: The Republican South

University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher, except for reading and browsing via the World Wide Web. Users are not permitted to mount this file on any network servers. Introduction Scanning southern politics for signs that the Republicans would replace the Democrats as the majority party used to be as futile as waiting for Godot. 1 In The Emerging Republican Majority, Kevin Phillips foresaw that Republicans would quickly gain an edge in presidential elections. 2 However, the pace of Republican gains below the presidential level was exceedingly slow in the former Confederate states as Democrats maintained their edge in all offices. The Democratic edge, moreover, was not a small one. For nearly three decades after the Civil Rights Movement transformed southern politics, the Democrats held the preponderance of governorships as well as congressional seats. Democratic dominance appeared even greater at the state legislative and local levels. In some southern states, located primarily in the Deep South, Republicans held almost no local or state legislative offices as late as 1980. A wealth of books and articles appeared trying to explain why the Democrats remained in power and Republican growth was so slow or elusive. 3 The waiting finally appeared to end in the watershed year of 1994. In a backlash against the unpopular Clinton administration, Republicans won a majority of the region's U.S. Senate and U.S. House seats for the first time. Their share of state legislative seats also leaped upward, and Republicans took control of several state legislative chambers for the first time. Many analysts expected that Republicans would finally consolidate their majority during the remains of the 1990s. And yet, the Democrats did not collapse. The 1994 results did not represent a fluke, and Republi-2 • Chapter One cans did make further gains. However, by the end of the decade, signs appeared that the Democrats would not go gently into a political coma. Democrats actually gained seats in some state legislative chambers and won back control of North Carolina's lower house. At the same time, Democrats ceased losing seats at the congressional level and even temporarily won back some governorships. Core Questions While undoubtedly dismaying Democrats, the scope of these changes places scholars of southern politics today in an …