Contemporary Politics in the American South

（アメリカ南部の政治動向）

Charles S. Bullock, III*

SUMMARY IN JAPANESE:20世紀の中頃からアメリカ南部の政治状況は大きく変容してきた。変容の最たるものは、共和党勢力の伸長と黒人の政治力の台頭である。

黒人層の政治的影響力は、南北戦争後の「再建の時代」に連邦政府のあとおしによって強まったが、その連邦政府は「リンカーンの政党」つまり共和党が支配力を持つものであった。その意味で歴史的にも南部黒人投票者と共和党との間には共生的関係が存在していた。

しかし、その後の南部白人層のまき返しにより、黒人の政治活動を規制するような立法措置が講じられるに至った。クークルックスクラン（ＫＫＫ）の活動等の社会的制裁も黒人に対して加えられた。こうした南部の黒人差別に対して介入を始めたのが1950年代末からの連邦政府であった。1957年に始まる一連の公民権法を中心とした連邦法の制定や、連邦最高裁判所の一連の判決はその例である。

連邦政府の介入もあり、第２次大戦後の黒人による政治活動や政府組織への参加は活発なものとなった。たとえば1980年代中頃には南部黒人の３分の２が政治に参加するべく投票者登録をおこなっており、これは南部白人と同率である。しかも、1960年代のジョンソン政権（民主党）は公民権の実施を強力におしすすめたこともあって、「黒人の味方としての民主党」というニューディール以来のイメージがさらに補強されることとなった。すなわち、政治力をつけた黒人層は、民主党を支持することになり、黒人の支持のない民主党はあり得ないという状況となったのである。

伝統的に反共和、つまり民主党支持を保持してきた南部社会では、この新たな民主党支持の黒人投票者の台頭は新しい政治上のファクターであった。そのなかで南部黒人は一種のキングメーカーとしての地位を確立することになった。黒人層というキングメーカーの出現によって、南部の政治は大きく変容すると共に、人種問題を政治問題として取りあげざるを得ない状況となったのである。

ところが、一方においては共和党が南部で大きく勢力を確立する基盤がととのいつつあった。まず黒人は歴史的に共和党と共生関係にあったうえに、1950年代のドワイト・アイゼンハワー時代にはこの国民的英雄を支持するという動きを示していた。そのうえに、白人側の事情が変化したのである。

第１には伝統的南部とは関係のない白人層が新しい仕事口を求めたり老後をくらすために北部から移入した。これらの人々は、もとより共和党支持者が多く、南部に移ったからとて支持政党を変更したわけではない。第２には南部白人社会の世代交替にともなって、従来の共和党＝リンカーンの政党といったこだわりが少なくなり、表だって共和党を支持する者がふえた。第３には、「南部のプライド」といったものがうすれた結果、単に支持政党をくら替えする者が多くあらわれるようになった。

このような新しい動きのなかで、1970年代から80年代にかけて南部は大きく共和党支持の旗のもとに統一されつつあるように見える。近来の大統領選挙は一回の例外（カーター）を除いては、南部は必ず共和党候補を支持しているし、国会議員、知事選挙の動きを見ても同様のことがいえるのである。

Introduction

Since mid-century, no region in the United states had changed politically as much as the South. Much of what V. O. Key described in his classic, SOUTHERN POLITICS, published in 1949, would have been equally applicable ten, twenty, or even fifty years earlier. Today, Key’s work, while still having great historic significance, is an adequate description of few localities in the South.

Key’s South had little party competition, little racial diversity among its participants, and generally low levels of participation. This paper will detail the massive changes that have occurred since Key wrote and will offer explanations for those changes. The presentation includes both regional data as well as, when appropriate, statistics on individual states that comprise the eleven-state region.[1]

The thesis of this paper is that southern politics have been transformed by the joint influences of black mobilization and Republican emergence. Key observed that “whatever phase of the southern political process one seeks to understand, sooner or later the trail of inquiry leads to the Negro,”[2] an observation relevant for this paper’s theme. Concern in the highest reaches of the national Democratic Party for the rights of blacks has often advanced the Republican cause in the South. Today in many statewide contests GOP support among whites is so great that to win, Democratic nominees must attract extraordinary support from among blacks. This paper will trace the shift in the role played by blacks from pariah to kingmaker and the transformation of the GOP from insignificance to full-fledged competitor.

Blacks in Politics

Black southerners were important in the region’s politics as voters and officeholders from approximately 1870 until the turn of the century. During Reconstruction, federal troops protected black political participation. Even after the withdrawal of troops in 1876, blacks voted in large numbers and blacks were elected to positions ranging from local ones up to the U.S. House. From 1900 until mid-century, black participation was rare and black officeholders almost nonexistent.

This section briefly outlines the techniques used to exclude blacks from political participation. Federal efforts to remove these barriers to registration and voting will next be reviewed. Finally, the current role of black political activity will be described.

