Mississippi whites who vote Democratic

[I’m not Stu]

What are the few whites in Mississippi who vote Democratic like? Where are they more common?

[RINO Tom]

Pretty obvious.  Some college town people, some government employees here and there, Millennials (specifically in urban areas), your run-of-the-mill urban White liberals and a few Yellow Dogs who have somehow managed to avoid dying yet.

[I’m not Stu]

Pretty obvious.  Some college town people, some government employees here and there, Millennials (specifically in urban areas), your run-of-the-mill urban White liberals and a few Yellow Dogs who have somehow managed to avoid dying yet.

All the old Yellow Dogs still living are Democrats who vote Republican, not Democratic.

[RINO Tom]

Pretty obvious.  Some college town people, some government employees here and there, Millennials (specifically in urban areas), your run-of-the-mill urban White liberals and a few Yellow Dogs who have somehow managed to avoid dying yet.

All the old Yellow Dogs still living are Democrats who vote Republican, not Democratic.

You like speaking in really simplistic, absolute sentences, don't you?

EDIT: I'll try not to just say something snarky out of my annoyance for your desire to simplify things.  Obviously, a majority of old White Southerners are voting Republican straight ticket in Mississippi.  However, you asked who the White Democrats in Mississippi were.  I listed SEVERAL groups that would have much more substantial numbers in the broad group defined as "Mississippi Democrats (who are White)," but there are obviously going to be SOME lifelong Democrats in the South who still largely vote the party line.  Our own "How do your relatives vote?" threads have provided real-life examples of this.

[Del Tachi]

Pretty obvious.  Some college town people, some government employees here and there, Millennials (specifically in urban areas), your run-of-the-mill urban White liberals and a few Yellow Dogs who have somehow managed to avoid dying yet.

All the old Yellow Dogs still living are Democrats who vote Republican, not Democratic.

Not necessarily.  Jim Hood and Brandon Presley routinely win a majority of White voters in the more rural, conservative northern half of the state.  North Mississippi is the ancestral home of these "Blue Dogs".  This is the same region that went for Kennedy in 1960, gave Goldwater his lowest margins anywhere in the state, and went strongly for Carter in 1976 and 1980.

[I’m not Stu]

Pretty obvious.  Some college town people, some government employees here and there, Millennials (specifically in urban areas), your run-of-the-mill urban White liberals and a few Yellow Dogs who have somehow managed to avoid dying yet.

All the old Yellow Dogs still living are Democrats who vote Republican, not Democratic.

Not necessarily.  Jim Hood and Brandon Presley routinely win a majority of White voters in the more rural, conservative northern half of the state.  North Mississippi is the ancestral home of these "Blue Dogs".  This is the same region that went for Kennedy in 1960, gave Goldwater his lowest margins anywhere in the state, and went strongly for Carter in 1976 and 1980.

But don't many Republicans vote for them as well? Isn't ticket splitting common in that region?

[cvparty]

ole miss students and also probably some people in the jackson area

[Adam Griffin]

Pretty much the same groups that vote Democratic in other Deep South states: there are just fewer of them due to no major metro areas or large cities (and fewer small cities/areas of density due to larger/fewer counties than a state like GA).

That's of course the case because Mississippi's economy is one of the weakest nationally, which is caused in part by a relative lack of educational attainment (which, likewise, drives down white rural support lower than in places like AL & GA).

[Tintrlvr]

In roughly descending order of Democratic-voting:

1. Young people, especially college students but also some other 20-somethings
2. People with post-graduate educations, especially in fields like academia and law that also tend to be liberal-leaning (but probably also some doctors, engineers, etc.)
3. People in certain liberal-leaning professions, especially ones that skew young and/or towards union membership, like teachers and nurses
4. Some transplants from elsewhere in the country, most but not all of whom fall into one of the categories above
5. A smattering of others, in very low numbers

[VPH]

Probably some of the poorest Whites (the ones who vote, that is). I've seen polling that shows that among the poorest, while turnout is low, there tends to be a Democratic lean.

[I’m not Stu]

Polls show Mike Espy doing better with white voters than most Democrats in MS-SEN special. Could many of these voters be coming from rural northern MS?

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Polls show Mike Espy doing better with white voters than most Democrats in MS-SEN special. Could many of these voters be coming from rural northern MS?

Probably they don't know Espy is black yet.

