That's the record for Democrats in winning open-seat Senate races in the "real" South (not including Florida, but including Kentucky and Oklahoma) since 1987 (I count the Texas special in 1993 as an open seat, although Bob Krueger was a nominal incumbent). Democrats have occasionally knocked off inept Republican incumbents (Lauch Faircloth, Tim Hutchinson), but they have become spectacularly bad at winning races in Dixie without an incumbent, when national forces tend to be most prominent.
So much of Democratic strength in the South has been based on inertia: the clout of powerful incumbents like Lloyd Bentsen and Sam Nunn; the ancestral loyalty of older, rural voters; control of redistricting; business interests' understandable desire to get along with the normal governing party; potential Republican candidates unwillingness to be part of an embattled minority in state legislatures.
Above all else, generations of politicians with conservative values and a practical bent had assumed that the Democratic Party was the only way to get ahead. That's over.
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The political science take on things.
Contributors
Books by PolySigh Contributors
Philip Klinkner:
The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America
Midterm: The Elections of 1994 in Context
The Losing Parties: Out-Party National Committees, 1956-1993
Steve Teles:
Whose Welfare? AFDC and Elite Politics
Jack Pitney:
The Art of Political Warfare
Congress' Permanent Minority?
Jacob Hacker:
The Road to Nowhere: The Genesis of President Clinton's Plan for Health Security
The Divided Welfare State: The Battle Over Public and Private Social Benefits
Paul Frymer:
Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America
David Lublin:
The Paradox of Representation: Racial Gerrymandering and Minority Interests in Congress
The Republican South : Democratization and Partisan Change
Stephen K. Medvic
Political Consultants in U.S. Congressional Elections (Ohio State University Press 2001)
Shades of Gray:Â Perspectives on Campaign Ethics (Brookings Institution Press 2002)
Guide to Political Campaigns in America (CQ Press 2005)
The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America
Midterm: The Elections of 1994 in Context
The Losing Parties: Out-Party National Committees, 1956-1993
Steve Teles:
Whose Welfare? AFDC and Elite Politics
Jack Pitney:
The Art of Political Warfare
Congress' Permanent Minority?
Jacob Hacker:
The Road to Nowhere: The Genesis of President Clinton's Plan for Health Security
The Divided Welfare State: The Battle Over Public and Private Social Benefits
Paul Frymer:
Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America
David Lublin:
The Paradox of Representation: Racial Gerrymandering and Minority Interests in Congress
The Republican South : Democratization and Partisan Change
Stephen K. Medvic
Political Consultants in U.S. Congressional Elections (Ohio State University Press 2001)
Shades of Gray:Â Perspectives on Campaign Ethics (Brookings Institution Press 2002)
Guide to Political Campaigns in America (CQ Press 2005)
2 comments:
Control of redistricting has nothing to do with the Senate, but it did have a lot to do with Southern Democratic strength in the U.S. House. This changed over the last two redistricing cycles. In 1991-92, Southern legislatures were forced to create several minority-majority districts that had the ultimate effect of also creating many overwhelmingly white seats that went Republican. In 2001-02, Republicans in Virginia and Florida were able to use the redistricting pen to their own advantage. And now, of course, we have Texas.
I'm with MWS -- don't write off the South as one big mass of racist conservatives. Even though North Carolina (my home state) hasn't voted Democratic in thirty years, 44% of us supported Kerry. There are plenty of other southern states that have similar numbers as well; I wouldn't call us "lost" by any stretch.
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