Black Disfranchisement

Georgia’s adoption of the poll tax in 1876 unveiled the first of the techniques that would ultimately become near-universal in the South as impediments to black voting. Comprehensive efforts to create a lily-white electorate were ushered in by the Mississippi Constitution of 1890. Among the elements designed to restrict the suffrage were literacy test, a poll tax, a long lead time between registration and balloting, a residency requirement, and disfranchisement of those guilty of various lesser criminal offenses.

It was expected that closing registration long before the election would disproportionately disadvantage blacks since they would not be sufficiently attentive politically to meet the deadline. Requiring that one produce the poll tax receipt to vote derived from a racial stereotype that blacks were more careless than whites. Identification of a number of offenses for which one could lose the suffrage came from another racist notion—that criminality was more pervasive among the black than the white race. The poll tax, although a nominal amount, would be insurmountable to those tenant farmers who lived in a largely cashless society.

In the South at the turn of the century, and well beyond, illiteracy was rampant among both races. Registrars in many localities, however, waived this requirement for illiterate whites. The same registrars rejected literate blacks on picayune technicalities. Some states adopted “grandfather clauses” which obviated the literacy requirement for voters, whose ancestors had been registered at some earlier period, such as 1860, which eliminated all blacks from waiver. When the racially motivated provisions of the Mississippi Constitution were upheld by the United States Supreme Court, other states adopted them so that by 1910 some of these impediments had been incorporated into the voting requirements of all southern states.[3]

Another especially effective stratagem was the white primacy. The presumption here was that the Democratic Party was a private organization which could establish criteria for membership. If it chose to restrict participation to whites, this was no different than private clubs that limited their membership to males or social organizations for particular religious groups. For more than sixty years after the turn of the century, Democratic candidates in most of the South had no Republican opposition; therefore, officeholders were selected in the Democratic primary. Excluding blacks from that stage of selection process rendered ineffectual the votes of those few who could participate in the general election.

Still later, some states reinforced the barriers to black participation by adding interpretation requirements and/or good character tests. Interpretation requirements allowed registrars to select a passage of the state constitution which the prospective voter must explain to the registrar’s satisfaction.[4] Instances were recorded in which blacks with advanced degrees failed while illiterate whites passed in droves. The good character test, which was premised on the notion that individuals not of good character might contaminate the political process, required that prospective voters have two registered voters vouch for them. In the Black Belt counties where no blacks were registered, whites refused to endorse black applications.

Reinforcing the statutory provisions that made political participation by blacks difficult was fear and intimidation. From the Reconstruction era when hooded white vigilantes, such as the Ku Klux Klan, paid nocturnal visits to harass or punish black activists, fear had been an important tool in the maintenance of white supremacy. Beatings, arson, and lynching were all used to intimidate the black community. In later years, economic strangulation became yet another tool as politically active blacks found their credit cut off, their lease terminated, or their employment ended.

The Federal Government Steps In

Initial steps to enfranchise blacks came in the courts. The white primary was struck down in 1944[5] after twenty years of litigation. Active involvement of the federal government to facilitate black registration did not come until Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1957. By authorizing the United States attorney general to sue on behalf of blacks wrongfully kept from registering, this legislation brought the resources of the federal government into play and helped offset the paralyzing fear which dissuaded many blacks from filing suit as private citizens. The Justice Department became proficient in marshalling the data to prove that the application of registration requirements often discriminated against blacks.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 produced the most important breakthrough. This act authorized greater federal involvement in the registration process and sent federal registrars into recalcitrant counties to sign up qualified blacks to vote, thereby circumventing local officials. On election day, federal poll-watchers might be present to see if the newly registered blacks were allowed to participate.

Southern legislators had displayed great ingenuity in developing stratagems to evade federal efforts at registration as well as school desegregation. It was in this context that Section Five of the Voting Rights Act required that changes in election laws be cleared by the Justice Department or by the Federal District Court sitting in the District of Columbia before being implemented. This provision effectively gave local black leaders a veto over election-related changes.

The provisions for federal examiners, poll-watchers, and preclearance were restricted to jurisdictions having a record of limited participation. Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, and half of North Carolina were covered. When the legislation was renewed in 1975, the new section dealing with the rights of non-English speaking citizens brought all of Texas and a small portion of Florida under coverage. In preclearing changes from these two jurisdictions, federal authorities are alert to possible consequences for blacks as well as Hispanics.

Section Five proved effective in promoting equal electoral opportunities in communities that sought to change their election laws. Jurisdictions that undertook no changes could maintain practices even though civil rights advocates believed those practices to be discriminatory. Private litigation was the only means of attack. In 1980 in Mobile v. Bolden, the Supreme Court imposed an intent test for suits challenging pre-existing procedures.[6] The black plaintiffs argued that the at-large electoral system used to choose the three city commissioners was discriminatory and pointed to the absence of blacks (even though the city was one-third black) throughout the commission’s history to substantiate their claim. The Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs who failed to show either that the at-large system was adopted with an intent to discriminate or had been maintained with the clear intent to disadvantage blacks. Blacks have frequently sought single member districts, because with smaller electoral units it is more likely that a heavily black district can be fashioned from which a black will be elected.

