It has often been said, and it is true, that this year’s American elections are the most critical in decades. But most of those who follow them, we have in our minds stereotypes regarding the vote of specific states. Like for example, that the American South always votes Republican, while the American industrial North casts its vote for the Democrats, as does the populous state of California. A quick look back at American history shows that stereotypes don’t always hold, that trends change. If they did not change, we would not have, among other things, the phenomenon of ambivalent states that decide the presidential election.
American South
Contrary to popular belief, the Democratic Party was dominant for decades in the American South, from the end of the Reconstruction period in 1877 (after the American Civil War, 1861-1865) until 1964, the year the legislation was passed to protect Civil Rights from the administration of Democratic Texan President Lyndon Johnson. It was the period of the so-called “Solid South“, which consisted of the 11 states of the Southern Confederacy (in the American Civil War): Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
The dominance of the Democratic Party is explained by the fact that after Reconstruction, white Democrats attempted to establish white American supremacy and disenfranchise black Americans. And this because the American government under the Republican Party of Lincoln had won the Civil War and had abolished slavery. Southern Democrats insisted on white supremacy, recalling how much the American South had suffered at the hands of “Yankee” invaders from the North, led by the Republican Party. With the support of blacks, the Republicans controlled the local governments in the particular states. In response, the Southern Democratic Party became the vehicle for paramilitary groups and white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, the White League, and the Red Shirts, which since 1874 acted as “the military wing of the Democratic Party” against the Republican Party and to intimidate and suppress black voters.
After the 1920s, when memories of the American Civil War had faded, the demographic makeup of the American South began to change. Between 1910 and 1970, about 6.5 million black Americans from the southern states moved to other parts of the US, as part of the Great Migration. After World War II, southern states such as Florida grew rapidly, welcoming out-of-state residents as well as many white retirees who voted Republican. In the 1960s, the Republicans, led by Nixon, developed the “Southern Strategy” in order to attract voters in the southern states. Since 2010, Republicans have consistently dominated electoral contests in the American South.
The “Rust Zone”
From the late nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century, the Midwestern States, the Great Lakes region, and the northeastern part of the US were the center of American industry (mainly steel). States such as Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, West Virginia, and parts of New York State, made America proud of its industrial production. However, by the mid-twentieth century, America’s industrial heart stopped beating. Deindustrialization and globalization brought this vast region into recession. So intense, that Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter’s vice president and Democratic presidential candidate in the 1984 presidential election, referred to it as the “Rust Belt,” the area where abandoned industries and factories rust. The derogatory nickname “stuck” in the area and became synonymous with poverty and crime.
The “Rust Belt” traditionally voted Democratic as in the 1929 Depression, Democratic President Roosevelt, who was elected in 1932, responded with the New Deal policy, a developmental program of public works and infrastructure, while giving workers the right to unionize and negotiate their wages. The 1960s and 1970s, in addition to changes in the economy (increased competition of the US from cheaper countries in Asia) also brought changes in the political agenda of the two parties. The Democratic Party shifted to the left while the Republican Party took a conservative turn. Both parties, however, subscribed to the deindustrialization of America in the 1970s.
However, the Republicans and especially Trump in 2016, were the ones who asked for “the jobs to come back to the USA”, as a result, many white people, mainly Americans who had lost their jobs in the industries of the region, turned to the Republican Party. In the mid-twentieth century, 80% of white workers voted Democratic, and in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was the Democratic presidential candidate, that percentage dropped to 4%. And in this year’s election, the importance of the “Rust Belt” is huge, as three crucial swing states, Wisconsin (10 electors), Michigan (15 electors) and Pennsylvania (19 electors) are located in it.
The “Golden State”
OR Californiawhich elects 54 electors out of a total of 538, (which is equivalent to more than 10% of the number of electors) is a Democratic stronghold. However, the “Golden State” did not always vote for Democrats. From 1952 to 1988, she voted Republican, with the exception of her vote for Democrat Lyndon Johnson in 1964. An increase in the number of Hispanic voters who traditionally vote Democratic is the main explanation for California’s “turning blue, – the color of the democratic party- in the presidential election. The 2020 election was the fourth consecutive election in which the Democratic Party candidate – Joe Biden – beat his Republican opponent – Trump – by more than 60%.
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