[Del Tachi]

Pretty much the same groups that vote Democratic in other Deep South states: there are just fewer of them due to no major metro areas or large cities (and fewer small cities/areas of density due to larger/fewer counties than a state like GA).

That's of course the case because Mississippi's economy is one of the weakest nationally, which is caused in part by a relative lack of educational attainment (which, likewise, drives down white rural support lower than in places like AL & GA).

Educational attainment for rural MS whites shouldn't be any worse than for rural Whites in AL/GA.  The fact that the uber-White Mississippi counties stick out on that map compared to AL/GA has something to do with whatever racial turnout dynamics you're using.

[mvd10]

College students, some of the very poorest whites, government workers, some people in academia and some random urban whites. That's it lol. I mean, even postgraduate whites in Deep Southern states vote heavily for the GOP.

[I’m not Stu]

College students, some of the very poorest whites, government workers, some people in academia and some random urban whites. That's it lol. I mean, even postgraduate whites in Deep Southern states vote heavily for the GOP.

Postgraduate whites who vote Democratic are even more common in Deep South states like Georgia, South Carolina, and Louisiana than they are in Mississippi and Alabama.

[I’m not Stu]

Derived from my White vote by county project

Looks like they're more common in Benton County, Desoto County, Jackson, Starkville, Oxford, and the Gulf Coast.

[Del Tachi]

Derived from my White vote by county project

Why do some almost-monolithically Black counties (Noxubee, Holmes, Claiborne) seem to have an unusually-high % of White Democrats?  I think it has something to do with how you're modelling Black turnout/partisanship.  What sort of assumptions are being made there?

[Sumner 1868]

Pretty obvious.  Some college town people, some government employees here and there, Millennials (specifically in urban areas), your run-of-the-mill urban White liberals and a few Yellow Dogs who have somehow managed to avoid dying yet.

All the old Yellow Dogs still living are Democrats who vote Republican, not Democratic.

Age in Mississippi has correlated with voting Republican long before the rest of the nation. Mississippi over-65s gave Dole 60% in 1996. The only place there would have been any yellow-dogs were the TVA counties in the northeast part of the state.

[Adam Griffin]

Educational attainment for rural MS whites shouldn't be any worse than for rural Whites in AL/GA.  The fact that the uber-White Mississippi counties stick out on that map compared to AL/GA has something to do with whatever racial turnout dynamics you're using.

Why do some almost-monolithically Black counties (Noxubee, Holmes, Claiborne) seem to have an unusually-high % of White Democrats?  I think it has something to do with how you're modelling Black turnout/partisanship.  What sort of assumptions are being made there?

Reagente and I used pretty fundamentally different models for calculating white support in 2016 and 2012, respectively. Yet, by and large, we saw the same patterns emerge in the Deep South: elevated white Democratic support in rural counties that are heavily-black.

I've written about why I think this dynamic exists numerous times, but it's important to point out that just like in MS, we see the same patterns in AL & GA - and in GA, we have voter turnout data by race, gender and age all the way down to the precinct level. In many of these rural black GA counties where I found Obama getting 20-30% of the white vote, there were virtually no non-black/non-white voters to contend with in calculating. In other words, there was very little room for error in calculating support (especially when Obama was winning very close to 100% of the black vote and you know exactly how many black voters turned out). I originally talked about this issue at length in my 2012 project thread, where you can find a lot of information about what I mentioned above.

I really wish I could find my old quoted posts on this subject (since they're more detailed), but essentially my belief from these findings is: in these heavily-black counties, polarization actually decreases because whites have no reasonable chance of usurping black power structures. They also have had plenty of experience with black leaders in their counties, making them less "afraid" of Democrats in the modern sense - and more willing to support Democrats at all levels. In rural counties where blacks tend to be 20-50% of the population, there is considerably more tension and polarization because whites can actually win at the ballot box and elect their own candidates.  

While admittedly not the largest sample size, when I ran some analysis on Georgia and Alabama (and maybe MS; can't recall) rural counties years ago, this was by and large what I found:

[Adam Griffin]

Educational attainment for rural MS whites shouldn't be any worse than for rural Whites in AL/GA.  The fact that the uber-White Mississippi counties stick out on that map compared to AL/GA has something to do with whatever racial turnout dynamics you're using.