Bolden infuriated the civil rights community, which claimed that the intent standard was insurmountable. How, asked civil rights lawyers, could one know the motives behind actions of an earlier generation of political figures? Overturning the intent standard became a major goal of the civil rights community as it approached the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, slated to expire in 1982.

In renewing the Voting Rights Act, its applicability was significantly expanded. Congress rewrote Section Two to make explicit a results, or effects, test. All that is necessary now to successfully challenge an electoral provision is to demonstrate that the effect of the provision is to give less equal access to the political process to minorities than to whites. This provision has most frequently been used to demand that local at-large election systems be replaced with single-member districts.[7]

The Supreme Court first interpreted the renewed Voting Rights Act in Thornburg v. Gingles.[8] The Supreme Court ruled that even though blacks were being elected in multi-member districts of the North Carolina state house, only when blacks were regularly elected at about the same proportion as their share of the population was the electoral format acceptable. The Supreme Court brought into the descriptive, as contrasted with the substantive, perspective on representation.[9] Courts have concentrated on whether blacks are being elected in rough proportion to their share of the electorate and have paid little heed to whether white officeholders depend on and are responsive to black voters.

Thornburg established a three-part threshold test for Section Two plaintiffs. First, the minority population must be sufficiently large and concentrated that a district could be created in which minorities would be a majority of the voting age population. Second, plaintiffs must show that the minority electorate gives cohesive support to candidates who, third, were usually defeated by a bloc vote of the white majority. The first provision has led to the request by plaintiffs in some communities which have small minority populations that the single, non-transferable vote, as used to elect the lower house of the Japanese parliament, be implemented. As of this writing, no court has mandated the implementation of a single, non-transferable vote, but in several Alabama communities, the litigants have agreed to this format as an acceptable remedy. Other variants that have been recently adopted include limited voting in which voters can express more than one preference but fewer preferences than there are seats to be filled as well as cumulative voting. Each of these approaches is novel to southern voters.

Expansion of Black Electorate

Only about 5% of the South’s voting age blacks were registered in 1940.[10] While eliminating the white primary had an effect in some urban areas, its impact region-wide was modest so that even in the late 1940s fewer than one million blacks were registered. In 1960, when the second Civil Rights Act was passed, less than one-third of the black voting age population was registered. Only after passage of the Voting Rights Act did a majority of the eligible blacks register. By the mid-1980s, almost two-thirds of the South’s blacks were registered which approximates the white registration rate--actually exceeding white registration in 1986.[11]

The increased black registration in the South has eliminated regional differences. Key (1949) and others had shown that political participation was much less common in the South than in the remainder of the country. By the 1980s, that disparity had been reduced to insignificance. The growth in black registration has, not surprisingly, led to higher rates of black voting. By 1986, there was virtually no difference between black and white turnout in the South,[12] but the region remains somewhat less likely to vote than the rest of the country.

Increased black political activity coincided with the 1964 presidential election in which Barry Goldwater was the Republican standard-bearer. Goldwater’s victories in the Deep South convinced many southern Democratic politicians that electoral success necessitated outspoken opposition to civil rights. As the black electorate grew, both parties often fielded candidates who did nothing to appeal to the newly enfranchised but vied for the more conservative element in the white electorate. In time, southern Democrats came to see that they could not be more conservative on the race issue than their Republican opponents. Some Democrats, particularly in Mississippi, learned their lesson when a black Independent candidate competed with the Democratic and Republican nominees, allowing the Republican to win with a plurality. Moreover, southern Democrats observed biracial coalitions electing Democrats in the North and realized that the Johnson Administration’s legislative program inclined blacks to vote Democratic even in the South. Southern Democrats, initially in urban areas, hesitantly endorsed some policy concerns of black voters. These Democrats were invariably more aligned with black policy preferences than were Republican candidates.[13]

Today black support is critical to the election of many Democrats, such as the recently elected Democratic senators who lost the white vote. Those who run particularly poorly among whites or who fail to mobilize enthusiastic black support lose to Republicans. Democrat senators from the South are usually supported by more than 80% of the black voters and perhaps as little as 35% of the white voters.[14] Wide racial disparities often visible in senatorial election have existed for a quarter of a century in presidential contests. Even southerner Jimmy Carter failed to attract the bulk of the white vote.

Black voting has impacted on the policy stands of many Democratic officeholders. Among the clearest illustrations are recent civil rights votes. In 1982, 91% of southern House Democrats supported the renewal of the Voting Rights Act. A generation earlier, 93% of this group had opposed the much weaker 1960 Civil Rights Act. During the Eisenhower years, southern Democrats gave less support to civil liberties issues than did Republicans from the South and border states, with support among southern Democrats falling below 1% in the 84th Congress.[15]

Black votes have also elected thousands of black officials. When the Voting Rights Act was passed, only about 100 blacks held public office in the South, and most of these were in towns with no more than a few thousand residents. Today, there are four black members of Congress from the South and 181 black state legislators. The most recent available tabulation of black officeholders, which reflects the 1986 elections, shows there to be some 3,500 blacks in public office in the South.[16]

Table 1 BLACK OFFICEHOLDERS ACROSS TIME IN THE SOUTH

	1971	1977	1981	1987
U.S. Representatives	0	2	2	4
State Legislators	40	104	126	181
County Commissioners	36	260	284	515
Mayors	24^*	86	122	187
City Councillors	302	872	1058	1551
Judges	80	NA	NA	95
Board of Education Members	132	466	568	748
Total	652	1973	2410	3556

The “Total” figure exceeds the sum of the row entries since not all offices are listed here.

