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What drove the transformation of post-World War II politics in the South? In The Rational Southerner, M. V. Hood, Quentin Kidd, and Irwin L. Morris develop a theory of relative advantage to explain why whites fled the Democratic Party and what propelled black political mobilization. Collating decades of data, the authors demonstrate that race was, and is, the chief force behind political change in the region.

There is little doubt that the Democratic Party in the South has become decidedly more liberal over the last several decades. Not as much is known, however, about the extent of this ideological shift (measured in some quantifiable metric), nor the exact causes of this phenomenon. Many have credited the noted ideological sea change with the en masse re-enfranchisement of blacks in the region. In order to test the validity of this claim, aggregate-level data from Louisiana were combined with individual-level survey data to create an ideological profile for the Democratic Party in the Bayou State. Decomposing the transformation by racial groups leads to a counterintuitive finding: over time, blacks have actually served as a moderating force within the party structure. In addition, the white contingent of the Democratic Party has become increasingly more liberal as the proportion of blacks within the party structure has increased.

Argues that the liberalization of Democratic senators from the South was a result of interaction between the rise of the Republican party and the mobilization of the Black electorate; US.

Examines why Hispanic Americans support (vente) or oppose (quedate) liberalization of immigration policy; theoretical and empirical analyses.

Introduction: Texas: Thirty Years Apart -- America's Longest and Deepest Realignment -- Measuring Place and the Data Associated with It -- Presidential Republicanism and Democratic Darn Near Everything Else -- Voting for the Biggest Prize: Presidential Elections -- US Senate Elections: Republicans' Most Promising and Attainable Seats -- The Rural Transformation in Southern Gubernatorial Elections -- Rural Voters in Southern US House Elections -- Survey Says? Rural Whites' Changing Party Identification -- More Evidence: Rural Voters in Four Southern States -- How Are Rural and Urban Southerners Different? -- The 2020 Elections in the South -- Too Little, Too Late?

"Throughout the modern South many of the region's cities have become blue Democratic enclaves surrounded by crimson suburbs, and burgundy rural communities staunchly aligned with the Republican Party. This is almost a complete reversal of the pattern that existed for much of the twentieth century, during which the backbone of southern Democracy was located in rural counties. Now rural counties are the bulwark of modern southern Republicanism. What happened, and when? Those are the key questions that political scientists M. V. Hood III and Seth McKee explore in this pathbreaking study of rural Republican political realignment in the modern South. Understanding voting patterns in the rural South, and indeed in rural America more generally, has become central to understanding our current electoral landscape. In this empiracally-based study, Hood and McKee trace the shifting political affiliations in the rural South, arguing that this transition has been both more recent and more durable than most political observers realize. Whereas much of the literature on political realignment in the South has focused on urban/suburban voters, Hood and McKee set their sites on rural voters. They mine a variety of data sources to uncover granular detail about voting behavior in rural counties. They also conducted their own region-wide poll of rural voters, administered through the University of Georgia's School and Public and International Affairs (SPIA) Survey Research Center, where co-author M.V. Hood serves as director. The inclusion of original polling research represents a significant contribution and also highlights the fact that the authors are uniquely situated to offer a detailed regional analysis of rural southern politics. "Rural Republican Realignment in the Modern South" represents an extremely timely contribution to both scholarly and popular discussions surrounding the importance of region and race within contemporary electoral politics. While much of the attention in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election focused on rural white voters in the Upper Midwest, the southern states of Florida (R +1.2%) and North Carolina (R +3.8%) both ranked among the top ten states with the narrowest margins of victory during the presidential contest. In both places, rural voters helped to fuel Republican success. The results of the 2018 midterm elections and 2020 presidential race further emphasize the importance of the American South and the rural/urban electoral divide. The authors include analysis of the 2020 election cycle and the US Senate runoff elections in Georgia, which occurred in early 2021. They make a compelling case that understanding the longer-term shift in voter preference within the rural South will remain vital to understanding both regional and national electoral patterns moving forward. The latest incarnation of the Republican Party, they write, traces its most well-worn and thus entrenched paths back to the one-party Solid Democratic South, and this is evident in the profiles of rural white supporters. In contrast, there is really no regional predecessor to the modern southern Democratic Party. Its fundamental elements are a diverse group of supporters who in the Old South would almost all have been disfranchised, played only a limited political role, or not resided in the region at all. This coalition includes northern in-migrants, African Americans, women, a growing Latino and Asian population, and a host of young people. While scholars are increasingly focusing on the changing South and how in many parts of the region high-growth urban areas are fostering Democratic competitiveness, Hood and McKee instead focus on the reason why Republicans have become so politically formidable and why the strong GOP affiliation of rural whites makes Democratic efforts to become a more viable opposition a generally slow and painstaking process. Put differently, they emphasize how partisan changes within the native white population in the South have proven capable of prolonging Republican electoral dominance as Republicanism has begun to wane among urban whites and is admittedly under siege among in-migrants to the Sunbelt"--

Objective The 1966 gubernatorial campaign provides an interesting retrospective examination of Georgia politics during a period of seismic change that included the dawn of two-party competition, black enfranchisement, and legislative determination of the chief executive. Method This article provides an empirical evaluation of the 1966 gubernatorial election in Georgia, including action that occurred in the General Assembly following the election. Results Our findings clearly define the various coalitions supporting the three gubernatorial candidates and also explain why the plurality popular winner loses the legislative vote. Conclusion The 1966 election is not only interesting as a case study in its own right, but one that had a major impact on two-party politics and legislative-executive relations in Georgia for decades to come. Adapted from the source document.

