Data story · Elections
When did the South flip from Democrat to Republican?
There is no single year. The South left the Democratic Party in stages over about forty years, and each stage shows up on a strip of colour as plainly as on a map.
Every strip on this page is a real Elections strip from the Huezle app, drawn by the app’s own code. More about Elections.
Where to look on the strip
Each strip is one presidential election, with one band per state running west to east. The eleven former Confederate states — Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia — sit just right of centre. Blue is Democratic, red is Republican, and the deeper the colour the bigger the margin.
The Solid South
For the first half of the century the South voted Democratic whatever the rest of the country did, and by margins no state comes close to today. South Carolina’s Democratic margin topped 85 points in every election from 1900 to 1936 except 1928.
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The first cracks were brief. In 1928 the Democrats nominated Al Smith, a Catholic New Yorker who opposed Prohibition, and five Southern states went to Herbert Hoover; four years later the Depression sent all eleven back to Franklin Roosevelt. In 1948 Southern Democrats walked out over the party’s civil rights platform and ran Strom Thurmond, which turned the Deep South pale rather than red, because the strip draws only the Democrat against the Republican.
1964: the Deep South goes red
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Lyndon Johnson won the biggest Democratic landslide since Roosevelt, but the red on his strip is exactly the old Solid South: Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina went to Barry Goldwater, who had voted against the Civil Rights Act that year. The Northeast, so often red before, is deep blue. It is the moment the strip turns inside out.
One last blue South
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After 1964 the South swung back only for a Southerner. Richard Nixon had carried all eleven in 1972, and Ronald Reagan would carry all eleven again in 1984. Carter’s strip is the last time the right-centre glows blue; by 2000 even a Tennessean lost the whole region, his own state included.
Today
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A century after Harding, the colours have traded places. Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, which voted Democratic by 70 points or more in the 1930s, now vote Republican by 22 to 30, and the only Southern blue is Virginia, the state that broke from Carter. The two-party margins here are state by state, unweighted by population.
For the rest of the map’s story, see how to read a century of elections and the biggest landslides.
Can you date an election strip from the South alone? Try one in Huezle.
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So when exactly did the South flip?
For presidential elections the Deep South broke in 1964 and the whole region was reliably Republican from 1972 on, with Carter’s 1976 as the exception. Below the presidency the change took longer: many Southern states kept Democratic legislatures into the 1990s and 2000s.
Why was the 1948 South pale instead of red?
The strips measure the Democrat against the Republican. In 1948 the votes that left Truman went to Strom Thurmond, not to Dewey, so the Democratic margin shrank without the Republican winning.
Which states count as the South here?
The eleven states of the former Confederacy. Kentucky, West Virginia and Maryland are on the strips too, but are not counted in the figures on this page.
More guides
- How to read a century of presidential elections in colour.US presidential elections since 1900 drawn as strips of colour, one band per state from west to east. Learn to read the eras from four real strips.
- The biggest presidential landslides, drawn in colour.Three of the most lopsided US presidential elections drawn as strips of colour, one band per state, and why each landslide holds out in a different place.
- Election night trivia: read the election from its colours.Presidential election trivia for election night: four quick rounds built on real elections drawn as strips of colour, one band per state. How many can you get?
- The closest presidential elections, state by state.The most evenly fought US presidential elections since 1900 as strips of colour, and why the closest national result is not always the palest strip.
Now try naming one yourself.
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