Why Did the Democrats Basically Have a Monopoly on Congress from 1930-1994?

[Virginiá]

Great Depression + Southern Democrats voting for House Democrats until 1994 (they never realigned properly).

There's no "proper way to realign."  They elected House Democrats because they liked them better than the Republicans running against them in that period...

Sure, that is generally the basis of elections (although I don't think every choice voters make is based on knowledge of the candidates, but that is another debate entirely). I think what he is saying is that the fact that Republicans couldn't get people who were voting Republican for president to switch downballot in the South was a major impediment to them taking control sooner than when it actually ended up happening. In that sense, yes, it was a weaker realignment, and the GOP coalition has never been as strong as what the Democrats had.

[RINO Tom]

Great Depression + Southern Democrats voting for House Democrats until 1994 (they never realigned properly).

There's no "proper way to realign."  They elected House Democrats because they liked them better than the Republicans running against them in that period...

Sure, that is generally the basis of elections (although I don't think every choice voters make is based on knowledge of the candidates, but that is another debate entirely). I think what he is saying is that the fact that Republicans couldn't get people who were voting Republican for president to switch downballot in the South was a major impediment to them taking control sooner than when it actually ended up happening. In that sense, yes, it was a weaker realignment, and the GOP coalition has never been as strong as what the Democrats had.

This is indisputably true.  However, most people's characterization of this truth is millions of Southern Whites taking decades to figure out that they liked Republicans better, needing an additional four to eight years to *realize* it the further down the ballot you went, LOL.  It's not like we are talking about the late 1960s or early 1970s when the GOP in many Southern states was a joke, either, we are talking about the early 1990s.  I just think the "realignments take time" is overly simplified.  Additionally, this completely ignores the obvious truth that "Southern Whites" is an incredibly broad term, and certain types of Southern Whites (more affluent, suburban voters, recent transplants from the North) were a lot more open to accepting Republicanism than other Southern Whites (less affluent, rural, etc.) if we look at county results.

[junior chįmp]

Dixiecrats in the South like Robert C Byrd were alliegate to the Democrats. Once 1994 happened with the Brady Bill with Civil Rights, their alliegance was gone and flip to the GOP. 

Southerners we're leaving the party long before that.

Southerners started leaving the Democrats after Truman. Between 1948-1952, the Democrats’ Southern advantage shrinks by nearly ten points, before slowing its decline for the rest of the decade.

Then the decline started up again after the Democrats nominated Kennedy: In a 1958 Gallup poll, 48 percent of Southern whites state unwillingness to vote for a Catholic president, compared to only 22 percent of whites elsewhere. In the 1960 election, 29 percent of whites in the South said the most important reason they did not vote for Kennedy was his Catholicism, compared to 15 percent elsewhere. These percentages include  all those who did vote for him, suggesting anti-Catholic sentiment was a major factor in the election, especially in the South. The steep period of decline in white Southern Democratic party identification begins in 1961, not 1963.

The New Deal coalition was always flimsy to begin with and already started coming apart as early as the late 40s with Southerners looking for a way out

[Virginiá]

Eh, I don't know if that word does it justice. Flimsy or not, the coalition still gave Democrats perhaps the most powerful hold on Congress in American history (even if the dominant ideology wasn't always the same). 1933 - 1981 had only 4 years of a Republican Congress, and if you want to go from 1933 - 1995, it was still only 4 years of a Republican Congress and 6 years of a split Congress. And after all that, Republicans are now possibly on the cusp of slipping into minority party status again after only roughly a generation of a weak hold on Congress.

I'm not sure if that will ever be matched again.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Great Depression + Southern Democrats voting for House Democrats until 1994 (they never realigned properly).

There's no "proper way to realign."  They elected House Democrats because they liked them better than the Republicans running against them in that period...

Sure, that is generally the basis of elections (although I don't think every choice voters make is based on knowledge of the candidates, but that is another debate entirely). I think what he is saying is that the fact that Republicans couldn't get people who were voting Republican for president to switch downballot in the South was a major impediment to them taking control sooner than when it actually ended up happening. In that sense, yes, it was a weaker realignment, and the GOP coalition has never been as strong as what the Democrats had.

This is indisputably true.  However, most people's characterization of this truth is millions of Southern Whites taking decades to figure out that they liked Republicans better, needing an additional four to eight years to *realize* it the further down the ballot you went, LOL.  It's not like we are talking about the late 1960s or early 1970s when the GOP in many Southern states was a joke, either, we are talking about the early 1990s.  I just think the "realignments take time" is overly simplified.  Additionally, this completely ignores the obvious truth that "Southern Whites" is an incredibly broad term, and certain types of Southern Whites (more affluent, suburban voters, recent transplants from the North) were a lot more open to accepting Republicanism than other Southern Whites (less affluent, rural, etc.) if we look at county results.

Well many of those Southern Dem post-1968 (especially post 1980) though were Zell Miller types so Republicans basically could count on their vote on many bills.

That's basically how Nixon and Especially Reagan were able to get much of their agenda through.


That's how they won elections over and over again in the 1970s and 1980s as congressional candidates political beliefs didnt have to line up with their national parties beliefs as they do post 1994.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Great Depression + Southern Democrats voting for House Democrats until 1994 (they never realigned properly).

There's no "proper way to realign."  They elected House Democrats because they liked them better than the Republicans running against them in that period...

