How voting has changed in the South

November 6, 6:28 AMProgressive Politics ExaminerKaren Harper

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One of the last standing strongholds of the Republican party is the South.  The political wisdom in years past has been that the South wasn’t important to presidential elections and to a large extent, the South has been ignored by those campaigning for president.  Barack Obama defied conventional wisdom and campaigned in the South because he believed in change.  His decision to do so helped him win the presidential election this year and it’s very likely that this will have a profound effect on the South.

Most notably, the majority of voters in Virginia, Florida and North Carolina voted for Barack Obama, a Democrat and an African American man.  America’s Civil War in the 19th century pitted American against American in lines drawn by geography and chiefly, the issue of slavery.  Most of the African slaves in America were owned by Southern land holders.  

A century after the US Civil War, the turmoil of racial tensions that continued in the US created the Civil Rights movement and some of the most far reaching battles in the movement took place in the Deep South.  In his acceptance speech November 4th in Chicago, Barack Obama spoke of 106 year old Ann Nixon Cooper who is old enough to have seen our country change again and again.  He referred to the Civil Rights movement.  

“She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that ‘we shall overcome’.”

Though both Alabama and Georgia’s majority of voters voted for John McCain, the majority of voters in Birmingham, Selma, and Montgomery, Alabama voted for Barack Obama as did a majority of voters in Atlanta.  That’s the good news.  The map from The New York Times shows red and blue bubbles that are based on county populations where red means a majority voted for McCain and blue means a majority voted for Obama.

The bad news is that in Alabama, only 10% of white voters voted for Barack Obama according to CNN exit polls.  The same exit polls show that 11% of white voters in Mississippi and 14% in Louisiana voted for Obama.  The rest of the South was on par with the rest of the country with the numbers ranging from 23% to 42% of whites voting for Barack Obama.  While exit polls have a margin of error, accuracy is usually within a reasonable range.  It’s interesting to note that in Kentucky, 10% of African American voters did not vote for Barack Obama. 

Demographics show that in the south, like the rest of the country, voters in urban areas were more likely to vote for Barack Obama.  In general, voters in rural areas of the U.S. showed a preference for McCain.  However, in Alabama, the area known as the black belt, rural areas and small towns chose Obama over McCain at a rate between 72% to 84%. 

New York Times Map

Republican John McCain won most of the Southern states and it would be easy to come to the conclusion that the South is heavily Republican.  However, in looking at voting shifts from 2004 to 2008, it is important to note that much of the South has seen a large rise in the number of people voting Democratic.  Some of this shift can be accounted for by African American voters who turned out in record numbers, but black voters don’t account for the entire shift.

The states that saw the most substantial increases in Republican voting since 2004 were Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee.  Sections of Kentucky, Texas, and Alabama also saw substantial increases in voters choosing to vote Republican.  

What does all of this mean for the South?  It’s hard to make predictions this early after the election.  Perhaps what will be most important is not what the demographics maps show today but what they will show in four years from now.  The South has come a long way in a century and a half but fears and misunderstandings linger long after events have ended.

For many of us who live in the South, it is our sincere hope that our new president elect, Barack Obama, will help to calm old fears and move our country beyond a landscape of red and blue states, southern and northern states, and east coast and west coast sensibilities to forge what the founders hoped our nation would be, the United States.

 Related Elections 2008 info: 
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Examiner Coverage: Elections 2008