Who were the few R voters in the Deep South until 1944?

[Fuzzy Bear]

V. O. Key's Southern Politics explains this well.

Key wrote of the various types of Republicans in the South.  There were Mountain Republicans, who were residents of the western Carolinas and East Tennessee, who lived where few blacks lived and were opposed to secession, and this carried on from generation to generation.  (They believe that the Civil War was a war for someone else's interests besides their own.)  There were Black Republicans, and, indeed, the GOP in the South was one of its most integrated institutions in those days.  There were Presidential Republicans; folks who voted in the Democratic Primary for local offices, but cast a Republican vote for President.  Key pointed out that the main focus of these Republican organizations was not to elect officials (except in rare instances such as East Tennessee, where the GOP has long controlled two Congressional districts).  The main purpose was to be the recipients and apportioners of Federal Patronage should the happy day come when the GOP took the White House back. 

Key analyzed each of the 11 Southern states.  In a number of states, Key pointed out that there was, indeed, latent bi-partisanship that was being smothered by racism and the issue of the black man and his place in society.  Such a discussion derailed discussion of other issues such as labor unions, poverty amongst whites and blacks alike, economic fairness, voter participation, and such.  The one-party South was a vehicle by which the issues that threatened the elites that controlled local affairs in the South would not be discussed, and quietly resolved in favor of the elites.