The Newest Southerners: Generational Differences in Electoral Behavior in the Contemporary South
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-779X.2017.36.1.54-74Abstract
Young voters contributed disproportionately to Barack Obama’s presidential victory in 2012. In fact, if the electorate had been limited to those over 30 years old, Mitt Romney might be in the White House today. Obama captured 60 percent of the vote of those under 30, compared to 49 percent of those over 30, according to the national exit polls (Schier and Box- Steffensmeier 2013, 86). A similar pattern characterized the 2008 presidential election: Obama won 66 percent of the vote among those aged 29 or less, but under one-half of voters older than 45 (Pomper 2010, 53). The tendency for younger voters to be disproportionately Democratic emerged in the 2004 presidential election. Prior to that, Democratic presidential candidates did not consistently do better among younger voters. In 2000, for example, Al Gore did as well among older voters as he did among younger voters, and in 1992, Bill Clinton did his best among older voters, as did Walter Mondale in 1984 and Michael Dukakis in 1988 (Pomper 2001, 138; Pomper 1989, 133).
References
Abramson, Paul R. 1979. "Developing Party Identification: A Further Examination of Life-Cycle, Generational and Period Effects." American Journal of Political Science 23: 78-96. https://doi.org/10.2307/2110772
Aistrup, Joseph A., Emizet F. Kisangani, and Roxanne L. Piri. 2010. "The Legacy of Race in 2008." In Presidential Elections in the South: Putting 2008 in Political Context, ed. Branwell DuBose Kapeluck, Robert P. Steed, and Laurence W. Moreland. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner.
Beck, Paul Allen. 1977. "Partisan Dealignment in the Postwar South." American Political Science Review 71: 477-498. https://doi.org/10.2307/1978343 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055400267403
Campbell, Bruce A. 1977. "Patterns of Change in the Partisan Loyalties of Native Southerners: 1952-1972." The Journal of Politics 39: 730-761. https://doi.org/10.2307/2129650
Cassel, Carol A. 1977. "Cohort Analysis of Party Identification Among Southern Whites, 1952-1972." Public Opinion Quarterly 41: 28-33. https://doi.org/10.1086/268349
Holian, David B., and Charles Prysby. 2014. "Candidate Character Traits in the 2012 Presidential Election." Presidential Studies Quarterly 44:484-505. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12134
Hood, M. V. III, and Seth C. McKee. 2010. "What Made Carolina Blue? In-Migration and the 2008 North Carolina Presidential Vote." American Politics Research 38: 266-302. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X09359379
Howe, Neil, and William Strauss. 2000. Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. New York, NY: Vintage.
Jennings, M. Kent, and Richard G. Niemi. 1981. Generations and Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400854264
Knuckey, Jonathan. 2001. "Ideological Realignment and Partisan Change in the American South, 1972-1996." Politics and Policy 29: 337-358. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2001.tb00595.x
Knuckey, Jonathan. 2005. "Racial Resentment and the Changing Partisanship of Southern Whites." Party Politics 11: 5-28. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068805048470
Knuckey, Jonathan. 2006. "Explaining Recent Changes in the Partisan Identifications of Southerners." Political Research Quarterly 59: 57-70. https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290605900106
Knuckey, Jonathan. 2010. "Generational Changes." In Presidential Elections in the South: Putting 2008 in Political Context, ed. Branwell DuBose Kapeluck, Robert P. Steed, and Laurence W. Moreland. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner.
Knuckey, Jonathan. 2011. "Racial Resentment and Vote Choice in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election." Politics & Policy 39: 559-582. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2011.00304.x
Lewis-Beck, Michael S., William G. Jacoby, Helmut Norpoth, and Herbert F. Weisberg. 2008. The American Voter Revisited. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92266
MacManus, Susan A. 2012. "The South's Changing Demographics." In The Oxford Handbook of Southern Politics, ed. Charles S. Bullock III and Mark Rozell. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195381948.013.0003
Miller, Jon. 2011. "The Generation X Report." Research Report from the Longitudinal Study of American Youth. University of Michigan Institute of Social Research.
Miller, Warren E., and J. Merrill Shanks. 1996. The New American Voter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Nadeau, Richard, and Harold W. Stanley. 1997. "Age and Partisanship, 1952-1992." In Southern Parties and Elections: Studies in Regional Political Change, ed. Robert P. Steed, Laurence W. Moreland, and Tod A. Baker. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Petrocik. 1987. "Realignment: New Party Coalitions and the Nationalization of the South. Journal of Politics 49: 347-375.
Pew Research Center. 2010. "Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change." http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/millennials-confident-connected-open-tochange.pdf.
Pomper, Gerald M. 1989. "The Presidential Election." In The Election of 1988, ed. Gerald M. Pomper. New York: Chatham House.
Pomper, Gerald M. 2001. "The Presidential Election." In The Election of 2000, ed. Gerald M. Pomper. New York: Chatham House.
Pomper, Gerald M. 2010. "The Presidential Election: Change Comes to America." In The Elections of 2008, ed. Michael Nelson. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Ray, Betty D. 2008. "The Gender Gap, The Marriage Gap, and Their Interaction." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 3-5.
Schier, Steven E., and Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier. 2013. "The General Election Campaign." In The American Elections of 2012, ed. Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier and Steven E. Schier. New York: Routledge.
Stanley, Harold W. 1988. "Southern Partisan Changes: Dealignment, Realignment or Both?" Journal of Politics 50: 65-88. https://doi.org/10.2307/2131041
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with American Review of Politics agree to the following terms:
The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
Attribution: other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
Non-Commercial: the materials may not be used for commercial purposes;
Share Alike: If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
with the understanding that the above condition can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a pre-publication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access). Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
The Author represents and warrants that:
the Work is the Author’s original work;
the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
the Work has not previously been published;
the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