^*Includes vice mayors.

Sources:Appropriate issues of Black Elected Officials: A National Roster (Washington, D.C.: Joint Center for Political Studies).

Table 1, which traces the increase in black officeholding across time by position, demonstrates that attainment of congressional seats has come very slowly. Blacks have been more successful in winning state legislative positions with the numbers quadrupling between 1971 and 1987. Over this sixteen-year period, black city councillors and school board members have increased fivefold, and there are now fourteen times as many county commissioners. Generally, the less significant the office, the greater the number of blacks, with blacks being far more numerous in the ranks of local officials such as county commissioner, city councillor, and board of education member than as state or national officials. This can often be attributed to the size of the electorate. The smaller the electorate, the greater the number of officeholders and more likely that districts dominated by blacks can be created. There are few congressional districts in which blacks are a majority, and most of those now elect blacks. At the local level, it may take only a few thousand blacks to form a majority of a county commission or school board district.

So long as most blacks are elected with black votes, there is an upper limit to the number of blacks elected officials, and the numbers of black state legislators may be approaching that limit. Table 2 shows the number of black legislators by state. For most chambers, there are one or two points at which the number of blacks jumps. These shifts occurred when a racially unbiased redistricting was implemented. Subsequent increases come slowly.

Table 2 NUMBERS OF SOUTHERN BLACK STATE LEGISLATORS 1971-1987

		1971	1973	1975	1977	1979	1981	1983	1985	1987	Chamber
											Size
Alabama	S	0	0	2	2	3	3	3	5	5	35
	H	2	2	13	13	13	13	15	19	19	105
Arkansas	S	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	35
	H	0	3	3	3	3	4	4	4	4	100
Florida	S	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	2	40
	H	2	3	3	3	4	5	10	10	10	120
Georgia	S	2	2	2	2	2	2	4	6	6	56
	H	13	14	20	21	21	21	21	21	22	180
Louisiana	S	0	0	1	1	1	2	2	4	5	39
	H	1	8	8	9	9	10	10	14	14	105
Mississippi	S	0	0	0	0	1	2	2	2	2	52
	H	1	1	1	4	5	15	15	18	18	122
North Carolina	S	0	0	2	2	1	1	1	3	3	50
	H	2	3	4	4	3	3	11	13	13	120
South Carolina	S	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	4	46
	H	3	4	13	13	13	15	18	16	16	174
Tennessee	S	2	2	2	2	3	3	3	3	3	33
	H	6	7	9	9	9	10	10	10	10	99
Texas	S	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	2	31
	H	2	8	9	13	14	13	9	13	13	150
Virginia	S	1	1	1	1	1	1	2	2	2	40
	H	2	2	1	1	4	4	4	5	7	100

S=Senate

H= House

Sources: Appropriate issues of Black Elected Officials: A National Roster (Washington, D.C.: Joint Center for Political Studies).

In most southern states, blacks and Republicans coalesced during the post-1980 redistricting to oppose white Democrats. Since blacks tend to be the most liberal members of those bodies while Republicans are frequently among the most conservative, this coalition was a particularly curious example of the strange bedfellows produced by political convenience. The coalition sought to separate white and black Democrats in the population in order to create heavily black districts that would elect black legislators. Districts from which blacks had been removed often had concentrations of affluent whites who voted Republican. In southern state houses Republicans gained more seats than did blacks.[17] The opposite pattern maintained in the state senates, but this is largely due to short-term declines in GOP senators, particularly in Florida. From 1981 to 1985 Republican senators dropped by 12.5 percentage points to 20%. This loss had been more than overcome, and in 1989 the GOP held 43% of Florida’s senate seats. This points up one difference in the coalition partners’ experiences. Since Republican success is tied to partisan fortunes, there is more fluctuation in the partisan than the racial make-up of southern legislatures. There is already talk of revitalizing the black-Republican coalition to carry out the adjustments necessitated by the 1990 census. The big winner will likely be the Republican party since GOP support is not contingent on the birthrate.

The black vote has been effective in both primary and general elections. In primaries, a substantial black vote can tip the outcome in the direction of the more liberal white candidate. In general elections, if there is a serious Republican challenger, the black vote holds the balance of power. Of course at each level it is essential that blacks be motivated to turn out.

Consequences of Black Participation

As black participation has risen, a number of changes have resulted, some of which are stylistic. Earl Black found that as blacks came to hold the balance of power, successful gubernatorial candidates moderated their stance on the race issue.[18] Earlier, strident opposition to civil rights for blacks was thought to be, and indeed probably was, essential for political success. Atlanta’s black Mayor Andrew Young (former congressman and United Nations ambassador) had explained the transformation that politics undergoes as black participation rises.