Sure, that is generally the basis of elections (although I don't think every choice voters make is based on knowledge of the candidates, but that is another debate entirely). I think what he is saying is that the fact that Republicans couldn't get people who were voting Republican for president to switch downballot in the South was a major impediment to them taking control sooner than when it actually ended up happening. In that sense, yes, it was a weaker realignment, and the GOP coalition has never been as strong as what the Democrats had.

This is indisputably true.  However, most people's characterization of this truth is millions of Southern Whites taking decades to figure out that they liked Republicans better, needing an additional four to eight years to *realize* it the further down the ballot you went, LOL.  It's not like we are talking about the late 1960s or early 1970s when the GOP in many Southern states was a joke, either, we are talking about the early 1990s.  I just think the "realignments take time" is overly simplified.  Additionally, this completely ignores the obvious truth that "Southern Whites" is an incredibly broad term, and certain types of Southern Whites (more affluent, suburban voters, recent transplants from the North) were a lot more open to accepting Republicanism than other Southern Whites (less affluent, rural, etc.) if we look at county results.

Generational dynamics have to considered in realignments. A certain set of conditions motivated groups of Southern Voters to vote Democratic. The first being the Civil War. A given Civil War veteran having been born in say 1845, probably lived to about 1900, with many living to the 1920's and even 1930's. The last one passed away in the 1950's. But their influence wanes by 1900. The next wave, those born during and just after war, would have lived averaged until the 1920's and 1930's and still exercise influence. The Grandfather ranting about the Yankees burning down the barn at family dinner. Jim Crow reach its most repressive state between 1890 and 1910. This is when the South is also the most one party it will ever be, and this coincides with these Civil War kids being at their most politically dominant age (45 through 65). These people and their kids (Lost Generation mostly) will not vote Republican for anything, because you just cannot. Unless you live in the mountains where everyone hates the Democrats from time immemorial, you are a Democrat, regardless of economics, education, class, if you are a white southern protestant.

However, this is disrupted in 1928. The nomination of a Catholic splits this white southern protestant vote along largely class lines and regional lines. Black belt whites, city dwelling whites and so forth largely stick with the Democrats because racism is more omnipresent than anti-catholic bigotry.

Meanwhile, up country whites who will in later years be some of the last Democratic Hold outs ironically, are among the most willing to defect. They live in heavily white areas and thus fear of Republicans and blacks is less dominant and thus they are free to be bigots instead.

But both groups, held both sentiments, it is just a matter of geography determining priorities.

Then the Depression happens and Southern whites split based on class and geography. This divide defines the Greatest and Silent Generation voters in the South, but fades with the Baby boomers.

1. The middle class and business oriented types in the cities and their black belt compatriots see their taxes go up to pay for the New Deal. Since this is where voting is most restricted, this is where the voting preferences of wealthier whites is most accurately transparent, until they move to the suburbs which makes it easier to discern. They are also the most class and race conscious.

By the 1950's not only the Civil War Vets but the Civil War kids and even many Lost Generation grandchildren who grew up with this droned into them are dead and suddenly, that constant bitching about Yankee businessmen and so on is no longer at the table. Meanwhile the Democrats have embraced civil rights, Republicans pay lip service on the issue but both parties are straddling both sides. This ends the Civil War legacy voting for the most part, at least for this group, since the Democrats are equally bad on race and contrary to their economic interest. Eisenhower makes considerable gains among Bourgeoisie whites in the Deep South.

This transition is completed largely by 1964 (not started). By 1968, with another Democratic defector running third Party, the places that voted for Thurmond in 1948, 20 years later are Nixon's base augmented by transplants from the North of similar economic background, they become the GOP base in the South. They got swamped at the polls in black belt counties once vote suppression ends, but dominate the Southern metros until the same white flight dynamics pushes them to the suburbs and the urban cores become Democratic beginning in the late 1980's.

This means they are heavily concentrated in small defined areas. They are thus easily packed into vote sinks, and thus you have the election of a few isolated Conservative Republicans in these well off places during the mid 20th century while the delegations as a whole lean Democratic. Texas had a Dem delegation through 2005.

2. The poor up country whites are the ones most impacted by the agricultural prices and the most helped by things like the TVA. They were largely present in the rural areas and despite being their parents being the ones who bolted over Smith's Catholicism, they are far less affected by JFK's. Some of them defect in 1964 over the Civil Rights Act, and most all of them vote for Wallace, driving Humphrey way down to a distant third place in the Southern popular vote. They vote for Nixon in 72, and Carter in both 76 and 80. Reagan in 84, Bush in 88 and Clinton in the 1990's. Despite being erratic at the top of the ballot these voters are generally Democratic to the bone, but unfortunately for the Democrats bones typically aren't allowed to vote in the South.

The divide dissolves as baby boomer whites are Republican regardless of class and become the dominant voting group in the 1990's, driving GOP percentages among Southern whites to obscene levels. This breaks the back of the coalitions that by now blue dog democrats are depending on to win combining enough poor whites with blacks to win districts and states. The gerrymanders are built on assumptions about the white vote that no longer hold true and thus Democratic gerrymanders become dummymanders, made worse by the Justice Department suing to require higher VAP in minority districts.

Ironically the divide is re-emerging once again. With college educated Millennial whites elevating the white Dem % enough for their high black % to combine to form a win, this has made VA Democratic, NC close and has put GA on the brink of flipping.