Storming the Gates - Dan Balz and Ronald Brownstein
Purpose Statement: The South has traditionally been the stronghold of the Democratic Party,
the “anti-Lincoln” party. Recent elections, however, especially the 1994 off-year election, have
shown the South to now be the stronghold of the Republican Party. In their essay, Storming The
Gates, political analysts Dan Balz and Ronald Brownstein say a variety of factors have led to this.
What factors? And what impact has this changeover had on the nation and the Republican Party?
From Storming the Gates by Dan Balz and Ronald Brownstein
For a century after the Civil War, the American South was solidly Democratic. The Republican Party, the
party of Lincoln, found little support there. Today political allegiances in the South have changed dramatically.
Authors Dan Balz and Ronald Brownstein describe the variety of factors that have gradually brought many southern
voters into the Republican Party, and how these factors have also remade the Republican Party, and the nation.
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In 1994, the Republican Party captured the South, and the South captured the Republican Party. Both sides
of this transformation will change American politics into the foreseeable future. In a geographical shift of seismic
proportions, the 1994 elections affirmed the South, the largest prize of all the political regions in the country, as the
new Republican heartland. Republicans made significant - in some cases startling - advances throughout the region,
significantly raising the strength of the Dixie accent in a party that had its origins in opposition to southern slave
owners. While the differences that separate southern and northern Republicans may be far smaller than those that
historically divided southern and northern Democrats, Republicans who sprouted from southern soil remain
culturally and philosophically distinct from those in the North. Added to the GOP’s long-standing western base, the
expansion of Republican power in the South deepens all the conservative tendencies of the party, from opposition
to new taxes and support for higher defense spending to a more central role for social issues such as abortion and
school prayer. “Southern Republicans tend to be more conservative, they tend to he more philosophically
committed, and they tend to be more confrontational,” said Texas Senator Phil Gramm, whose career is the walking
embodiment of all three.
Few stories in modern American politics are as rich or as enduring as the partisan transformation of the
South. