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The 1994 elections represented a watershed year for southern Republicans. For the first time since Reconstruction, they gained control of a majority of national seats and governorships. Yet, despite these impressive gains, southern Republicans control only three of twenty-two state legislative chambers and 37 percent of state legislative seats. Joseph A. Aistrup addresses why this divergence between the national and subnational levels persists even after GOP national landslides in 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1994.Explanations for this divergence lie in the interaction between the Republicans'

ObjectiveUsing the "theory of relative advantage" (Hood, Kidd, and Morris, 2012), this study tests a number of hypotheses focusing on the short‐ and long‐term influences of Governor George Wallace on the partisan voting alignment of Alabama counties at the presidential and gubernatorial levels.MethodsThe analysis uses county‐level vote shares data for president and governor from 1952 to 2012 in a confirmatory factor analysis to model party alignments among counties within a state and to identify the sequence and timing of party realignments (Aistrup, 2012).ResultsWe find that Wallace's presidential county voting patterns in 1968 deviated significantly from Alabama's New Deal structure of partisan competition, and that the structured partisan competition associated with Reagan's election in 1980 follows the same patterns initiated by Wallace in 1968. However, Wallace's New Right alignment at the gubernatorial level does not emerge until the controversial 1986 gubernatorial election. There is a marginal utility function modeled as a curvilinear relationship between black voter mobilization and the change in the Republican bias between the New Deal and the New Right alignment.ConclusionsThe theory of relative advantage provides a strong theoretical platform for understanding how the political cues provided by Wallace affected the timing and sequence of changes in the structure of partisan competition among Alabama counties at the presidential and gubernatorial levels.

Objective. This study develops and tests an aggregate "vote shares" model of party alignments and realignments, building a theoretical framework around "structured political composition" (Rabinowitz, Gurian, and Macdonald, 1984, p. 6). The vote shares model conceptualizes party alignments as latent class constructs, or factors, and changes in these latent class constructs as party realignments. Methods. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) model with bias corrected bootstrap estimates and standard errors is used where the cases are counties and the variables are aggregate election outcomes. The data come from Kansas from 1900 to 2010. Results. Comparing the findings of the vote‐shares approach to those of Nardulli (2005) and Sundquist (1983) suggests that the vote shares model provides a greater depth of understanding and a more accurate portrait of the timing of realignments and the partisan bias of new alignments in Kansas. The vote shares model also overcomes the major problem of false positives associated with landslide elections, a problem that plagued most previous aggregate voting models. Conclusion. The vote‐shares model of party alignments and realignments provides a viable alternative for analyzing historic and current election returns where the votes are aggregated by a geographically defined government jurisdiction (parish, county, city, or district).

This paper assesses the influences racial resentment and racial stereotypes on Southern and non-Southern white, Asian, and Hispanic voters in the 2008 presidential election. I use logistic regression to test the hypotheses that racial resentment and racial stereotypes influenced support for McCain and that the influence of these two variables is greater in the South than in the non-South. The findings suggest that racial resentment's influence extends across both regions but that the affects of racial stereotypes is confined to the South. The analysis is replicated for U.S. House elections in 2008, finding that the impact of racial resentment and racial stereotypes is insignificant in both regions. In 2008, the influences of racism, resentment and regionalism on voting are confined to the presidential level. Adapted from the source document.

Objective. This study develops and tests a model of political regionalism that posits that if regions are politically exceptional, then individuals sharing the same profile but living in these different regions will have divergent presidential voting patterns (King, 1996). Methods. behavior from 1952 to 2004, I use logistic regression techniques to test a regional model of homogeneity (southern exceptionalism) versus a unit model of homogeneity (South and Non-South are statistically similar). Results. The findings show that the South's presidential voting patterns are exceptional in the 1950s and during the civil rights era but, starting in the Reagan era, southern exceptionalism waned. These findings also show that the South is converging with the non-South (northernization) relative to the influences of race, family income, union membership, in-migrants, and gender, and the non-South is converging with the South (southernization) relative to the influences of education, blue-collar workers, and age. Conclusions. and race variables contribute to the demise of regional exceptionalism; however, race plays a more persistent role. Given the process of 'southernization' and the instability of the predictors of presidential voting for the South over time, I conclude that the study of the South as a region should continue until the process of change subsides and a new equilibrium is found. Adapted from the source document.

This research focuses on assessing the impact of participation on voting in southern state legislative elections in the 1990s. While turnout is the subject of much study as a dependent variable (Hill and Leighley 1999; Bullock, Gaddie, and Kuzenski 1995; Weber 2000, 233-246; Gaddie and Bullock 1997; Davidson 1994; Hogan 1999), its relationship to southern state legislative outcomes has not been extensively studied. I find that higher levels of turnout lead to increased votes for the Republicans. While this was the case only in South Carolina in the early 1990s, by the late 1990s, this pattern was consistent across five of the ten states under study. These findings suggest that the relationship between participation and voting in state legislative elections in the South may be becoming similar to congressional elections (Campbell 1996). This study also focuses on the influences of constituency diversity on voting outcomes at the state house level. In recent years, most of the discussion regarding the influences of constituency characteristics has been centered around assessing the impact of creating numerous majority-minority districts during the 1990s redistricting (see Lublin and Voss 2000). This study moves beyond this debate to assess the influence of constituency diversity on aggregate voting outcomes, beyond majority-minority districts. Using a measure of constituency diversity (based on the work of William Koetzle (1998)), which measures the "political diversity" of districts, the findings support the contention that constituency diversity has a significant influence in structuring aggregate voting outcomes.

This research focuses on assessing the impact of participation on voting in southern state legislative elections in the 1990s. I find that higher levels of turnout lead to increased votes for the Republicans. While this was the case only in SC in the early 1990s, by the late 1990s, this pattern was consistent across 5 of the 10 states under study. These findings suggest that the relationship between participation & voting in state legislative elections in the South may be becoming similar to congressional elections (Campbell 1996). This study also focuses on the influences of constituency diversity on voting outcomes at the state house level. In recent years, most of the discussion regarding the influences of constituency characteristics has been centered around assessing the impact of creating numerous majority-minority districts during the 1990s redistricting (see Lublin & Voss 2000). This study moves beyond this debate to assess the influence of constituency diversity on aggregate voting outcomes, beyond majority-minority districts. Using a measure of constituency diversity (based on the work of William Koetzle (1998)), which measures the "political diversity" of districts, the findings support the contention that constituency diversity has a significant influence in structuring aggregate voting outcomes. 5 Tables, 1 Appendix, 29 References. Adapted from the source document.

The commentary of our colleagues is appreciated. Even though this reply will not settle this controversy, it might provide a starting point for others wishing to examine this topic. The article had two major findings. The first is that there was a minimal Democratic bias in contested southern state legislative districts in the 1970s and 1980s. The second is that the Democrats appear to have used the switch from multimember districts (MMDs) to single-member districts (SMDs) to insulate themselves from large vote swings by lowering the swing ratio (responsiveness) of the electoral system. Krassa and Combs make two criticisms of this research: First, the grouping time periods together means the analysis includes the effects of other structural and social events, thus confounding the analysis of changes in the swing ratio and bias. They suggest a need to adopt a similar methodology to King and Gelman (1991), which controls for the structural characteristics in southern state legislative elections. Their second critique is the interpretation of a declining swing ratio protecting incumbents is incorrect. A more desirable situation for Democratic incumbents is to have a high swing ratio because it converts lower vote shares into a higher proportion of Democratically controlled districts. Bullock's critique notes the findings are not generalizable to the affirmative action gerrymandering associated with the 1990s redistricting process. I begin by addressing the methodological critique of Krassa and Combs. Then I turn to the latter two questions involving the interpretation of our findings.

Implicit in numerous explanations concerning the Republicans' problems in the South is the rationale that the Democrats gerrymander away any Republican gains. However, with the enforcement of provisions o f the Voting Rights Act, others have found evidence that it is the Republicans who gain from the redistricting process. This article tests these propositions by analyzing the extent o f bias and the swing ratio for southern state legislative contests both before and after the 1970s and the 1980s redistricting, respectively, as well as controlling for single-member (SMD) and multimember (MMD) districts. We find that the orthodoxy described above is not strongly supported. The district lines for contested elections were not substantially biased toward the Democrats in the first place, and the bias of the representational system does not show a substantial movement toward the GOP after the switch from MMDs to SMDs. Democrats appear to benefit from redistricting as a result of a decline in the swing ratio, thus making their incumbents better protected from aggregate swings in voter preference.