The Solid South

1864

1904

1924

1928

1948

1964

In 1864 the confederate states were not involved in the Union elections. Elections from 1868 through 1876 were under Reconstruction, and not by the southern states themselves. The presidential elections from 1880 to 1916 not one confederate state voted Republican. In 1920 only Tennessee did not vote Democratic. Then in 1928, the Democratic party ran, Al Smith, a Catholic New Yorker and the 'Solid South' cracked. Smith won six southern states of the Deep South [withstanding the bigots Cotton Tom Heflin, and Bob Jones, race beat religion], beyond that he won the two heavily Catholic New England states alone. Franklin Roosevelt then regained the entire southland in the next four elections.

Harry Truman signed executive orders to desegregate the federal civil, and military workforces in 1948. Strom Thurmond walked away from the Democratic Party, and ran as a Dixiecrat States Rights candidate and won four of the deep south states. In 1964 Lyndon Johnson signed a Civil Rights Act, and lost five deep south states. The Republicans ran Barry Goldwater of Arizona. He was considered an extreme conservative. The only states he won were those deep south states, and his home state. To-day, it is not possible to find a more liberal Republican than he.