Solid South

The Solid South was the electoral voting bloc for the Democratic Party in the Southern United States between the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Alfred Waddell, whom Russell had defeated for Congress in 1878, led thousands of white rioters in the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898; they seized the city government by force, and destroyed the only black-owned newspaper in the state.

[27] Although Russell was not up for election in 1898, Democrats used him as a foil in their campaign that year, attacking him for undermining "white supremacy" and fanning fears of "negro rule" to regain control of the state legislature.

[31][32] All the Southern states adopted provisions that restricted voter registration and suffrage, including new requirements for poll taxes, longer residency, and subjective literacy tests.

[34]White Democrats also opposed Republican economic policies such as the high tariff and the gold standard, both of which were seen as benefiting Northern industrial interests at the expense of the agrarian society of the South during the 19th century.

[42] In East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, and Southwest Virginia, Republicans retained a significant presence in these remote Appalachian regions which supported the Union during the Civil War and had few African Americans, winning occasional U.S. House seats and often drawing over 40% in presidential votes statewide.

[51] However, it was widely believed that Republican Herbert Hoover supported integration or at least was not committed to maintaining racial segregation, overcoming opposition to Smith's campaign in areas with large nonvoting black populations.

[47] The boll weevil, a species of beetle that feeds on cotton buds and flowers, crossed the Rio Grande near Brownsville, Texas, to enter the United States from Mexico in 1892.

The citizens of Enterprise, Alabama, erected the Boll Weevil Monument in 1919, perceiving that their economy had been overly dependent on cotton, and that mixed farming and manufacturing were better alternatives.

A 2020 NBER paper found that the boll weevil spread contributed to fewer lynchings, less Confederate monument construction, less KKK activity, and higher non-white voter registration.

[60] In the 1930s, black voters outside the South largely switched to the Democrats,[61] and other groups with an interest in civil rights (notably Jews, Catholics, and academic intellectuals) became more powerful in the party.

[65][36] World War II marked a time of dramatic change within the South from an economic standpoint, as new industries and military bases were developed by the federal government, providing much-needed capital and infrastructure in the former Confederate states.

[71] They retained other techniques of disenfranchisement, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, which in theory applied to all potential voters, but in practice were administered in a discriminatory manner by white officials.

[97] The Democratic Party in the state was heavily divided over free silver and the role of corporations in the middle 1890s, and lost the governorship for the first time in forty years in 1895.

[98] In contrast to the former Confederate States, Kentucky was part of the Upper South and bordered the industrial Midwest across the Ohio River, and had a significant urban working class who supported Republicans.

[101][102] Kentucky also elected some Republican governors during this period, such as William O'Connell Bradley (1895-1899), Augustus E. Willson (1907-1911), Edwin P. Morrow (1919-1923), Flem D. Sampson (1927-1931), and Simeon Willis (1943-1947).

However, during this period gas executive J. Edward Addicks, a Philadelphia millionaire, established residence in Delaware, and began pouring money into the Republican Party, especially in Kent and Sussex County.

Florida politician Marion L. Dawson, writing in the North American Review, observed: "The victorious party not only held in line those States which are usually relied upon to give Republican majorities ... More significant still, it invaded the Solid South, and bore off West Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky; caused North Carolina to tremble in the balance and reduced Democratic majorities in the following States: Alabama, 39,000; Arkansas, 29,000; Florida, 6,000; Georgia, 49,000; Louisiana, 33,000; South Carolina, 6,000; and Texas, 29,000.

These facts, taken together with the great landslide of 1894 and 1895, which swept Missouri and Tennessee, Maryland and Kentucky over into the country of the enemy, have caused Southern statesmen to seriously consider whether the so-called Solid South is not now a thing of past history".

[130] This splinter party played a significant role in the 1948 election; the Dixiecrat candidate, Strom Thurmond, carried Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, his native South Carolina, and one electoral vote from Tennessee.

[36] Despite this, in one of the greatest election upsets in American history,[131][132] incumbent Democratic President Harry S. Truman defeated heavily favored Republican New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey.

[134][135] In the elections of 1952 and 1956, the popular Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of the Allied armed forces during World War II, carried several Southern states, with especially strong showings in the new suburbs.

