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24 presidential candidates, while Southern whites [became] the most Republican part of the white electorate” (Lawrence, 1997 p. 55). The Democrats were now faced with a difficult challenge in the South, as subsequent elections would show. The 1968 election would witness the collapse of the ‘Solid South’. The Democratic Party had changed, with little hope of reverting back to the states’ rights position. As one Georgia Democrat put it, “I have about given up hopes of really reforming the Democratic Party…we have to live with it as it is” (Grantham, 1988 p. 173). Hubert Humphrey, Democratic nominee and a leader of this ‘new’ Democratic Party had “shouldered the full brunt of the Southern reaction to the national party’s abandonment of the white South” (Lamis, 1984 p. 28). This sense of abandonment was rooted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The former, which outlawed segregation, and the latter, which made racial disenfranchisement illegal, severely disrupted the traditionalist Southern society. They therefore turned to Republican nominee Richard Nixon and American Independent Party candidate George Wallace, marginalising Humphrey across the whole South, as the results above show. Four years later, Nixon would sweep the South, because “with Wallace out of the picture in 1972, his supporters flocked to Nixon and a Republican landslide resulted” (Archer and Taylor, 1981 p. 159-160). At presidential level, the ‘Solid South’ was broken. A Solid Republican South? This paper has focused on how the Democratic Party changed, in particular regarding race and their policy towards Civil Rights. As has been seen, the Democratic Party’s embrace of Civil Rights cost it key electoral support throughout the South. However, it is inaccurate to say that the Party’s stance on Civil Rights was the sole reason for its loss of support in the South. After all, as David Lawrence states, “one should not attribute the white southern desertion of the Democrats solely on race” (Lawrence, 1997 p. 67). It is therefore necessary to look at another key reason for Democratic erosion of support, namely demographics, and the economic growth and differing political thought that goes with it. Following the end of the Second World War, the South as a region changed demographically and economically. Thanks to both the New Deal and an economic boom because of the war, a shift in “the numerical balance between those receiving and those paying for social welfare benefits… undermined the electoral appeal of the party of the underdog” (Lawrence, 1997 p. 35). In effect, because of the Southern economic boom, a growing Southern middle class were on the wrong end of the benefits of the New Deal. This led to a reversal of “the economic and electoral logic of the New Deal, ‘taxing the many on behalf of the few’ rather than ‘taxing the few for the benefit of the many’” (ibid., p. 36). Naturally then, these voters started to look to a party that was sympathetic to their economic concerns. These were voters, “with substantial incomes subject to substantial federal and state taxation [and those]… wanting to keep the lion’s share of their earnings, [and therefore] view[ed] the Republicans as far more sympathetic than the Democrats to their economic interests and aspirations” (Black and Black, 2002, p. 5) This new Southern middle class, then, started voting for Republicans over Democrats, which furthered the breakdown of the ‘Solid South’. They were a reliable base of support, perhaps evident in the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections, when Dwight Eisenhower managed to carry states such as Virginia and Florida, states attractive to the whitecollar professional who would generally vote Republican (Rae, 1994 p. 42). And if that was not enough to cause problems for the Democrats, this was coupled with the race issue that, as was shown earlier in this paper, was also responsible for the erosion of Democratic support. Thus, the two fundamental reasons for the collapse of the ‘Solid South’ at presidential level are apparent: race and economics of demographic change. So far, this paper has presumed that the shift from Democratic to Republican has been uniform across all states and at all political levels. However, the examples of Alabama and North Carolina demonstrate that this is not the case.
Alabama North Carolina Democrat (1975-1979) Democrat (1979-1983) Democrat (1983-1987) Republican (1987-1991) Republican/Democrat* (1991-1995) Republican (1995-1999) Democrat (1999-2003) Republican (2003-2007) Republican (2007-2011) Republican (1973-1977) Democrat (1977-1981) Democrat (1981-1985) Republican (1985-1989) Republican (1989-1993) Democrat (1993-1997) Democrat (1997-2001) Democrat (2001-2005) Democrat (2005-2009) Democrat (2009-2013) Figure 2: Governors in Alabama and North Carolina, 1973- present. (Sources: National Governors Association, nd; Office of Governor Bev Perdue, nd). *Alabama had a Republican governor from 1991 – 1993 who was then removed from office. The Democratic lieutenant governor became governor for the rest of the term, 1993 – 1995. At gubernatorial level, as can be seen in figure 2, the idea that the South is solidly Republican is disputable. In Alabama, for instance, the presence of George Wallace was so profound that Republican growth in the state was stunted; after all, as Alexander Lamis has said, Wallace’s stance on social issues “goes a long way toward explaining why the Republican party had such a difficult time in the state” (Lamis, 1984 p. 76). Wallace successively hijacked the social platform that the Republicans endorsed, a platform that appealed to “white, working-class discontent with the civil rights, abortion-rights and gay rights movements” (Black and Black, 2002 p. 106). Wallace’s appeal, and the subsequent strength of the state Democratic Party that came with it, led to one Alabama Republican saying that “there’s no big bad Republican Party” in the state (Cotter and Gordon, 1999 p. 223). As a result, whilst the South was becoming solidly Republican at presidential level, the Democratic embrace of Republican social policy kept Alabama state politics competitive. It was not until 1987 that the Republicans began their dominance of the governor’s mansion – more than twenty years after the Republicans became dominant at presidential level. At state legislature level, to suggest Alabama is solidly Republican would be incredibly misleading. The combined chambers of the state legislature include eighty-four Democrats and fifty-six Republicans, resulting in Democratic control of both chambers (Alabama State Senate, nd). If Alabama were ever to become solidly Republican, it appears it may be the result of a slow trickling down of support. If Alabama is steadily becoming solidly Republican, the same cannot be said about North Carolina. When Democratic support in the state collapsed, state politics became immediately competitive due to the “mountain counties… where Republicanism can be traced to the Civil War” (Lamis, 1984 p. 131). The Republicans grew in the state by enacting the same strategy that Wallace had used in Alabama; by expressing “many of the racial, social and economic viewpoints characteristics of Old South Democrats” (Black and Black, 2002 p. 103). The Republicans had taken the social platform away from the Democrats. However, in recent years, the Democratic Party has become ultra-competitive in the state. As figure 2 shows, the Democrats have controlled the governorship since 1993, and the current legislature figures stand at 98 Democrats and 72 Republicans (General Assembly of North Carolina, nd). Coupling this with Barack Obama becoming the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to carry the state at a presidential election, it is clear that the ‘Solid South’ does not exist in the state. Conclusion In conclusion, this essay has attempted to assess the South’s transition from Democratic Solid South to supposed Solid Republican South. By focusing on the key themes of race and demographic change, this essay has found that Republicans 25
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alfred 2 - University of Winchester

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