Southern Democrats?

[Seaworth'sShipmate]

Whatever happened to the democrats from the American South ( the old confederacy?)

Up until the 1960s, the only party that practically existed down there were the democrats.

Many people say the reason democrats are almost non existent in the south is because the democratic party helped get the civil rights bill passed. But that explanation doesn't really hold water, seeing as how two US presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were both dems, and both won the south by pretty comfortable margins. Up until the 1990s, democrats held a majority of southern congressional seats.

So what happened? why is the democratic party basically extinct in the south now?

[DreamSongs]

Far from it in my area. The Democrats are alive and well. It just depends on what part of town you are in.

[Shryke]

Whatever happened to the democrats from the American South ( the old confederacy?)

Up until the 1960s, the only party that practically existed down there were the democrats.

Many people say the reason democrats are almost non existent in the south is because the democratic party helped get the civil rights bill passed. But that explanation doesn't really hold water, seeing as how two US presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were both dems, and both won the south by pretty comfortable margins. Up until the 1990s, democrats held a majority of southern congressional seats.

So what happened? why is the democratic party basically extinct in the south now?

Because the democrats supported the civil rights act. That's what happened.

After that the solid south was gone. It just takes a long time for stuff like that to die.

[Demonblade]

Whatever happened to the democrats from the American South ( the old confederacy?)

Up until the 1960s, the only party that practically existed down there were the democrats.

Many people say the reason democrats are almost non existent in the south is because the democratic party helped get the civil rights bill passed. But that explanation doesn't really hold water, seeing as how two US presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were both dems, and both won the south by pretty comfortable margins. Up until the 1990s, democrats held a majority of southern congressional seats.

So what happened? why is the democratic party basically extinct in the south now?

Gerrymandering through re districting favourable zones does wonders for the appearance of GOP dominance in the south.

[Seaworth'sShipmate]

Because the democrats supported the civil rights act. That's what happened.

After that the solid south was gone. It just takes a long time for stuff like that to die.

But Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton supported the civil rights act and did quite well in dixie..

[sperry]

Republicans catering to evangelical Christians is a huge part of it.

[S John]

Gerrymandering through re districting favourable zones does wonders for the appearance of GOP dominance in the south.

I voted in Texas for the first time in the last election so it wasn't that long ago that I learned that the way congressional districts are drawn around Austin is suspicious (though it wasn't surprising or anything). The mostly liberal city of Austin is divided up so that parts of it are in like 6 other separate districts that extend out into more rural areas. I haven't done any more research on the topic but I'm pretty confident that most or all urban areas in the south have had similar treatment.

[Shryke]

But Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton supported the civil rights act and did quite well in dixie..

Not really. Compared to before, it wasn't even close. And both were from the south and so saw better support then, say, Al Gore. Or Dukkakis.

The Southern Democrats took a long time to die, but it was the civil rights and the subsequent southern strategy that killed them. You'll find this in any decent textbook or book or wikipedia search on the subject.

[S John]

Al Gore is from Tennessee, but he did lose his own state to GWB. He would have won the election if he had won Tennessee.

[Commodore]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#By_party

The Senate version:^[20]

• Democratic Party: 46–21 (69–31%)
  
• Republican Party: 27–6 (82–18%)
  

The Senate version, voted on by the House:^[20]

• Democratic Party: 153–91 (63–37%)
  
• Republican Party: 136–35 (80–20%)
  

Dems should keep pushing that "because southerners are racist" line, that's a sure path to political resurgence.

Goes hand in hand with the racist cop narrative they are pushing. Bill Clinton was smart enough to realize how stupid that is.

[TheKitttenGuard]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#By_party

Dems should keep pushing that "because southerners are racist" line, that's a sure path to political resurgence.

Goes hand in hand with the racist cop narrative they are pushing. Bill Clinton was smart enough to realize how stupid that is.

By party and region

Note: "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.

The original House version:

• Southern Democrats: 787 (793%)
• Southern Republicans: 010 (0100%)

• Northern Democrats: 1459 (946%)
• Northern Republicans: 13824 (8515%)

The Senate version:

• Southern Democrats: 120 (595%) (only Ralph Yarborough of Texas voted in favor)
• Southern Republicans: 01 (0100%) (John Tower of Texas)
• Northern Democrats: 451 (982%) (only Robert Byrd of West Virginia voted against)
• Northern Republicans: 275 (8416%)

0-11 for Southern Republicans

What to try that again?

[TheKitttenGuard]

In regards to the OP:

I think the CRA acts of 1964 and 1965 is one of the major reasons for the shift from Democrats to Reuplicans. I also think the Vietnam War and the Anti-War reaction that occur in sections of the Democatic Party was a major contributing factor also. It gave rise to a view that the Democratic Party was not sufficently pro-military. Cultural issues mainly in abortion along with an emerging evangalical movement in the South that went very right since Regan. You also have changes in electoral politics mainly tht California went Deep Blue which negated alot of loses of the South. So some of the dividing, mainly culutural, issues in the party did not need to be as worked on as it was in the past.

