Katana VentraIP

Before the American Civil War, Southern Democrats were mostly white men living in the South who believed in Jacksonian democracy. In the 19th century, they defended slavery in the United States and promoted its expansion into the Western United States against the Free Soil opposition in the Northern United States. The United States presidential election of 1860 formalized the split in the Democratic Party and brought about the American Civil War.[2] After the Reconstruction Era ended in the late 1870s, so-called redeemers were Southern Democrats who controlled all the southern states and disenfranchised African-Americans.


The monopoly that the Democratic Party held over most of the South showed signs of breaking apart in 1948, when many white Southern Democrats—upset by the policies of desegregation enacted during the administration of Democratic President Harry Truman—created the States Rights Democratic Party. This new party, commonly referred to as the "Dixiecrats", nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond for president. The new party collapsed after Truman won the 1948 election.


Despite being a Southern Democrat himself, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[3] These actions led to heavy opposition from Southern Democrats.[4][5] Following the passage of civil rights legislation, many white southerners switched to the Republican Party at the national level. Many scholars have stated that southern whites shifted to the Republican Party due to racial backlash and social conservatism.[6][7][8]


Republicans first dominated presidential elections in the South, then won a majority of Southern gubernatorial and congressional elections after the 1994 Republican Revolution.[9][10] By the 21st century, and especially after the 2010 midterm elections, the GOP had gained a solid advantage over the Democratic Party in most southern states.[11] Southern Democrats of the 21st century tend to be more progressive than their predecessors.[12]

One example was Arkansas, whose state legislature continued to be majority Democrat (having, however, given its electoral votes to the Republicans in the past three presidential elections, except in and 1996 when "favorite son" Bill Clinton was the candidate and won each time) until 2012, when Arkansas voters selected a 21–14 Republican majority in the Arkansas Senate.

1992

Another example was . Although the state has voted for Republicans in every presidential election since 1980 except for 2008, the State legislature was in Democratic control until 2010. The North Carolina congressional delegation was heavily Democratic until January 2013 when the Republicans could, after the 2010 United States census, adopt a redistricting plan of their choosing.

North Carolina

7th President of the United States, U.S. Senator from Tennessee

Andrew Jackson

Representative, U.S. Senator from Kentucky and U.S. Vice President[35]

Alben Barkley

14th Vice President of the United States, 5th Confederate States Secretary of War, U.S. Senator from Kentucky

John C. Breckinridge

7th Vice President of the United States, U.S. Senator from South Carolina

John C. Calhoun

10th President of the United States, 10th Vice President of the United States, U.S. Senator from Virginia

John Tyler

11th President of the United States, 9th Governor of Tennessee

James K. Polk

Governor of Georgia and President of the United States (1977–1981)[36]

Jimmy Carter

Governor of Arkansas and President of the United States (1993–2001)[37][38]

Bill Clinton

32nd Vice President of the United States (1933–1941) and U.S. Representative from Texas

John Nance Garner

Representative and U.S. Senator from Tennessee, Vice President of the United States (1993–2001) and 2000 Democratic nominee for President[39][40]

Al Gore

U.S. Representative and senator from Texas, Vice President of the United States (1961–1963), and President of the United States (1963–1969)[41]

Lyndon B. Johnson

17th President of the United States, 16th Vice President of the United States, U.S. Senator from Tennessee

Andrew Johnson

Barone, Michael, and others. The Almanac of American Politics 1976: The Senators, the Representatives and the Governors: Their Records and Election Results, Their States and Districts (1975–2017); new edition every 2 years; detailed political profile of every governor and member of Congress, as well as state and district politics

Bateman, David, Ira Katznelson and John S. Lapinski. (2020). Southern Nation: Congress and white supremacy after reconstruction. Princeton University Press.

Black, Earl and Merle Black. Politics and Society in the South (1989)

Bullock III, Charles S. and Mark J. Rozell, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Southern Politics (2012)

Bullock, Charles S.; MacManus, Susan A.; Mayer, Jeremy D.; Rozell, Mark J. (2019). The South and the Transformation of U.S. Politics. Oxford University Press.

Glaser, James M. The Hand of the Past in Contemporary Southern Politics (2013)

Key, V. O. Southern Politics in State and Nation (1951), famous classic

Kuziemko, Ilyana, and Ebonya Washington. "Why did the Democrats lose the south? Bringing new data to an old debate" ( No. w21703. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2015.)

online

Rae, Nicol C. Southern Democrats (Oxford University Press, 1994)

Richter, William L. Historical Dictionary of the Old South (2005)

Shafer, Byron E. The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South (2006)

excerpt and text search

Twyman, Robert W. and David C. Roller, eds. Encyclopedia of Southern History LSU Press (1979).

Woodard, J. David. The New Southern Politics (2006)