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Abstract
At the heart of this dissertation, I evaluate how the answers to a series of questions have changed over time, asking: What is the relationship of the South to the Republican Party? And how has the region’s broader realignment contributed to political polarization and to Donald Trump’s hold on the GOP? To answer these questions, three areas of inquiry are presented: First, although the population characteristics of the South have changed tremendously, the region has remained central to the prospect of Republicans winning the presidency or majorities in either chamber of Congress for over two decades. The metamorphosis of the GOP into Trump's party between 2008 to 2024 serves as a throughline to illustrate how broader trends of political realignment in the South have reshaped national Republican constituencies, candidates, and elected officials. Second, issues related to race, gender, and immigration have only become more visible in American politics throughout the 21st century. This has occurred as the modern GOP coalition has shifted to include a greater proportion of working-class voters and Democrats have moved to represent wealthier, more educated suburban areas. The effects of these dueling phenomena, interacting in an electoral environment with strong levels of racial polarization among both voters and elected officials, can be observed uniquely in the South. Finally, after a decades-long realignment in which the Republican Party’s early gains in the South were built amidst widening racial divisions and scores of white former-Democrats switching parties, up and down the ballot, a new political generation of Republicans and Democrats has emerged. As the GOP has recently expanded its ranks to achieve supermajorities in Stagnant South states like Louisiana, two-party political competition has simultaneously been reignited in parts of the Growth South like Georgia, where population and economic expansions are accompanied by growing racial, ethnic, and ideological diversity. In the following chapters, I draw from a rich composite of data from election returns, survey research, interviews, reporting and media accounts, and campaign materials focused on contests for president, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, and control of state legislative chambers.