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Why did the Democrats lose the South? Bringing new data to an old debate

Author

Listed:
  • Ilyana Kuziemko

    (Princeton University)

  • Ebonya Washington

    (Yale University)

Abstract

A long-standing debate in political economy is whether voters are driven primarily by economic self-interest or by less pecuniary motives such as ethnocentrism. Using newly available data, we reexamine one of the largest partisan shifts in a modern democracy: Southern whites' exodus from the Democratic Party, concentrated in the 1960s. Combining high-frequency survey data and textual newspaper analysis, we show that defection among racially conservative whites explains all (three-fourths) of the large decline in white Southern Democratic identification between 1958 and 1980 (2000). Racial attitudes also predict whites' partisan shifts earlier in the century. Relative to recent work, we find a much larger role for racial views and essentially no role for income growth or (non-race-related) policy preferences in explaining why Democrats "lost" the South.

Suggested Citation

  • Ilyana Kuziemko & Ebonya Washington, 2016. "Why did the Democrats lose the South? Bringing new data to an old debate," Working Papers 2016-1, Princeton University. Economics Department..
  • Handle: RePEc:pri:econom:2016-1
    as

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    File URL: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/kuziemko/files/south_dems_5sept2016.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    U.S.; Northern America; Democracy; Political; Race; Racial; Voter;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • N92 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

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