WASHINGTON (AP) — The white Southern Democrat — endangered since the 1960s civil rights era enraged whites across the Southeast — is sliding nearer to extinction.
After this week’s elections, the Democratic Party barely holds a presence in the South outside of majority-black urban areas such as Atlanta and Memphis. The carnage for the party was particularly brutal in the Deep South, where just one white Democrat survived across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.
The Republicans’ effort to win over the South, rooted decades ago in a strategy to capitalize on white voters’ resentment of desegregation, is all but complete.
The losses were particularly disappointing for the party after the baby steps it made in the South in 2006 and 2008, when it picked up a host of Republican-leaning House of Representatives districts and won Senate seats in North Carolina and Virginia. Many thought the party had learned its lessons and had begun to reverse recent history by nominating conservative candidates who hit the right notes on divisive social issues such as abortion and smaller government.
None of it mattered Tuesday.
Democrats didn’t just see most of their recent gains obliterated, they lost at least 19 Southern House members and a senator, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. Even some of the most conservative Democrats couldn’t withstand the wave. It also snared longtime veterans.
When the new Congress convenes in January, there will be at most 16 white Southern Democratic House members out of 105 seats in the region. Two races in Virginia and Kentucky were still too close to call, so the total could be as low as 14.
The setback continues a four-decade decline for Democrats in the South, where they once dominated. The slide began after the civil rights movement, when Republicans under President Richard Nixon began employing a Southern strategy to retake the region by appealing to white anger over desegregation. The Republicans later highlighted liberal Democratic positions on social and welfare issues.
The realignment flipped the power structure of the South, where Republicans had been vilified by whites for empowering African-Americans after the Civil War ended slavery.
Most of the losing Democrats this year were moderates representing Republican-leaning districts. And the challenges could get even tougher for Southern Democrats as legislatures begin redrawing congressional districts from the 2010 census.
With some exceptions, including Mississippi and Louisiana, Republicans control statehouses across the South. They picked up North Carolina and Alabama on Tuesday.
The legislatures are likely to loop more conservatives into swing districts that still vote Democratic, making it even harder for white Southerners to hold on in the future.
Some Democrats said that while the economy was the driving factor, party leaders got sidetracked on the messy health care bill debate and at times forced members into difficult votes that weren’t necessary. Several conservative Democrats pointed to a contentious emissions-control energy bill that squeaked by in the House but never got a vote in the Senate.
Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, a campaign strategist for conservative Democrats, said the party got off track by focusing for so long on the health care bill, which he said was too big and confusing, and played into Republican criticism of government run amok.
“The idea that government can force you to buy health insurance just goes against the independent spirit,” he said. “It’s a cultural thing. Democrats just don’t get the culture down here.”
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.