Nixon led George Wallace in the South by 9 points in a hypothetical 1972 poll

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Its a good thing I found this thread, because some have been using the wrong term to apply to the wrong group of people.

To be specific, Dixiecrat in reference to Wallace. The original Dixiecrat, Strom Thurmond, was much more conservative and his "best areas" were those in the low countries, suburbs and cities while the upcountry whites retained the most loyalty to Truman. It is these poorer voters that as one person put it couldn't afford to not vote Democratic. By 1968, the former category, The people who had supported the actual Dixiecrats, formed the base for Richard Nixon in the South along with more traditional GOP Mountain counties and of course northern transplants.

The Dixiecrat, referring to the more upscale black belt, urban, low country whites were indeed the first to switch to the Republicans, beginning in 1952.

Now obviously, Thurmond did well in a lot of upcountry areas too and Wallace won a lot of suburbs in the Deep South, but the point refers more to areas of strongest concentration more so than anything else.