It used to be Southern politics was just “nigger” politics, who could “outnigger” the other--then you registered 10% to 15% in the community and folk would start saying “Nigra,” and then you get 35% to 40% registered and it’s amazing how quick they learned how to say “Nee-grow,” and now that we’ve got 50%, 60%, 70% of the black votes registered in the South, everybody’s proud to be associated with their black brothers and sisters.[19]

There are also now occupational opportunities. Politicians, either in appreciation for past black support or in anticipation of future black votes, have opened new jobs to blacks. Public employment for blacks was once limited to the most menial of tasks; now even conservative, rural communities are hiring blacks in clerical and professional positions.

Responsiveness in the distribution of policy outputs have increased along with black political influence. This may involve paving streets and extending other services to black neighborhoods. A share of the contracts negotiated by the government may be set aside for minority contractors. In Atlanta, a portion of the contracts for the world’s busiest airport and the rapid transit system were earmarked for minority contractors. White contractors had to hire minority subcontractors for a share of their work.

Symbolism versus Substance

As noted earlier, the results test enacted in the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act has resulted in numerous suits attacking at-large electoral systems. Many of the suits have succeeded, especially in communities in which no blacks were serving on the governing body. After transition to single-member districts, the election of a black is very likely, since a prerequisite for successful litigation is that it be possible to create a black voting age majority district. Blacks gain descriptive representation but may experience an even greater loss in substantive representation. Creation of a black district removes blacks from the remaining districts. Therefore, there will be one black and four, six, or nine white members of the local governing body, none of whom has black voters. To the extent that issues are seen as racial, the white legislators will be disinclined to support the proposals of the black legislator. As an attorney in a small, Louisiana town told the author, “As a result of going to single-member districts, every issue in this town is now racial. Even the placement of a spotlight takes on racial connotations.”

The tradeoff between descriptive and substantive representation can be illustrated with the experience of two Atlanta-area congressional districts. By 1980, the fifth congressional district, which includes central city Atlanta, was 51% black and was represented by white Wyche Fowler (elected to the U.S. senate in 1986) who, in response to his heavily black constituents, had the most liberal voting record of any Georgia congressman. From 1973 to 1977, when it was predominantly white, it elected Andrew Young to Congress three times. To the east of the fifth district was the 28% black fourth congressional district.

To conform with federal requirements that congressional districts have equal populations, district boundaries had to be adjusted after the 1980 census. In the course of redistricting, the General Assembly raised the proportion black to 57% in the fifth district. Black legislators objected to the Justice Department, urging that the fifth be made blacker. Justice and a three-judge federal district court sided with the black objectors. To secure approval for the new districting system, the General Assembly raised the proportion black in the neighboring district from 28% to 13%.

Both incumbents were reelected in 1982. In 1984, however, a very conservative, born-again Christian Republican defeated the Democrat in the fourth district. In contrast with his Democratic predecessor who voted for civil rights issues about half the time, the Republican never supported civil rights legislation. The white Democrat who represented the fifth district until 1987 continued taking pro-civil rights stands about 90% of the time. In the short run, then, increasing the percent black in the fifth district did not elect a black, but a sometimes supportive Democrat was defeated in the adjacent district. When Fowler ran for the U.S. Senate in 1986, his congressional seat was filled by long-time, black, civil rights activist John Lewis. Thus, now there is descriptive representation of blacks in the fifth district. But during the 100th Congress (1987-88), there was still only one vote from these two districts for civil rights issues. During the years when Democrats held both districts, there would be, on average, one-and-a-half votes from the two legislators for civil rights issues.[20]

While the symbolism of having a black member is of some significance, in a close vote, the presence of a sympathetic white might be politically more important. This, then, is the risk frequently coincident with creating majority black districts.

Republican Growth

The “Solid South” of which Key wrote had two Republicans in Congress, no Republican statewide officials, and, save for the defection of Tennessee in 1920 and five “Rim South” states in 1928, had not voted Republican at the presidential level since 1876. The New Deal which had ushered in a partisan realignment elsewhere had no impact on southerners’ party loyalties.

While the South was part of the New Deal coalition, the interests of another coalition player planted the seed which contributed to the transformation of southern politics. Northern blacks had supported the Republican Party because it was the party of Lincoln, and he had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Blacks, being among America’s most economically deprived, found hope in Roosevelt’s programs. Therefore, during the Depression, northern blacks moved into the Democratic Party in large numbers. As the economic crisis abated, the Republican Party rebounded in the North so that by the mid-1940s, northern cities were partisan battlegrounds in which black votes were critical for victory.[21] In response to that situation, the 1948 Democratic National Convention adopted remarkably strong civil rights planks.

Presidential Politics

Death did not come for another generation, but in 1948 the fatal blow was dealt the Solid South. After the national party tentatively embraced civil rights, leaders of several Deep South states withdrew and nominated South Carolina’s governor Strom Thurmond, for president.

