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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRepublicans face unexpected challenges in coastal South
Obama won Virginia and Florida and narrowly missed victory in North Carolina. But he also polled as well in Georgia as any Democrat since Jimmy Carter, grabbed 44 percent of the vote in deep-red South Carolina and just under that in Mississippi despite doing no substantive campaigning in any of those states.
Much of the post-election analysis has focused on the demographic crisis facing Republicans among Hispanic voters, particularly in Texas. But the results across other parts of the South, where Latinos remain a single-digit minority, point to separate trends among blacks and whites that may also have big implications for the GOPs future.
The results show a region cleaving apart along new electoral fault lines. In the regions center, clustered along the Mississippi River where Bill Clinton polled most strongly the GOP remains largely unchallenged and the voting divide between blacks and whites is deepening. Nearly nine of 10 of white voters in Mississippi, for instance, went for Republican nominee Mitt Romney this year, according to exit polls. About 96 percent of black voters in the state supported Obama.
The pattern is markedly different in the five states that hug the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Florida, which together hold82 of the Souths 160 electoral votes. A combination of a growing black population, urban expansion, oceanfront development and in-migration from other regions has opened up increasing opportunities for Democrats in those states.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republicans-face-unexpected-challenges-in-coastal-south-amid-shrinking-white-vote/2012/11/23/02cbda58-336a-11e2-bb9b-288a310849ee_story.html?hpid=z3
democrattotheend
(11,607 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)Warpy
(111,417 posts)I was completely blown away by all the dark blue in the tidewater area, the eastern part of the state where it's cotton and tobacco and hard core Jesse Helms type territory plus a large military presence.
I've always expected the cities to go blue there, and they did. However, the hard core rural and conservative areas going blue was totally mind blowing.
The south is changing in some pretty unexpected ways.
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)They pissed off women, they pissed off gays, they pissed off scientist, they pissed off teachers, they pissed off.... and so on. If they are going to go after the ignorant or the straight white super rich male it is a small niche.