This article is about members of the Democratic Party from the historical South. For the segregationist third party active in 1948, see Dixiecrat.
Southern Democrats are members of the U.S. Democratic Party who reside in the Southern United States.[1]
Before the American Civil War, Southern Democrats were mostly white men living in the South who believed in Jacksonian democracy. In the 19th century, they defended slavery in the United States and promoted its expansion into the Western United States against the Free Soil opposition in the Northern United States. The United States presidential election of 1860 formalized the split in the Democratic Party and brought about the American Civil War.[2] After the Reconstruction Era ended in the late 1870s, so-called redeemers were Southern Democrats who controlled all the southern states and disenfranchised African-Americans.
The monopoly that the Democratic Party held over most of the South showed signs of breaking apart in 1948, when many white Southern Democrats—upset by the policies of desegregation enacted during the administration of Democratic President Harry Truman—created the States Rights Democratic Party. This new party, commonly referred to as the "Dixiecrats", nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond for president. The new party collapsed after Truman won the 1948 election.
Despite being a Southern Democrat himself, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[3] These actions led to heavy opposition from Southern Democrats.[4][5] Following the passage of civil rights legislation, many white southerners switched to the Republican Party at the national level. Many scholars have stated that southern whites shifted to the Republican Party due to racial backlash and social conservatism.[6][7][8]
Republicans first dominated presidential elections in the South, then won a majority of Southern gubernatorial and congressional elections after the 1994 Republican Revolution.[9][10] By the 21st century, and especially after the 2010 midterm elections, the GOP had gained a solid advantage over the Democratic Party in most southern states.[11] Southern Democrats of the 21st century tend to be more progressive than their predecessors.[12]
^"Texas Politics – Yellow Dogs and Blue Dogs".
^"Southern Democratic Party – Ohio History Central".
^Kaiser, Charles (January 23, 2023). "'We may have lost the south': what LBJ really said about Democrats in 1964". The Guardian. Retrieved February 20, 2023.
^"PolitiFact – Group of Southern Democrats, not all Democrats, held up 1964 Civil Rights Act".
^"Democrat/GOP Vote Tally on 1964 Civil Rights Act". Wall Street Journal. December 31, 2002.
^Carmines, Edward; Stimson, James (1990). Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691023311. Archived from the original on May 16, 2018. Retrieved June 9, 2018.
^Valentino, Nicholas A.; Sears, David O. (2005). "Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: Race and Partisan Realignment in the Contemporary South". American Journal of Political Science. 49 (3): 672–88. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2005.00136.x. ISSN 0092-5853.
^Ilyana, Kuziemko; Ebonya, Washington (2018). "Why Did the Democrats Lose the South? Bringing New Data to an Old Debate". American Economic Review. 108 (10): 2830–2867. doi:10.1257/aer.20161413. ISSN 0002-8282.
^Junn, Jane; Masuoka, Natalie (2020). "The Gender Gap Is a Race Gap: Women Voters in US Presidential Elections". Perspectives on Politics. 18 (4): 1135–1145. doi:10.1017/S1537592719003876. ISSN 1537-5927.
^"Can the Republican Party Keep Trump Democrats?". National Review. November 21, 2016.
^"The long goodbye". The Economist. November 11, 2010. Retrieved February 20, 2023. In 1981 Republicans took control of the Senate for the first time since 1953, but most Southern elected officials remained white Democrats. When Republicans took control of the House in 1995, white Democrats still comprised one-third of the South's tally. ... white Southern Democrats have met their Appomattox: they will account for just 24 of the South's 155 senators and congressmen in the 112th United States Congress.
^"The Return of the Southern Democrat". U.S. News & World Report. October 5, 2018.
and 22 Related for: Southern Democrats information
SouthernDemocrats are members of the U.S. Democratic Party who reside in the Southern United States. Before the American Civil War, Southern Democrats...
conservative Democrat is a member of the Democratic Party with more conservative views than most Democrats. Traditionally, conservative Democrats have been...
"choked blue" by Democrats on the left. It is related to the political term "Yellow Dog Democrat", a reference to SouthernDemocrats said to be "so loyal...
Education ruling of 1954, 101 Southern congressmen (19 senators, 82 House members of which 99 were SouthernDemocrats and 2 were Republicans) in 1956...
Committee, stated that "SouthernDemocrats intended Super Tuesday to be a way to moderate their party", but that "the Democrats have handed us a tremendous...
1948), along with many Democrats from the northern and western states, supported civil rights legislation that the Deep South Democrats in Congress almost...
fifteen southern Whig senators had joined them. Democrats voted for the treaty 15–8, with a slight majority of Northern Democrats opposing. Southern Democrats...
water). Conservative SouthernDemocrats generally favored high government spending on rural issues, and in this urban and liberal Democrats supported them while...
Jennings Bryan defeated the Southern Bourbon Democrats and took control of the Democratic Party nationwide. The Democrats also faced challenges with the...
Solid South SouthernDemocrats Conservative Democrat 84th United States Congress Wikisource has original text related to this article: Southern Manifesto...
President Truman, McCormack himself, and all the northern and southernDemocrats. Democrats feared that, without Rayburn as their leader, the Democratic...
every Southern state. The Democrats agreed to the election of Hayes and in turn he withdrew the United States Army from the South, leaving the Democrats in...
met in mid-May 1860 after the Democrats had been forced to adjourn their convention in Charleston. With the Democrats in disarray and a sweep of the...
SouthernDemocrats supported the bill almost unanimously (59–1), while Northern Democrats split strongly in favor (50–30). Eight of eighteen Southern...
in the Southern United States Politics of the United States Blue Dog Democrats Boll weevil (politics) Conservative DemocratSouthernDemocrat Deep South...
Yellow Dog Democrats is a political term that was applied to voters in the Southern United States who voted solely for candidates who represented the Democratic...
Party, while most conservative, White, usually southernDemocrats shifted to the Republican Party as Democrats began increasingly prioritizing civil rights;...
many Republican Mugwumps in 1884. The term "Bourbon Democrats" was never used by the Bourbon Democrats themselves. It was not the name of any specific or...
which the Democrats won Wisconsin until 1892, the last in which the Democrats won Connecticut until 1876 and the last in which the Democrats won New York...
the Southern position in political disputes. Typically it was applied to a Northern Democrat who was more often allied with the SouthernDemocrats than...
newly elected Democrats were Northern liberals, shifting the balance of power away from conservative SouthernDemocrats. The Democrats made a net gain...
In doing so, Wallace split the New Deal Coalition, winning over SouthernDemocrats, as well as former Goldwater supporters who preferred Wallace to Nixon...
Global Information