Thurmond appeared as the official Democratic nominee on the ballots of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Thurmond’s candidacy was intended to alert the national party that it would pay a price for challenging southern notions of white supremacy. Thurmond’s Dixiecrat supporters hoped that without the South’s electoral votes, neither Truman nor Dewey would receive a majority in the Electoral College so that Congress would choose the president. Under that scenario, where the South would cast eleven of the forth-eight votes, it could extract a re-commitment to white supremacy from northern Democrats.

The election of 1948 did send the northern wing of the Democratic party a message, but it was not what the South had expected. Despite challenges on the right from Thurmond and on the left from Henry Wallace (Franklin Roosevelt’s second vice-president who ran on the Progressive ticket), Harry Truman triumphed in on of the great upsets of American politics. He carried seven of the eleven southern states, with the victory margin coming in northern states where black votes played an important role.

If 1948 weakened the bonds that kept southerners voting Democratic, estrangement accelerated during the 1950s when, in response to Dwight Eisenhower’s minimally partisan appeal along with his war-hero status, many southerners cast their first Republican ballots.[22] Eisenhower carried four of the six Rim South states in 1952 and in 1956 scored the first GOP breakthrough in a Deep South state when he won Louisiana.[23] Democratic defections also resulted in the first Republican congressional success in this century in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and Texas.

What the Eisenhower elections did for Republicans in the Rim South, the 1964 election did for them in the Deep South when racial and partisan themes intertwined. The election came to close on the heels of the enactment of sweeping civil rights legislation. The 1964 Civil Rights Act banned discrimination in public accommodations and on most job sites and actively involved the federal government in school desegregation. President Johnson led the enactment effort while one of the few non-southern opponents, Senator Barry Goldwater (AZ), won the Republican presidential nomination. Civil Rights issues were sufficiently salient that the five Deep South states broke almost 100 years of tradition and gave Goldwater his only electoral votes outside his home state. The Goldwater tide also elected seven Republicans to Congress from the Deep South.

The Rim South-Deep South split of 1964 persisted into 1968 but with even more disastrous results for the Democratic Party. In 1968 the Deep South supported third-party candidate George Wallace, famous for defying federal desegregation efforts. The Rim South also rejected the Democratic nominee but took the more moderate course of supporting Republican Richard Nixon with only Texas supporting Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey. The 1968 election, then, was the first since 1876 in which the South provided the key for a GOP triumph.[24]

In the 1970s and 1980s, southern cohesiveness has re-emerged, but the contemporary unity differs from that of bygone days. In four of the last five presidential elections, the South was solidly Republican. Summing up results in the eleven southern states across 1972, 1980, 1984, and 1988, the Democratic nominee won only one of forty-four states possible as Jimmy Carter carried his home in 1980. Southern cohesion also existed in 1976 when only Virginia rejected Carter.

Three observations are appropriate here. First, less than twenty years, the South has given cohesive support to both parties. Second, southern unanimity in 1972, 1980, and 1984 paralleled results from the rest of the country, but in 1976 it was more Democratic than the non-South while in 1988 it was more Republican.[25] Third, regional pride has declined as a factor in presidential elections. Carter took ten southern states in 1976 as the first Deep South nominee in more than a century. In 1980 his regional compatriots did not, however, make him the first southerner to be reelected since Andrew Jackson. By 1988 regional pride was so attenuated that only 3% of the respondents to the CBS/New York Time’s Super Tuesday exit polls indicated that having a southerner as the Democratic nominee was important.

Over the last forty years the South, along with the West, has shifted massively toward the Republican party in presidential elections.[26] These two regions, which were the most Democratic in 1948, have been the most Republican in recent years.

Congressional Politics

While Republican gains in congressional seats have been less impressive than GOP success at the presidential level, there have, nonetheless, been remarkable changes. The disparity between GOP strength in the South and the rest of the nation has been narrowed and , at times, disappeared.[27] Table 3 shows a tripling of GOP U.S. House seats during the Kennedy-Johnson years. Many of these new Republicans criticized the civil rights stands of the national Democratic Party.

Table 3 REPUBLICAN STRENGTH IN THE SOUTH, 1956-88 (All numbers are percentages)

	1956	1958	1960	1962	1964	1966	1968	1970
Presidential Electors	52		26		37		45
Senate	0	0	5^*	5	9	14	18	23
Governor	0	0	0	0	0	18	18	18
U.S. House	7	7	7	10	15	22	25	25
State Senate	3	2	3	3	5	11	13	12
State House	4	2	4	5	7	12	13	13

1972	1974	1976	1978	1980	1982	1984	1986	1988
100		9		91		100		100
32	27	23	27	45	50	45	27	32
36	36	18	27	45	18	18	45	45
31	24	25	29	36	29	37	34	34
14	10	9	11	14	13	16	18	22
17	12	12	14	18	18	22	24	27

^*Reflects special election victory of John Tower, R-Texas, in early 1961.

Sources: Appropriate volumes of the Book of the States and National Journal, 20 (Nov. 12, 1988): 2886

From 1960 to 1980, the trend for Republican congressional strength was upward with one exception. Watergate, President Nixon’s resignation, and his pardon by Gerald Ford created obstacles for the Republican party nationwide. In the South in 1974, the Republican share of congressional seats dropped back to the 1970 level. This decline was, however, less than in any other region.[28] As Table 3 shows, 1974 losses were not fully recouped until 1980 when Reagan bested Carter in ten of eleven southern states.

