Party Affiliation in the Southern Electorate

• Published date: 01 March 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231218734
• Author: Seth C. McKee
• Date: 01 March 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(1) 432–446

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129231218734

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Party Aff‌iliation in the Southern Electorate

Seth C. McKee

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Abstract

This article chronicles and analyzes the changing state of party aff‌iliation in the American South from the 1990s to the

present. Party identif‌ication (PID) is examined with data from three survey sources: the American National Election

Study (ANES), Cooperative Election Study (CES), and Exit Polls (national and state-level). Emphasis is placed on the

changing PID patterns of white, Black, and Hispanic voters South-wide and in individual states. The f‌indings strongly

suggest that the current position of Republican electoral dominance will persist for some time to come, though there are

multiple reasons why, in certain parts of the South, Democratic aff‌iliation will likely increase.

Keywords

party identif‌ication, southern electorate, validated voters, Republican realignment

In his mid-twentieth-century masterpiece, Key (1949) set

aside one chapter (out of 31) in Southern Politics in State

and Nation for the Republican Party (chapter 13), f‌ittingly

titled, “A Note on the Republican Party.”Key goes into

some detail as to how the southern GOP in his time was

principally a patronage party concerned with distributing

federal largesse in presidential politics, which actually

carried the disincentive to make Republicans more

electorally viable (more spoils from the patronage pie for

the select Republican few). Also mentioned is the historic

African American allegiance to the GOP, a vestige and

tribute to the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln. To be

sure, factions within the Republican Party were prevalent

throughout the South and pitted the so-called Black-and-

Tans (minority GOP aff‌iliates) against the racist Lily-

Whites (see Heersink and Jenkins 2020). These race-

based intraparty Republican disputes centered upon

which group would be the benef‌iciary of presidential

patronage rather than a keen interest in growing the GOP

grassroots. Yes, the Republican Party had real (though

localized) electoral prowess in the anti-secession moun-

tainous sections of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Vir-

ginia, but beyond this, Key’s characterization of the mid-

twentieth-century southern GOP was unf‌lattering, face-

tious, and true:

One never knows who is and who is not a Republican. The

party places no imperative obligation of constancy on its

communicants. It scarcely deserves the name of party. It

wavers somewhat between an esoteric cult on the order of a

lodge and a conspiracy for plunder in accord with the ac-

cepted customs of our politics. (Key 1949, 277)

Today, erstwhile enclaves of southern Republicanism

(Heard 1952) have expanded to engulf most of the region

(Black and Black 2002,2007;Hood, Kidd, and Morris 2012;

McKee 2019). In short, GOP electoral dominance has come

to fruition (Bullock 2022a). But how sustainable is it? The

more racially diverse urban South is growing the most in a

rapid-growth region (Bullock et al. 2019), and it is literally

moving Democratic (Morris 2021). However, South-wide,

population growth is uneven, and hence, some scholars have

takentoclassifyingthe11ex-Confederate states as either

growth (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina,

Texas, and Virginia) or stagnant (Alabama, Arkansas,

Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee) (Bullock 2022b;

Bullock et al. 2019).

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The more rural stagnant states are now

the most Republican in terms of representation and party

identif‌ication (PID) (Hood and McKee 2022b). Neverthe-

less, despite relatively greater partisan competitiveness in the

growth states, except for Virginia,

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they also comfortably

favor Republicans.

Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA

Corresponding Author:

Seth C. McKee, Department of Political Science, Oklahoma State

University, 220 Social Sciences and Humanities, Stillwater, OK 74078,

USA.

Email: mckee@okstate.edu