In the mid-1950’s, Hawaii was regarded as being a Republican territory, and Alaska as being a Democratic territory.
Now, Hawaii is one of the most Democratic states in the Union, and Alaska is almost as solidly Republican.
IMHO the shift of the South toward the Republican party was due to the following among others:
The economic rise of the South. Evangelical Christians in the South found themselves with increased financial power thus enabling them to become political players. The Republican party has done an excellent job of pitching itself to the Evangelicals.
The civil rights movement. No, I’m not saying that today’s Southern whites are racially biased, but the Democratic party lost lots of its appeal among an earlier generation of Southerners in the 60s and 70s when it became closely associated with the civil rights movement.
Great Society legislation during the 1960s. It seems that along with economic prosperity comes a propensity to want hold on to what one has earned. Economically advantaged Southerners came to see the wealth redistribution measures of the GS programs as threatening to their financial well being. Particularly troubling was the notion that their wealth was being distributed to those of other ethnic groups.
Does Karl Rove do good work or what?
California is another state that has changed sides several times in the last 50 years. A lot of that is because the California Republican Party has always been on the moderate side. Even Ronald Reagan was relatively moderate as governor. But the state has had its share of liberal Democratic governors (the Browns), liberal Republican governors (Earl Warren), moderate Republican governors (Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger) and somewhat conservative governors (Reagan and George Deukmejian).
But now the state has two Democratic senators, a moderate (Feinstein) and a liberal (Boxer). And with the exception of Schwarzenegger all the other statewide offices are held by Democrats. The Legislature is firmly in the hands of the Democrats and the Congressional delegation is predominantly Democratic.
But in the 1966 primary for governor, Regan’s Republican opponent was George Cristopher, the mayor of SAN FRANCISCO. Cristopher was a fairly liberal Republican. Pat Brown’s primary opponent was Sam Yorty, a conservative Democrat (he eventually switched over), but a politican who got his start as part of Upton Sinclair’s EPIC campaign.
And how long after California’s polls closed on Election Day this year was the state called for Kerry? 1 minute, 2 minutes, as long as it took for the newscaster to say “California…”
A question from that site: why did most of the south vote for Ulysses S. Grant in 1868? I would have figured they’d vote for some southern candidate, or anyone but the general that beat them.
Let’s do this state by state. I’ll list every state, and when they last voted for the party they did NOT vote for in 2004:
Alabama: 1976 (Carter, D)
Alaska: 1964 (Johnson, D)
Arizona: 1996 (Clinton, D)
Arkansas: 1996 (Clinton, D)
California: 1988 (Bush, R)
Colorado: 1992 (Clinton, D)
Connecticut: 1988 (Bush, R)
Delaware: 1988 (Bush, R)
Florida: 1996 (Clinton, D) (well, officially)
Georgia: 1992 (Clinton, D)
Hawaii: 1984 (Reagan, R)
Idaho: 1964 (Johnson, D)
Illinois: 1988 (Bush, R)
Indiana: 1964 (Johnson, D)
Iowa: 2000 (Gore)
Kansas: 1964 (Johnson, D)
Kentucky: 1996 (Clinton, D)
Louisiana: 1996 (Clinton, D)
Maine: 1988 (Bush, R)
Maryland: 1988 (Bush, R)
Massachusetts: 1984 (Reagan, R)
Michigan: 1988 (Bush, R)
Minnesota: 1972 (Nixon, R)
Mississippi: 1976 (Carter, D)
Missouri: 1996 (Clinton, D)
Montana: 1992 (Clinton, D)
Nebraska: 1964 (Johnson, D)
Nevada: 1996 (Clinton, D)
New Hampshire: 2000 (Bush, R)
New Jersey: 1988 (Bush, R)
New Mexico: 2000 (Gore, D)
New York: 1984 (Reagan, R)
North Carolina: 1976 (Carter, D)
North Dakota: 1964 (Johnson, D)
Ohio: 1996 (Clinton, D)
Oklahoma: 1964 (Johnson, D)
Oregon: 1984 (Reagan, R)
Pennsylvania: 1988 (Bush, R)
Rhode Island: 1984 (Reagan, R)
South Carolina: 1976 (Carter, D)
South Dakota: 1964 (Johnson, D)
Tennessee: 1996 (Clinton, D)
Texas: 1976 (Carter, D)
Utah: 1964 (Johnson, D)
Vermont: 1988 (Bush, R)
Virginia: 1964 (Johnson, D)
State of Washington: 1984 (Reagan, R)
Washington, DC: Always Democrat
West Virginia: 1996 (Clinton. D)
Wisconsin: 1984 (Reagan, R)
Wyoming: 1964 (Johnson, D)
As you can see, most states are pretty consistent. The longest a real state has gone without switching sides is the coterie of states that have voted Republican since 1968 but went with Johnson in 1964 basically because everyone felt bad about Kennedy.
Interestingly enough, the most lopsided election is most people’s living memory is arguably not the Reagan massacre of Mondale in 1984, but Nixon’s re-election in 1972, in which Nixon beat McGovern by over 23% in popular vote. That the American public didn’t seem to mind electing a President who had happily kept sending American boys off to die in an unwinnable war is, perhaps, a chilling reminder or current events.
That is not needed in General Questions.
In 1868, former slaves could vote, and did in large numbers. (It wasn’t until the late 1870s that Reconstruction came to a halt.) Guess how they felt about Grant?
Hold on there… “Liberalism” as we know it is a fairly new thing, as is its association with the Democratic party. The southern US has never been “liberal”, at least not by any modern definition.
Which states have swung the most over the past fifty years? IOW, what are the most politically schizo states?
Well, go to this site:
http://uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/
On the drop-down menus, select GENERAL BY STATE and then choose Georgia.
Halfway down the page, choose “Compare State Maps by Year”
Look at 1960-present. Especially note 1968(!!!).
Sorry it’s so convoluted, but the site is all frames and I can’t link to the page directly.
Enjoy.
Cool, thanks. You can do with the natl. map what you did with Georgia, btw, though Georgia does look pretty schizo. Ahh, Wallace: I guess he didn’t get outniggered there.
Interestingly, my home state of Maine looks pretty schizo since 1960. The place went to Perot in '92, which I completely forgot about, registered as I was in DC. So much for “As goes Maine, so goes the Nation”.
Although Maine gave Perot his highest vote percentage of any state, Bill Clinton carried Maine in 1992.
I don’t think you can call New Mexico “traditionally conservative.” Even though we’ve gone both ways on Presidential elections, we are a traditionally Democratic state. The rural south and east has tended to be more conservative than the rest of the state, but they’re also much more sparsely populated than the central corridor. It is only in recent years that New Mexicans (spurred on by a lot of activity by suspiciously non-native-looking Republican operatives) started voting more Republicans into office. We now have more Republican representatives than Democratic at the national level, but our state legislature is still staunchly Democratic. Even so, I’d say that New Mexico is becoming more conservative, not less.