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Key Blocs and Key States
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14723 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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11 / 1988 |
3,781 Words |
| Author
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Stuart Rothenberg
Stuart Rothenberg, a Washington political analyst, is editor
and publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report. |
Half a dozen voting groups will play a pivotal role in this year's presidential election, and George Bush and Michael Dukakis know it. Both candidates have appealed to these crucial electoral constituencies, hoping to hype turnout among the sympathetic and cross-pressure the undecided.
Republican Bush must continue to take advantage of recent gains in Republican strength among white southerners and northern white ethnics. Democrat Dukakis, on the other hand, must elicit strong showings from traditionally Democratic groups such as blacks and Jews while making inroads among working-class Catholics and southerners.
The eleven states of the South, stretching from Virginia to Texas, account for 138 electoral votes—more than half of the 270 electoral votes needed to claim the White House. That alone makes the region crucial to both parties. Once a mainstay of the Democratic Party's electoral coalition, the South has gone Democratic only once in the past 20 years—in 1976, when southerner Jimmy Carter headed the Democratic ticket. And the Bush campaign has once again made the South the cornerstone of the GOP effort.
As the Democratic Party moved left during the 1960s and 1970s, the South moved Republican. The Republican strength in the region is based on three factors: the conversion of conservative whites to the GOP, the influx of northerners to the area and the passing of a generation of die-hard "yellow-dog Democrats," and the infusion of new voters into the electorate.
In 1952, 76 percent of all southerners identified themselves as Democrats, according to data collected by the University of Michigan. In 1984, the figure had dropped to 40 percent. Among whites only, Democratic identification in 1984 stood at 33 percent and GOP preference at 29 percent. Although Republicans still had difficulty winning many state and local elections, they have become competitive in the top statewide and federal offices.
The region's large black population remains overwhelmingly Democratic, while the recent influx of managerial business talent has helped the GOP. The swing group in the region continues to be middle- and working-class voters—many of them rural—who are populist and conservative on most issues. These voters prefer the Democrats on economic policy but the Republicans on foreign policy/defense and social/moral issues. The candidate who finally captures this group will likely carry the
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