[138] In the 1960 election, the Democratic nominee, John F. Kennedy, continued his party's tradition of selecting a Southerner as the vice presidential candidate (in this case, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas).

According to a quantitative analysis done by Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, racial backlash played a central role in the decline in relative white Southern Democratic identification.

With the aid of Harry Dent and South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who had switched to the Republican Party in 1964, Nixon ran his 1968 campaign on states' rights and "law and order".

[180] In the 1976 election, former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter gave Democrats a short-lived comeback in the South, winning every state in the old Confederacy except for Virginia, which was narrowly lost.

[185] Some former Southern Democrats became Republicans, such as Kent Hance (1985), Rick Perry (1989), and Ralph Hall (2004) from Texas; Billy Tauzin (1995) and Jimmy Hayes (1995) from Louisiana; Richard Shelby (1994) and Kay Ivey (2002) from Alabama; and Nathan Deal (1995) and Sonny Perdue (1998) from Georgia.

[96] In the 2008 election, as some areas in the South became more urbanized, liberal, and demographically diverse,[207] Barack Obama won the former Republican strongholds of Virginia and North Carolina as well as Florida.

Most significantly, Republicans took control of both houses of the Alabama and North Carolina State Legislatures for the first time since Reconstruction,[218] with Mississippi and Louisiana flipping a year later during their off-year elections.

[210] This is largely due to massive population growth in Northern Virginia, part of the strongly Democratic Washington metropolitan area, which is politically oriented with the Northeast.

In the 1924 presidential election , a Republican landslide victory , all 11 former Confederate states and Oklahoma voted Democratic.
Arkansas voted Democratic in all 23 presidential elections from 1876 through 1964; other states were not quite as solid but generally supported Democrats for president.
A map of the United States during the Civil War. Blue represents free Union states, including those admitted during the war. Light blue represents southern border states , though West Virginia, Missouri and Kentucky had dual Confederate and Unionist governments. Red represents Confederate states. Unshaded areas were not states before or during the Civil War. [ b ]
The "Solid South" from 1880–1912.
Map of the states considered part of the Southern United States by the Census Bureau
In the close 1916 presidential election , Democratic President Woodrow Wilson won almost every single county in the Deep South.
In the 1920 presidential election , all the former Confederate states except Tennessee voted for the Democratic Party, and all other states except Kentucky voted for the Republican Party.
Republican Warren G. Harding won Oklahoma in the 1920 presidential election , while losing all the former Confederate states except Tennessee. [ 73 ]
In the 1896 presidential election , Republican William McKinley won Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, and Kentucky (except for 1 electoral vote in the latter).
Missouri goes for Republican Theodore Roosevelt in the 1904 election . (Cartoon by John T. McCutcheon .)
In the 1928 presidential election , Al Smith carried the Deep South, but lost all the other Southern states except Arkansas.
In the 1948 presidential election , Democrat Harry S. Truman won in an upset despite Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond winning 39 electoral votes.
Map showing school segregation laws before the Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
Senate vote on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Ralph Yarborough of Texas was the only Senator from the 11 former Confederate states to vote in favor.
In the 1964 presidential election , Republican Barry Goldwater won the 5 Deep South states, all but Louisiana for the first time since Reconstruction. The only other state he carried was his home state of Arizona.
Percent of self-identified conservatives by state in 2018, according to a Gallup poll: [ 151 ]
45% and above
40–44%
35–39%
30–34%
25–29%
24% and under
Map of the 1968 United States presidential election
In the 1976 presidential election , former Governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter won every former Confederate state except Virginia.
The 1994 general election marked the beginning of the end for commanding Democratic Party presence in the South (Republican gains are marked in dark red).
Percent of self-identified liberals by state in 2018, according to a Gallup poll. [ 151 ]
32% and above
28–31%
24–27%
20–23%
16–19%
15% and under
In the 2004 presidential election , Republican George W. Bush won every former Confederate state while losing every Northeastern state.
The 2010 U.S. House elections (Republican gains in dark red) marked the beginning of Republican dominance of the South at the state and federal levels.
The 2022 House elections (Democrats in blue and dark blue) showcased Republican political domination in the South, with most of the few Democratic districts in the South being demographically majority-minority .