Congressional elections have occurred every 2 years since the nation's founding, yet we know surprisingly little about these electoral contests outside of the modern era. This is unfortunate as our understanding of how Congress performs and has evolved over time is directly linked to how its elected representatives reach and maintain office. In an effort to better understand early U.S. House elections, we revisit the era of the 'partisan press' where newspapers were the main source of news for American voters and were typically operated by one of the two major parties. Using a data set linking the geographic location of partisan newspapers with electoral data during the early 19th century, we examine district-specific factors impacting the competitiveness of House races. We uncover previously unidentified evidence of candidate-specific effects during this historical era along with confirmation of media influence in the context of early American elections. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

Due to the strength of its two-party system, the opportunity for voters to strategically defect in favor of third party or independent candidates is rare in high profile American elections. Indeed, it has been almost a century since a third party candidate finished better than one of the major party presidential nominees-in 1912 Bull Moose Progressive Teddy Roosevelt finished ahead of Republican William H. Taft. In this study we examine strategic voting in a U.S. Senate election where the independent candidate also finished above one of the major party nominees. In the 2010 Florida Senate contest the sitting Governor Charlie Crist shed his Republican label in order to compete in the general election since he was certain to lose in the GOP primary to Marco Rubio, the eventual winner. Crist finished second by taking a substantial share of votes away from the third place candidate, Democrat Kendrick Meek. Because this type of contest seldom occurs, in American politics there is scant empirical research on strategic voting under these conditions. We employ an unobtrusive survey of a large sample of registered Floridians in order to assess the likelihood of strategic voting among respondents who preferred the Democrat Kendrick Meek. For voters who sincerely preferred the Democrat, a significant portion defected in favor of the Independent Charlie Crist if they expected him to finish ahead of Meek. Additionally, we find that after a major news story broke, in which former President Bill Clinton allegedly advised Meek to drop out of the race so that Crist might win, respondents surveyed after this event were more likely to vote strategically in favor of Crist. Our study clearly demonstrates the importance of political context. Under the appropriate conditions, we find a high likelihood of strategic voting. Adapted from the source document.

Sarah Palin and the Tea Party played active roles in endorsing candidates for the U.S. House in 2010; we explore whether they followed different strategies. Palin proved more careful in backing candidates while the decentralized Tea Party movement often became involved in hopeless causes. We analyze the endorsements made by Palin and the Tea Party in contests involving House seats held by Democrats going into the 2010 elections. We show that Palin and the Tea Party had different endorsement approaches. Palin's endorsements seem to have been guided by more strategic considerations than those from the Tea Party. The Tea Party concentrated more on trying to defeat incumbents and especially incumbents who had supported the Obama legislative package with the stimulus bill being a lightning rod for Tea Partiers. Palin proved far more selective in making endorsements and concentrated more on backing challengers likely to unseat Democrats. Although she endorsed less than half as many races as the Tea Party, she backed almost as many winners. Adapted from the source document.

In this article, we examine the role that in-migration played in contributing to the 2008 Democratic presidential victory in North Carolina. Prior to Barack Obama, the last time the Tar Heel State was carried by a Democrat was Jimmy Carter in 1976. Since the late 1980s, North Carolina has undergone tremendous demographic change. In addition to a growing Hispanic population that is primarily comprised of noncitizens, the state has witnessed a very large increase in the number of residents who were born and raised in Northern states such as New York. Historically, in much of the postwar South, Northern migrants helped grow the Republican Party. We find that in North Carolina this pattern no longer holds. In contemporary North Carolina, migrants born outside the South are more likely to identify and register as politically unaffiliated, and their growing share of the state's electorate directly contributed to Obama's narrow win. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

Objectives. We take a step forward in examining the electoral effects of redistricting by: (1) demonstrating that voters with a new incumbent because of redistricting are less likely to recognize their representative, and (2) voters are less likely to vote for their representative if they fail to recognize him or her. Methods. Our data come from a survey of white respondents who resided in the redrawn Eighth District of Georgia for the 2006 U.S. House elections. We use probit regressions to first measure the effect of redistricting on incumbent recognition. Then, we assess the likelihood of voting for the incumbent depending on whether a respondent was redrawn or has the same incumbent after redistricting, and whether or not the respondent could recognize his or her representative. Results. Our analyses make it clear that redrawn voters were much less likely to recognize their incumbent and it is the inability to recognize one's incumbent, irrespective of whether the representative has changed due to redistricting, which accounts for a reduced likelihood of voting for the incumbent. Conclusions. Other scholars have examined the relationship between redistricting and incumbent recognition. Likewise, many have evaluated the effects of redistricting on vote choice. This article, however, is the first to merge these two relationships. We find that redrawn constituents are less likely to know who their representative is, and it is indeed a lack of familiarity that reduces an incumbent's vote share. Thus, we have shown empirically that the absence of a personal vote, which is exacerbated by redistricting, proves electorally harmful to the incumbent. Adapted from the source document.