During the 1980s the relative performance of the GOP in southern congressional contests has paralleled that in the rest of the country. There has tended to be a surge and decline pattern, with Republicans adding seats in presidential years and experiencing losses in off-year elections. In 1984, Republicans had their largest share of House seats, holding 37 percent in the South.

If the patterns of the past continue, then Republican gains should be most marked when a Republican presidential candidate runs well. Should George Bush, who carried all southern states in 1988, be reelected in 1992, that might be a particularly auspicious year for the GOP. Assuming a healthy economy, the incumbent president should run well. Reagan in 1984 and Nixon in 1972 polled larger shares of the vote than their party had four year earlier, and Republicans surged to new highs in southern House seats. Bush’s coattails in the South would be expected to help elect new Republicans. His strength could be enhanced if the redistricting that will be done in 1991-1992 to take into account population shifts of the 1980s is favorable to the GOP. Even under a worst case scenario, the GOP will win several of the ten or so new seats to be reapportioned to the region.

In its broad outlines, the experience of Republicans in Senate elections has been not unlike that in the House. The differences are that the initial Republican breakthrough came later (1961), and the high point of success (50% in 1982) exceeded that in the House. As in the House, Republicans won Senate seats later in the Deep South. Initial Republican Rim South Senate victories came in the 1960s, but in the Deep South, they were delayed until 1980. In that year, the Reagan sweep helped elect new Republicans from Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina, and a Republican even won in Georgia, the one state Carter Carried. The defeat of all members of the class of 1980 in 1986 plunged Republicans back to their pre-Reagan success level.

Gubernatorial

The initial Republican governors were elected in the mid-1960s from the Rim South states of Arkansas, Virginia, and Florida. The rate of Republican gubernatorial successes has fluctuated wildly over the last two decades. After the 1972 elections, Republicans held four governorships, but by 1977 their numbers had been reduced to a pair. With the help of Ronald Reagan’s popularity, Republicans filled five governorships after the 1980 election only to fall back to two after the next election. As the 1980s end, they once again hold five governorships. In the Rim South, Republicans have won at least two gubernatorial elections, and in four states they have chalked up three successes.[29] Except for Georgia and Mississippi, every southern state has elected a Republican chief executive at least once.

State Legislatures

GOP state legislative successes have been less, overall, than for higher offices. As of the late 1980s, Republicans still held only about a quarter of the seats. The small numbers notwithstanding, there has been a clear trend. The upward sweep in the proportion Republican has been like that for the U.S. House, only the rate increase has been much more gradual. When the percent of Republican legislative seats is regressed on time, the slope for the state house is 1.39 and for the state senates is 1.02. This compares with a slope of 1.97 for the U.S. House when a similar technique is applied.[30]

Local Offices

In the South as in the rest of the nation, many municipal offices are non-partisan. However, county-level offices such as school board member, county commissioner, and sheriff are partisan. Local Republican successes reveal a pattern similar to their legislative victories. Republicans have been elected almost exclusively in urban areas. In counties populated with upscale residents having college educations, high incomes, and white-collar jobs, Republicans are now so dominant that Democrats have ceased to contest elections. Urbanization and affluence have not introduced the bipartisan politics Key (1949) anticipated. Instead, there are adjacent one-party domains with the central city exclusively Democratic while portions of the suburbs are exclusively Republican. Only when the Republican party is beginning to challenge the Democrats or where there is a racially and economically heterogeneous population is bipartisan competition common at the local level.

Even when the two parties compete, one of them may rarely win office. During the 1980s, for example, two of the most rapidly growing counties in metropolitan Atlanta have gone from electing primarily Democrats to almost exclusively Republican local officeholders and state legislators. Usually the transformation has resulted from the defeat of incumbent Democrats although a few Democrats who withstood the initial GOP assaults have converted and run as Republicans so as not to lose in straight-ticket voting sweeps like 1988.[31] It is what might be called compartmentalized bipartisanship with each party having areas in which it is virtually unchallenged.

Partisan Identification

Surveys of southerners’ partisan identification show lower levels of GOP allegiance than would be anticipated by the number of statewide victories. In the continuing debate over whether partisan changes constitute a realignment or a dealignment, those who focus on the level of Republican identifiers typically conclude that the South remains Democratic so that at most there has been a dealignment.[32] While some polls have found a plurality of white southerners identifying with the GOP,[33] the findings are unstable. Moreover, the inability of Republicans to dominate contests below the presidency conflicts with traditional notions of realignment. The continuing GOP success in presidential elections combined with Democratic dominance at lower levels has led some to characterize the change as a split-level realignment.[34]

Longitudinal variation in partisan affiliation derives from short-term factors such as embodied in the nominees. Ronald Reagan was very popular in the South while the Mondale-Ferraro ticket drew little support among whites. It is not surprising, therefore, that some in the electorate evaluated the parties in terms of the 1984 presidential pairings and consequently called themselves Republicans at that time. Fluctuations in party loyalty are also associated with split-ticket voting which allows Republicans to win the South’s presidential elections and, whenever Democrats falter, to win statewide contests while faring less well in congressional and state legislative elections.

