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No, working class white voters largely voted Democratic for most of the 20th century and were an important plank of the "New Deal Coalition" that saw the Democratic party maintain a stranglehold on both Congress and the US Presidency until 1968 (forty years ago). What happened? The 1968 Democratic convention and the implosion of the Democratic party. The result? Richard Millhouse Nixon. He swept the South (the first Republican to do so in about a hundred years) and did so again in 1972. He won the white, working class vote (or enough of it) and although James Earle Carter jnr reclaimed white workers in 1976, enough of them voted Republican in 1980, 1984, 1988 and 2000 and in 2004 to see Republican domination of the White House. Another result was the re-capture of both houses of Congress from the Democrats in 1994 (after forty years of Democratic rule, itself preceded by just 2 years of Republican control).Originally Posted by Gaius Baltar
Unfortunately for Liberals:
- White men make up approximately 39% of the US electorate -all minorities account for just 30%
Low-income i.e. working class voters in small towns account for 18% of the electorate (their opposites account for ~12-14%)
Blacks account for about 12% of voters -and are an unreliable voting demographic
He will lose Appalachia including the crucial swing states of PA, OH and WV. No chance in KY, Indiana or Michigan (who's voters will probably vote against him).
Despite this talk of the South becoming a "Republican stronghold" (well, it is for Federal Elections), the South largely returns Democrats in Municipal and local elections because there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in the Southern USA. Southern whites are still largely Democratic voters and the Republicans' base there are either an historical minority ("Scallawags and Carpetbaggers") or recent affluent, middle-class arrivals from the Northeast. Southern Good ole Boys are still Democrats. There are very view Republicans elected to Statewide office in Louisiana, for example, and Georgia elected its first Republican Governor in 130 years. This is changing, obviously and a significant minority of Democratic voters (probably a majority of registered White Democrats) regularly vote for Republican Presidents or Senators. Will Obama win any Southern states in November, even with the Black vote? No. In fact, he will probably lose those states in larger margins than John Kerry did -who also had ~90% of the black vote. Crucially, he will Florida -who's Democratic voters will punish him for trying to disenfranchise them.
The only chance Democrats have is if:
- A third party candidates such as Ross Perot runs and splits the angry white male vote, or
Democrats run a white Southern male
Al Gore jnr is probably the only chance the Democrats have and would've walked it if he ran in 2004 (he bucked the trend established by Democrats candidates these last few decades by reclaiming enough of the white working class vote and small town vote. Not enough though).
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