Qualification of the Southern Strategy: Analysis of the 1970 Texas and Virginia Midterm Elections

“Between the beginning of the New Deal era in 1932 and its end in 1968, the Democratic share of the presidential vote skidded from 90 per cent to 26 per cent in the Deep South and from 77 per cent to 32 per cent in the Outer South. ” In 1969, Kevin Phillips’ The Emerging Republican Majority, noted the South’s decreasing support of Democratic presidential candidates by the mid-20th century. It marked a significant transformation. Since the end of Reconstruction, the South had a key role in the Democratic Party. The South along with organized labor and African Americans composed Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal coalition.” Formed in 1932, the New Deal coalition formed the basis of the Democratic Party’s support up until the 1960s. However, the party’s focus on civil rights under John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson caused disaffected Southern conservatives to abandon the party. Many favored Barry Goldwater for president in 1964 and George Wallace in 1968. Recognizing the disaffection after his victory in 1968, Richard Nixon hoped to draw Wallace voters into the Republican Party’s fold. Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” for the 1970 midterm elections saw appeals made directly to Southern conservatives, hoping that the ensuing reactionary backlash translated into Republican midterm gains. In a final analysis, Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” had minimal effect on the 1970 midterm elections. Of all the various races that the Nixon administration involved itself in, the only Southern Democrat to lose their Senate seat was Albert Gore in Tennessee, losing to Nixon supported Bill Brock. While the 1970 election resulted in only a few Republican gains, it highlighted the Democratic Party’s growing irreconcilable differences between its Southern liberals and conservatives. Analysis of individual Senate campaigns during the midterm elections showcase the South’s ongoing political realignment, foreshadowing the region’s defection to the Republican Party during the Reagan era of the 1980s.