Donald Trump’s Surprising Success with Southern Evangelicals

Beltway Republicans are panicking over Donald Trump’s landslide in Nevada. But, if they thought the Wednesday after Nevada was bad, just wait for the Wednesday after Super Tuesday. Tuesday’s contests include the so-called SEC primary with six states of the former Confederacy and a seventh, Oklahoma, which votes like a […] Read more »

Trump Dominates in Bloomberg Poll of ‘SEC Primary’ States

Donald Trump holds a substantial lead in the southern region where Republican voters have their say on March 1, displaying remarkable strength for a twice-divorced New Yorker in Bible Belt states home to some of the nation’s most conservative voters. CONT. John McCormick, Bloomberg Politics Read more »

Clinton Strong in South Carolina But Warning Signs Ahead, Bloomberg Poll Shows

Hillary Clinton holds a commanding lead over Bernie Sanders in South Carolina thanks to a 3-to-1 advantage among African-American voters, according to a Bloomberg Politics poll that shows the Democrats’ fourth nominating contest still can be a Clinton firewall to blunt her rival’s momentum. But the survey also carries warning […] Read more »

How racism explains Republicans’ rise in the South

… Democrats began losing the support of white voters after World War II, particularly in the South. During the civil rights movement, white Southerners left the Democratic Party in droves. Some scholars have argued that changes in the South’s economy caused the party’s decline there. Since wealthier voters tend to […] Read more »

Partisan sorting is a very recent phenomenon, and has been driven by the Southern realignment

For the past two decades, the presidency and both houses of Congress have been hotly contested by the two political parties. Yet geographically, the United States seems to be increasingly marked by “Red” areas where the Democratic Party lacks any ability to even dream of winning office and “blue” areas […] Read more »

Boehner’s Exit, the Role of Red States and the Outlook for 2016

Speaker John Boehner’s resignation may have been prompted by a new fight over funding Planned Parenthood, but it was decades in the making. His announcement Friday is a result of the House Republican caucus’s transformation into a far more conservative and Southern body than it was a generation ago. It’s […] Read more »