[EL] query about white Southern voters in 2012

[Garrett, R. Sam]

R. Sam Garrett, Ph.D.
Congressional Research Service
Tel. 202-707-6443

From: Rob Richie [mailto:rr at fairvote.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2012 10:01 AM
To: Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu>
Cc: law-election at UCI.edu <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] query about white Southern voters in 2012

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<mailto: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.

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Rick Hasen
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UC Irvine School of Law
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Now available: The Voting Wars: http://amzn.to/y22ZTv

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