Southern Partisan Changes: Dealignment, Realignment or Both?

This paper draws on presidential and congressional surveys between 1952 and 1984 in order to survey the extent of southern partisan changes and to evaluate the electoral evidence for realignment or dealignment. The partisan balance in the South has shifted in recent years, but no consensus exists about whether these changes constitute realignment or dealignment. Native southern whites—both young and old—have accounted for the largest share of the changes. Settling on a single term to summarize the changes is an oversimplification since aspects of both realignment and dealignment have characterized the South. Southern Republicans have profited from the decreased importance of parties in a still-Democratic region, but since partisanship means less in some senses, Republican consolidation is constrained and the significance of the Democratic decline restricted.