[EL] query about white Southern voters in 2012

[Rob Richie]

A couple relevant details that get into the sticky area of partisanship as
a proxy for race, but are notable when talking about what's going on in the
region.

* In 1991, every southern state legislative chamber was run by the
Democratic Party,  with its black caucus at or often rising to positions of
leadership chairs. Today, the only southern legislative chambers (broadly
defined) run by Democrats are the border states of Kentucky (one chamber),
West Virginia (both chambers) and Maryland (both chambers). So there has
been an immense decline in African American political power in southern
states, and I suspect none of these chambers will change back to Democrats
any time soon.

* In Congress, white Republicans in 2013 will represent 66 of 69
 majority-white House districts in the adjoining nine states of South
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas,
Oklahoma, and Missouri -- with the only exceptions being one white
Democrat, one African American Republican, and one Latino Republican. Of 38
white-majority districts in the five states of North Carolina, Virginia,
Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky, white Republicans hold 31 seats and
white Democrats seven.
           The remaining 26 districts in these 14 states are
majority-minority districts.They are represented by 17 African American
Democrats, five Latino Democrats, four white Democrats, and no
Republicans.White Democrats hold eight (29%) of these states’ 28 U.S.
Senate seats, but only 12 (9%) of 133 U.S. House seats  If one adds the 17
House Republicans from Florida, nearly half (116) of the entire 2013
Republican U.S. House caucus of 234 Members will come from the South—in
sharp contrast to 1991 when southern Republicans held just 47 House seats
compared to 95 Democrats, 85 of whom were white.

- Rob


On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 11:56 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:

> In response to a recent blog post about African-Americans in the south
> being willing to vote for white candidates, and its potential relevance
> for the Shelby County VRA section 5 case before the Supreme Court,  a
> reader asked me about cross-racial voting going the other way: southern
> White voting for Obama and for black gubernatorial and other
> African-American candidates.
> I recall seeing some statistics on Obama v. Kerry among Southern whites
> but I cannot find that reference now.   I'd appreciate pointers to that
> comparison, and any relevant statistics or literature.
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Rick Hasen
> Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
> UC Irvine School of Law
> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
> Irvine, CA 92697-8000
> 949.824.3072 - office
> 949.824.0495 - fax
> rhasen at law.uci.edu
> http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
> http://electionlawblog.org
> Now available: The Voting Wars: http://amzn.to/y22ZTv
>
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