Guest Post: Gary

Garrett of Worthless & Weak sent me this article on the current topic of America's future political history. InstantReplay welcomes articles from all readers - so please email me.

The South Looking at the US government following the 2000 election, I was a bit confused. The Republicans had an electoral victory, while the Democrats won the popular vote. Therefore, if people voted for congressmen the same way they vote for president, we could assume that the Republicans would hold a majority in the Senate, while the Democrats would hold the House of Representatives. Of course, this was completely untrue. The Democrats, with Jim Jeffords’ defection, held an effective 51-49 majority in the Senate, while the Republicans held the House.

The reason for this, is that while the Democrats have a firm senatorial hold on the “blue” states, (California, New York, Massachusetts), the Republicans didn’t have a hold on the South, as Democrats held the Senate seats for Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, and West Virginia. Is this because the Democrats are somehow better organized or better run than the Republicans? Perhaps, but part of this can certainly be explained by looking at the historical voting patterns of the South.

The South, as a block, has historically voted for Democrats. From 1941 (the 68th Congress) until 1967 (the 90th Congress), Democrats in the South (FL, GA, AL, MI, LA, AR, OK, TN, KY, SC, NC, VA, WV) held at least 23 of 28 seats, and averaged 25. Before 1941, I don’t have numbers handy, but the democrats ruled the South just as much, if not more. Since 1967, the Republicans have slowly been winning southern Senate seats.


Looking at Presidential elections, much of the same has occurred. The Democrats won the South almost every year, with the Republicans winning parts of the South only when winning the rest of country by a huge margin (such as Hoover in 28, or Eisenhower in 52 and 56). This happened until 1964, when Barry Goldwater won only the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and his home state of Arizona. The Goldwater election, although the biggest victory for Democrats since Roosevelt, is the changing point in the Republican party. Since 1964, the democrats only swept the Goldwater States in 1976, when Jimmy Carter won, and won Georgia again in 1980 and 1992, and Louisiana in 1992 and 1996.


We can see in the chart that the Democrats before 1968 held the South, and afterwards lost it to the Republicans, who only lost states to Southern governors (Carter in ’76, Clinton in ’92 and ’96). (George Wallace won several Southern States in 1968)

In 2004, there were 9 senators from the area I’ve defined as the South up for re-election. The Republicans won 8 of those seats, 5 of which were previously held by Democrats. Of course, the Republicans now hold the South, the only southern democratic senators left are Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Robert Byrd and John Rockefeller of West Virginia (that’s 20 of 26 seats for the Republicans). Of course, now the Republicans hold a 55-45 majority in the Senate, not quite the 60 they would really like, but a big majority nonetheless.

Looking ahead, the Republicans have little space left to expand, although Bill Nelson might fall, and if Robert Byrd retires, the Republicans could conceivably pick up a pair of seats in the South. And, if the Republicans can hold onto the South for the next 100 years, like the Democrats held the South from 1860-1960, then the Republicans will most likely hold the Senate and the House for the foreseeable future as well.

Finally, the South is becoming more and more relevant, moving from 127 electoral votes in 1972, to 139 today. While this is important, Florida was responsible for all but two of those electoral votes, and Florida is certainly one of the least “red” states, as Bush barely won it in 2000. Despite this, Florida is still Republican, and more so now than in the year 2000.