The Changing Partisanship of the South and Its Impact on National Politics

Abstract

For generations many assumed that Democratic hegemony in the South would last forever. Civil rights and the national Democratic Party’s move to the left reconfigured partisan competition in the South. By the 1970s, the South became a crucial battleground in the election of the president and Republican gains in the region started to trickle down to statewide elections and eventually to local offices. The realignment of the southern electorate looked complete by the 2000s with near GOP control of the region, but recent elections have shown some swing back to the Democrats in several Growth States.