On Carter and Clinton, two things to bear in mind. With Carter it was the Presidental election after Watergate and the Republican party was in politicial paraylsis. I have trouble thinking that a sitting President that was not re-nominated by the party that wanted it (LBJ decline to run in '68).

Clinton did lose the South 7-5 in '92 and '96 so it was far from "Solid South" for him.

[The Marquis de Leech]

There are several key dates here.

1928: The Democrats nominate someone (a Catholic 'wet') the South doesn't like. The result is a split south between Smith and Hoover, though Smith still manages the Deep South.

1948: The Democrats include civil rights in their platform. Results in a splinter party, which wins the Deep South.

1964: The big one: Johnson and civil rights, opposed by Goldwater. Goldwater wins the deep South, Johnson wins everywhere else.

1968: See 1948.

1972: No splinter party, and the Democratic nominee is unacceptable to the South. Nixon's Southern Strategy (appealing to anti-Civil Rights, law and order types) is in full flower.

1976: The last hurrah of the Solid South. How does Carter do it? Well, he's from Georgia himself, against a Northern Republican: Carter is the local boy, an outsider in the aftermath of Watergate.

1980: Carter still does better in the South, relative to the rest of the country (see the county data). This was the last election where a Democratic nominee does this. Reagan gives his infamous speech at Oxford, Mississippi.

1984: The birth of the modern electoral map: unlike Carter in 1980, Mondale does terribly in the South, but better in the North-East and Mid-West.

1992: The Democrats nominate a Southerner. However, the Solid South is sufficiently broken that Bush wins Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas.

1994: This is the death of the Solid South at the Congressional level. Prior to this, Southern Democrats had been able to distance themselves from Republican Presidents. A Democratic President who pushes don't-ask-don't-tell, and a Republican opposition eager to nationalise the election? Combine that with the number of retiring Southern Democrats, and you get a recipe for a Republican wave.

1996: More retiring Southern Democrats limits the ability of the Democrats to retake Congressional seats. Clinton loses Georgia but gains Florida.

2000: The last time any recognisable part of the 'traditional' South was competitive, and Gore loses Arkansas and Tennessee.

2010: The death of the Democratic South at the state legislature level (Democrats still held Alabama, etc at the state level). Basically 1994, except that this time round the Democratic President is a black Northerner.

So what you're seeing is a steady erosion, started by civil rights, and limited by which party happens to be in the White House, and by the inertia of incumbency, which kept Democrats controlling Congress until 1994 and Southern state legislatures until 2010.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Oh yes, and don't forget the likes of Vermont and Maine. Neither voted for Roosevelt, yet thanks to the southernisation of the Republican Party, both are solidly Democratic today.

[Tammy]

I'm from the South and I don't know anyone who votes republican, but I'm also from and know people from urban areas. If you look at the places in southern states, you'll see that the break up is between urban and rural. It's the same way in the North. Rural areas are firmly Republican while large cities tend to be democrat.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I'm Southern and refuse to vote for either major party.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

I lived in Alabama in the early/mid 80's and it was still very much democrat, until this crazy insane primary for governor. I found it hilarious and the candidates slung so much mud at each other, down to calling the other guy "ugly as a bullfrog"

There was a run off election and the candidate who lost challenged the results and won, which pissed off many people, and resulted in the first republican governor in 102 years. Up to this point, most local elections in Alabama were won by democrats (although they did vote republican in national elections) Most people I talked to felt the "party" picked the person they wanted, and to hell with what the people wanted, and they resents this.

after this the demographics changed at lot, and rather quickly it seemed.

[Elder Sister]

I'm southern and routinely vote democrat. Sadly, I'm always in the minority where I live.

Roose Bolton's timeline is exactly my opinion on the subject, although I would correct it with the addition of several factors. 1. Karl Rove's use of sanctity of marriage in the '00 presidential election, and 2. FOX News.

I see things changing down here, but not fast enough to suit me.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Long story short, over time the parties switched sides ideologically. I read a great quote from Lincoln recently in the context of this discussion. He was talking about the Democratic Party of his day claiming to be the party of Jefferson while they called his new Republican Party the party of Adams, but it applies:

"The democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another man's right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.

I remember once being much amused at seeing two partially intoxicated men engage in a fight with their great-coats on, which fight, after a long, and rather harmless contest, ended in each having fought himself out of his own coat, and into that of the other. If the two leading parties of this day are really identical with the two in the days of Jefferson and Adams, they have performed about the same feat as the two drunken men."

[The Marquis de Leech]

I wouldn't necessarily say the parties swapped sides. After all, the last time a Republican was to the left of the Democrat was in 1904, and even then Teddy Roosevelt wasn't exactly representative of his own party.

The Republicans always were the party of industrialists and business, at least once slavery had been abolished. The Democrats always were an odd coalition of everyone else. In the pre-New Deal era, the Democrats were the party of Jews, Catholics, immigrant minorities, and the South, while the Republicans were the party of WASPs, commerce, and blacks. Trade unionists were in both. Today, the coalitions have swapped the South and blacks, while trade unions are Democratic.