Solid South

The term Solid South describes the electoral support of the Southern United States for Democratic Party candidates from 1877 (the end of Reconstruction) to 1964 (the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964). During this time, the vast majority of local and state officeholders in the South were Democrats, as were federal politicians the region sent to Washington, D.C.. The virtual non-existence of the Republican Party in the region meant that a candidate's victory in Democratic primary elections was tantamount to election to the office itself.

The Democratic dominance of the South originated in many white Southerners' animosity towards the Republican Party's stance in favor of political rights for blacks during Reconstruction and Republican economic policies such as the high tariff and the support for continuing the gold standard, both of which were seen as benefiting Northern industrial interests at the expense of the agrarian South in the 19th century. It was maintained by the Democratic Party's willingness to back Jim Crow laws and racial segregation.

Democrats won by large margins in the region in every presidential election from 1876 to 1948 except for 1928, when candidate Al Smith, a Catholic and a New Yorker, ran on the Democratic ticket; even in that election, the divided South provided Smith with nearly three-fourths of his electoral votes. Beginning in about 1948, the national Democratic Party's support of the civil rights movement significantly reduced Southern support for the Democratic Party and allowed the Republican Party to make gains in the South. In 1968, President Nixon's "Southern strategy" is credited with allowing either the Republicans or Democrat George Wallace's independent campaign to keep much of the South out of the Democratic column at the presidential level. The South continued to send an overwhelmingly Democratic delegation to Congress until the Republican Revolution of 1994. Today, the South is considered a Republican stronghold at all levels above the local level, with Republicans finally holding majorities in every state except Arkansas and Kentucky after 2010. Political experts have often cited a southernization of politics following the fall of the Solid South.