October 21, 2005

How the GOP Conquered the South

By MICHAEL NELSON

The greatest change in American national politics of the past 60 years has been the transformation of the South from the most solidly Democratic to the most solidly Republican region of the country. In the 1930s and 1940s, Democrats enjoyed a strong advantage in presidential elections because they could count on winning the 127 electoral votes cast by the 11 states of the old Confederacy. Congress was almost always Democratic because Democrats owned all 22 Southern seats in the Senate and all

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