The Consolidation of the White Southern Congressional Vote

• Author: Ronald Keith Gaddie,Donna R. Hoffman,Charles S. Bullock
• Published date: 01 June 2005
• Date: 01 June 2005
• DOI: 10.1177/106591290505800204
• Subject Matter: Articles

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If the trend continues, the voting loyalty of southern

white Democrats to House candidates will soon be on a

par with that toward Democratic presidential candidates

(Stanley 1988: 77).

In the long run, however, the realignment appeared cer-

tain to continue to work its way steadily downward

through the political levels—from presidential voting to

statewide voting to local voting . . . (Sundquist 1983: 375).

Republican gains in the South have come slowly and

inconsistently. The GOP became the party of choice

in presidential elections in the Rim South in the

1950s and achieved similar status in the Deep South a

decade later. In 1972 for the first time in the modern era,

Republicans swept the South’s Electoral College votes, a pat-

tern that, with one exception, recurred throughout the

1980s and again in 2000.1

Yet for 30 years after Barry Goldwater became the first

GOP presidential nominee to win the Deep South, carrying

seven Republicans into Congress on his coattails, southern-

ers voted heavily for conservative Republican and inde-

pendent presidential candidates, while returning large

numbers of Democrats to Congress and state legislatures.

Then, in 1994, southern white support for Republican can-

didates surged to record levels enabling the GOP to achieve

majority status in the region’s U.S. Senate and House dele-

gations, and make substantial gains in southern state legis-

latures (Black and Black 2002).

This study seeks to identify the voters who deserted

Democratic congressional candidates in 1994, and deter-

mine whether this profile continued as part of the sustained

GOP congressional majority in the South after 1994. Was

there an across-the-board shift to the GOP or were some

voters particularly attracted to Republican candidates? Con-

temporary analyses focused on angry white males and

Christian fundamentalists as fueling the GOP upsurge. More

generally, the 1994 results were interpreted as a rebuke to

President Clinton and his health care initiatives. After iden-

tifying those whites most prone to change to the GOP, we

offer reasons behind the shift. Since Democratic defectors

have been overwhelmingly white, we focus on that group

and what happened in 1994 and subsequent elections.

THE SETTING

Before 1998 the president’s party invariably lost ground

in mid-term elections. That alone augured for GOP gains in

1994. Republicans had made modest gains in the South in

1962, 1966, and 1978, the three most recent mid-term elec-

tions when a Democrat held the White House. The excep-

tional 16-seat southern shift to the GOP in 1994, consti-

tuted more seats than Republicans had gained in the three

previous Democratic mid-terms combined. GOP gains were

also out-of-line with expectations from retirement slumps,

that had generally worked against Republican gains

(Gilmour and Rothstein 1993; Gaddie 1997).

The Consolidation of the White Southern

Congressional Vote

CHARLES S. BULLOCK, III, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

DONNA R. HOFFMAN, UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA

RONALD KEITH GADDIE, UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

This article explores the initial desertion and continued realignment of about one-sixth of the white voters in

the South who, until 1994, stood by Democratic congressional candidates even as they voted for Republican

presidential nominees. Prior to 1994, a sizable share of the white electorate distinguished between Democra-

tic congressional and presidential candidates; since 1994 that distinction has been swept away. In 1992, a

majority of white southern voters was casting their ballot for the Democratic House nominee; by 1994, the sit-

uation was reversed and 64 percent cast their ballot for the Republican. Virtually all categories of voters

increased their support of Republican congressional candidates in 1994 and the following elections further

cement GOP congressional support in the South. Subsequent elections are largely exercises in partisanship, as

the congressional votes mirror party preferences. Republicans pull nearly all GOP identifiers, most independ-

ents, and a sizeable minority of Democratic identifiers. Democrats running for Congress no longer convince

voters that they are different from their party’s presidential standard bearers—a group that has consistently

been judged unacceptable to overwhelming proportions of the southern white electorate.

1Jimmy Carter carried his home state, Georgia, in 1980. Otherwise, the

South voted consistently for GOP presidential nominees during the

1980s. The South is defined as the eleven secession states.

NOTE: An earlier version of this study was presented at the annual meet-

ing of the American Political Science Association, Boston, August

28-September 1, 2002. The data used in this analysis were pro-

vided by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social

Research which bears no responsibility for the interpretations pre-

sented here.

Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 2 (June 2005): pp. 231-243