Syracuse University SURFACE Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects Projects Summer 8-9-2017 All Politics is Local: How the South Became Republican Alexander Amico Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone Part of the American Politics Commons Recommended Citation Amico, Alexander, "All Politics is Local: How the South Became Republican" (2017). Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects. 994. https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/994 This Honors Capstone Project is brought to you for free and open access by the Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Abstract From 1876 until 1964, the Democratic Party held virtual dictatorial control over the American South. Beginning after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and that year’s presidential candidacy of anti-Civil Rights Act Republican Barry Goldwater, the South shifted reliably into the Republican column for presidential elections. Democrats still held a majority of all other offices in the region until the mid-1990s. This paper examines public opinion data in the American South, as well as partisan change in four Southern states, with an emphasis on the first time each state elected a Republican governor. I find that in each state, local issues played a major role in the election of the first Republican governor, and that one or several powerful statewide Democrats could stave off the party’s decline in the state.