberalism, characterized by an active federal government led by an energetic executive.
Some historians would argue that 1964 or 1980 represented realigning elections as well. Analyses of the 1964 election tend to be highly politicized, but the conventional analysis is that this election broke the Solid South's record of unwavering support for the Democratic Party due to LBJ's advocacy of Civil Rights legislation. Gerrard Alexander wrote a paper that featured a contrary view of this narrative called "The Myth of Racist Republicans" that is worth checking out even if you don't agree with his conclusions. I would say that 1964 was not a realigning election for the reasons that Alexander identifies in his paper (he stresses the role of suburbanization and demographic changes in the population of the South) as well as two three other key facts:
*While Johnson did not win any of the states of the Deep South, he won all of the states of the Upper South (Florida, Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas and Virginia) *Democrats retained a strong majority of the congressional seats in the Deep South until well into the 1990s. If 1964 was indeed a realignment, it wasn't a quick and decisive one. *Jimmy Carter won every Southern state except Virginia in 1976.
Sorry that that featured such a long digression on 1964, but since I have revisionist views on the subject I felt the need to air them :)
The 1816 Congress(the 14th Congress) was one of the most productive in American history, they enacted the first protective tariff in American history, founded BOTUS II, began construction on a powerful peace time American navy, expanded funding on the National Road, and passed a massive fund for the building of further internal improvements ( which was later vetoed by Madison). The 14th congress also passed legislation changing their pay from six dollar per day while in session to 1500 dollars per year. Their rational was based on sound logic, changing it to a flat rate discouraged extending congress for extra pay, and would make service to the country more attractive. Many politicians had been forced to resign national office in the past because the pay was so bad, increasing the pay would ensure that political office was held by those talented, and finally 1500 a year really wasn't that much (very roughly 150k a year). Unfortunately the 14th congress made the fatal flaw of raising its own pay rather than future congresses (Madison had actually proposed an amendment that would prevent this but it didn't pass until 1992). Of the 81 members of Congress who voted for the bill only 15 won reelection, many of those who voted against the bill were also voted out of office on the grounds that they shouldn't have accepted the money.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the post-Watergate congressional turnovers yet. The congressional class of '74 saw 91 new freshmen in the house of representatives (20% of the body, a very high number compared to historical norms) and a major shift in congressional power away from the party of the disgraced former president Nixon (the Republicans). In that election the Democrats picked up 5 seats in the Senate and 49 seats in the House.
In the previous (93rd) congress the Democrats already had a majority in the Senate (roughly 55 to 45) and the house (roughly 56%) but acquired an even stronger "fillibuster proof" majority in the Senate (roughly 60 to 40) and came to dominate the house (2/3 majority). Given that this was not a presidential election year these changes were even more significant.
In that time the overwhelming power of Democrats in congress fought many of President Ford's policies. That single congressional session overrode 12 of the President's vetoes. Only the Truman and Andrew Johnson administrations had as many or more veto overrides, and they served for 8 and 4 years (respectively) vs. Ford's 2 years.
The book "Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson" by Robert Caro does a great job of explaining how the United States Senate was specifically designed to resis significant changes that might be desired by the voting public and reflected in elections for the presidency and House of Representatives. The 6 year term of senators, combined with staggered election years and a host of legislative devices to disrupt or prevent votes on legislation, makes the Senate extremely effective at blocking radical changes. The book goes on to explain how, under the limitations of such a system, Lyndon Johnson was still able to get relatively significant (but far from radical) legislation passed as a senator. I highly recommend it.
Probably the rise of the Socialist Party in the early 20th century. Hundreds of proclaimed socialists were elected. By 1912, the party had more than a thousand locally elected officials in 33 states and 160 cities, especially the Midwest. And in 1912 Eugene Debs gained 6% of the popular vote which equated to 900,000 votes. Throughout this period the Socialist Party was the de facto third party of America (coming 3rd consistently in 1904 and 1908 and 1920). By the 1920 election when Debs ran from prison, the Socialist Party gained 1,000,000 votes.
In the first decades of the 20th century, it drew significant support from many different groups, including trade unionists, progressive social reformers, populist farmers, and immigrant communities. Its presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs, twice won over 900,000 votes (in 1912 and 1920), while the party also elected two United States Representatives (Victor L. Berger and Meyer London), dozens of state legislators, more than a hundred mayors, and countless lesser officials.
It was perhaps the biggest and most radical movement in popular voting in American history, certainly emerging from the material conditions of the time. It's overall effects are hard to quantify, as is the pressure from the left it applied on the other parties who in turn re-orientated their policies to attach voters. Such a challenge to the political system that came from the revolutionary left and the militant workers movement of which the socialist party were but one – alebit large – expression, meant that both hegemonic parties teamed up, using the full apparatus of the state (cf. FBI's formation, Palmer Raids), to crush the party(s) and the unions (cf. US's violent labour history and the massacre of workers) through the dictatorial laws imposed during WW1 that affectively crushed the base of the Socialist Party if not them themselves (i.e. crushed the more radical wings of the organised left, especially the IWW for example), and post-WW1 the Red Scare, the political imprisonment of socialists; hence why Debs fought his last Presidential election from prison (the suppression of dissent did much, at first, to mobilise working-class unity, though it's intensity and the reformism of the New Deal and the legalisation of the reactionary establishment unions purged of their communist currents, was it's final death sentence).