The Solid South it was, Phillip. The Democrats could rely on the Southern vote until about 1948, when the Dixiecrats started splitting off from the democratic party. Of course, we had democrats like Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton (the latter 3 being Southerners) elected after that, but the conservative wing of the democrat party started splitting off in 1948. In 1968, George Wallace carried five Southern states with his segregationist views. That may have helped Richard Nixon win the presidency, since his race took votes away from the democrats. After that, Republicans continued to gain ground in the South. Democrats seem to have been gaining recently in the South as people move from the left coast and North, but if they continue to lean farther left, I expect voters will abandon them -- or vote some other way because the Democrats have abandoned them, to state it more accurately. It could be time for a third party to gain a stronger voice in national politics, taking votes from both the GOP and the Democrats.
