Partisan Politics in the 21st Century South: The Fading Shadow of Slavery

• In Event: State-Level Political Development: Changing Voters, Parties, and Activists

Abstract

In Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics (2018), Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen make a compelling case for the role of antebellum slavery on the political attitudes of modern-day white southerners. More specifically, they tie the racial conservatism of white southerners—as manifest in their attitudes on issues related to race and their partisanship—to the localized concentration of slaves in 1860: the prevalence of slavery is directly related to racial conservatism and support for the Republican Party and its candidates.

During the course of the 21st century, the South has begun a subtle but still very significant partisan shift to the left. The increase in Democratic support has, however, occurred unevenly. The fastest growth in Democratic support has occurred where the population has grown most dramatically (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia). In the slow growth or “stagnant” states (Bullock, et al. 2019), the growth in Democratic support has been weak where it has occurred at all. “Movers and Stayers” theory (Morris 2021) provides an explanation for the relationship between population growth and Democratic support—particularly in the case of whites. What is clear from even a cursory look at the distribution of population growth in the southern states and counties during the 21st century is that it is largely unrelated to the relative prevalence of slavery in 1860.

I analyze the impact of (1) population growth and (2) antebellum slavery on current partisanship among whites at the county-level and the state-level in the South, and I find that slavery’s localized effects disappear when the effects of population growth are accounted for. County-level analyses by state suggest that the mitigation of the localized effects antebellum slavery on current white partisanship is the result of a dramatic growth in Republican support in areas that had few slaves (and that are currently losing population). While racial conservatism in the South might have once been tied to local racial context (either current or historic), the nationalization of politics seems to have eroded this relationship in a manner that fosters and increase in racial conservatism in areas where it would otherwise be unexpected. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of this research for future work in this area.


Bullock, Charles S. III, Susan A. MacManus, Jeremy D. Mayer, and Mark J. Rozell. 2019. The South and the Transformation of U.S. Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.

Morris, Irwin L. 2021. Movers and Stayers: The Partisan Transformation of Twenty-First Century Southern Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.

Author

• Irwin L. Morris, North Carolina State University