Causes of GOP Growth

Both demographic and political changes account for the rise in Republican identifiers and in Republican electoral successes. Changes in the South’s population constitute one factor. In the immediate post-World War II era, millions of blacks left the South and were replaced by northerners moving in as retirees or as corporate managers. The recently arrived were better educated, and many brought their Republican identification along with their families and furniture. This trend was particularly important to the GOP’s early growth.[35]

A second demographic feature has been generational replacement. Party identification tends to solidify with age so that younger voters are more likely to shift loyalties from election to election. Voters who experienced the Great Depression were disproportionately Democrats and have maintained that identity. The New Deal, which produced a realignment in the rest of the country, simply reinforced partisan identifications that were near uniform in the South. Voters who have come into the southern electorate during the last generation have often begun as Republicans, and the young are more Republican than their parents.[36]

A third aspect has been conversion, with large numbers of white Democrats shifting allegiance to the Republican party. After reviewing a generation of elections ending with 1972, Campbell concluded that conversion was the most important feature in the growth of the Republican party in the South, a point disputed in light of more recent data.[37] Among younger whites, the affluent are particularly likely to vote Republican. As affluence spreads, Republican prospects rise, leading Earl Black to observe that “Democrats are basically fighting a rearguard action against the creation of an urban middle class.”[38]

Conclusions

The major changes in the politics of the contemporary South have been the emergence of Republicans and the empowerment of blacks. Both groups hold significant numbers of offices throughout the region and at various levels. Besides gaining offices, these groups have impacted on the behavior of white southern Democrats, who for decades were virtually the only players in the region’s politics. Black votes coupled with the preemption of the right end of the political spectrum by Republicans have pushed white Democrats leftward. Southern Democrats’ changed behavior has been most visible in congressional politics. On social welfare, government regulation, and civil rights issues, southern Democrats’ voting behavior in Congress has become more like that of their northern cousins.[39] While southern Democratic legislator support for liberal programs has not returned to the levels of the New Deal, it is substantially higher than during the nadir of the Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon era.

Initially there was a symbolic relationship between Republicans and blacks in the South. Threats to white supremacy and anger at northern Democrats who, it was believed, had betrayed the South,[40] in conjunction with Republican conservatism on civil rights, caused the opening breach in the Solid South. While many early votes for Republican candidates were stimulated by racial bias, those emotions are rarely mentioned by today’s Republican supporters.[41] Having been freed of a commitment to the Democratic Party that was rooted in rebellion, white southerners can now pursue their traditionally conservative impulses by aligning with the nation’s conservative party. The critical realignment of blacks into the Democratic party in 1964 and the subsequent policy changes of southern Democrats have also contributed to the attractiveness of the GOP for white conservatives. As the liberalism of the Democratic biracial coalition percolates downward, Republicans are winning a lager share of local offices.

Despite their early symbolic relationship, blacks and Republican officeholders have rarely found common cause. The one notable exception has been reapportionment where both have benefited at the expense of white Democrats.[42] Both groups often benefit in terms of descriptive representation when blacks and Republicans unite to force a change from at-large to single-member district elections. Once single-member districting has been established, subsequent adjustments necessitated by population shifts are likely to advantage Republicans more than blacks.

Both types of changes may disadvantage blacks in terms of public policy. While some reconfigurations of districts result in more blacks being elected, blacks who win often replace liberal white Democrats. Thus, as with Atlanta’s congressional representation, there may be no increase in the number of legislators supporting black policy goals, and if a Republican replaces a moderate Democrat in an adjacent district, total support for liberal programs decreases.

While changes in the politics of the South were, in large part, triggered by black empowerment, blacks may not be the big winners. With most black officials being elected from predominantly black political units,[43] there is a likely upper limit on black officeholders. To get beyond reliance on black support, prospective black officeholders must attract white votes, and this requires exposure to white voters. The creation of heavily black political units reduces the likelihood that blacks elected at one level will be able to build the biracial coalition needed to win higher offices with larger and more heterogeneous populations.

To the extent that black aspirations depend upon white support, the presidential ambitions of Jesse Jackson may also be a detriment. While Jackson did not run well with white voters North or South, southerners are more likely to be alienated if they perceive that the national Democratic Party is too attractive to Jackson’s demands. Attempts to placate Jackson and his followers will offend additional southern Democrats. Either national efforts in response to Jackson or demands from local blacks could sunder the fragile ties of the Democrats’ biracial coalition. As a former head of Georgia’s Republican Party observed, “The Democratic coalition stretches all the way from the Klan to the black Muslims. I don’t think they can hold it together any more.”[44] But for that coalition, Republicans would easily dominate statewide positions such as United States senator.

A final feature contributing to GOP expansion is economic growth in the South. While the South remains the nation’s poorest region, that distinction is continually being eroded.[45] In the affluent suburbs of major cities Republicans dominate. The GOP will continue to benefit as the South attracts investment both from the North and from abroad.