^^^ And FWIW, Mississippi whites in 2012 statewide in my calcs were one shade lighter/less Democratic than AL whites (another big topic I've covered in the past is how the AL exit polls in 2008 had to be wrong by a considerable sum, underestimating white D support): 16% versus 11%. That's enough to essentially explain the difference in shading between MS & AL rural counties in 2012, and when comparing to GA, again, I believe that GA having more/smaller counties and more small cities as a result produces a slightly (~5%) more Democratic rural landscape than in MS.

I know MS looks weird on the map, but to me, it makes sense. There are other places where the map abruptly cuts (between GA/NC, for example, which is definitely accurate; along the 35th parallel in general across the eastern US, etc) but are nevertheless not the result of flawed modeling.


I was wrong about the rural educational levels, though - at least when basing it off of jimrtex's UCC delineations and the data from 2015. I might argue that there is some skewing here (again, because it uses county-level data and Mississippi's counties are geographically larger/a much greater % of the population in MS falls into the "rural" category), but alas:

Code:

AREA	POP		COLLEGE	%
GA-Rural	2669107	548545	20.6%
GA-Urban	7530893	3011255	40.0%
GA-State	10.200 m	3559800	34.9%

MS-Rural	1835885	442656	24.1%
MS-Urban	1148115	401816	35.0%
MS-State	2.984m	844472	28.3%

[OneJ]

Polls show Mike Espy doing better with white voters than most Democrats in MS-SEN special. Could many of these voters be coming from rural northern MS?

Probably they don't know Espy is black yet.

Lol. But on a more serious note, when Espy first ran for and during his years as a Representative in the House for MS-02 he actually pulled off some very impressive numbers among white voters. I’m gonna have to find that link again. There are likely quite a few who remember Espy’s time in office and/or just familiar with seeing him on law firm commercials.

In conclusion, his past performance just shows us that it’s not impossible for a black Democrat to do decently (by Mississippi’s standards, ofc) with whites and ultimately win statewide one day, but it’ll obviously come with hurdles in the way.

[DINGO Joe]

Educational attainment for rural MS whites shouldn't be any worse than for rural Whites in AL/GA.  The fact that the uber-White Mississippi counties stick out on that map compared to AL/GA has something to do with whatever racial turnout dynamics you're using.

^^^ And FWIW, Mississippi whites in 2012 statewide in my calcs were one shade lighter/less Democratic than AL whites (another big topic I've covered in the past is how the AL exit polls in 2008 had to be wrong by a considerable sum, underestimating white D support): 16% versus 11%. That's enough to essentially explain the difference in shading between MS & AL rural counties in 2012, and when comparing to GA, again, I believe that GA having more/smaller counties and more small cities as a result produces a slightly (~5%) more Democratic rural landscape than in MS.

I know MS looks weird on the map, but to me, it makes sense. There are other places where the map abruptly cuts (between GA/NC, for example, which is definitely accurate; along the 35th parallel in general across the eastern US, etc) but are nevertheless not the result of flawed modeling.


I was wrong about the rural educational levels, though - at least when basing it off of jimrtex's UCC delineations and the data from 2015. I might argue that there is some skewing here (again, because it uses county-level data and Mississippi's counties are geographically larger/a much greater % of the population in MS falls into the "rural" category), but alas:

Code:

AREA	POP		COLLEGE	%
GA-Rural	2669107	548545	20.6%
GA-Urban	7530893	3011255	40.0%
GA-State	10.200 m	3559800	34.9%

MS-Rural	1835885	442656	24.1%
MS-Urban	1148115	401816	35.0%
MS-State	2.984m	844472	28.3%

Probably caused by greater Athens being urban while Lafayette and Oktibehha are rural

[OneJ]

I would assume that public school teachers make up a good portion of white Democrats/liberals here as well, but that’s just based off personal experience.

[All Along The Watchtower]

These days: ome college professors, some college students, and some bearers of grad-school degrees who are too poor and too indebted to student-loan sharks to move, find a better life for themselves, etc.

The above who vote Dem are disproportionately women, and disproportionately LGBT as well (out or not). 

Plus, as others have said, the last of the Dying Yellow Dogs.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

These days: ome college professors, some college students, and some bearers of grad-school degrees who are too poor and too indebted to student-loan sharks to move, find a better life for themselves, etc.

The above who vote Dem are disproportionately women, and disproportionately LGBT as well (out or not). 

Plus, as others have said, the last of the Dying Yellow Dogs.