The Reintroduction of the Elephas Maximus to the Southern United States

Abstract

Over the last half-century, the South has undergone a radical transformation. One aspect of this transformation, the growth of the Republican Party, has produced a viable and competitive twoparty system in the region. Contrary to other studies examining this phenomenon, this study offers an explicitly political explanation—the theory of relative advantage—for the growth of Southern Republicanism. Using a pooled time series methodology to simultaneously examine the implications of this theory, as well as the effect of economic and demographic factors traditionally associated with GOP growth, it is shown that the observed pattern mirrors the expectations of relative advantage theory. In contrast to the existing literature, little support was found for economic or demographic explanations of Republican growth.

Negative Partisanship: Why Americans Dislike Parties But Behave Like Rabid Partisans

“…While Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election was one of the most shocking upsets in modern political history, it can be seen as the natural outgrowth of the racial realignment that has transformed the American electorate since the 1970s (Black & Black ; Hood, Kidd, & Morris ). For decades before Donald Trump came on the political scene, Republican‐elected officials and candidates sought to lure racially conservative White Democrats in the South and elsewhere into the GOP camp with racially tinged messages about the dangers posed to Whites by African‐American crime, forced busing of schoolchildren, and affirmative action and by emphasizing the complicity of Democratic politicians in these threats.…”

Polls and Elections Reversal of Fortune: The Political Behavior of White Migrants to the South

“…In presidential politics, Obama carried Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia in 2008 and Florida and Virginia again in 2012—southern states that have some of the highest percentages of in‐migrants from the Northeast—the bluest section of the country (McKee ; McKee and Teigen ). Hood, Kidd, and Morris (, 384) contend that “the influx of non‐Southerners into the region, especially the rim South, may be indicative of a long‐term pattern benefiting the Democratic Party.”…”

What Made Carolina Blue? In-Migration and the 2008 North Carolina Presidential Vote

“…All these factors have received attention in analyses of the post-World War II Southern political transformation. There is a sizable literature that has considered the role of in-migration 270 American Politics Research 38 (2) as an explanation for fostering postwar Republicanism in the American South (e.g., see Hood, Kidd, & Morris, 2004). From the 1950s to the 1980s, there was a substantial out-migration of Southern Blacks (Stanley & Castle, 1988;Sly, 1981) and a rising percentage of White in-migrants who were born outside the region (Black & Black, 1987;Wolfinger & Arseneau, 1978).…”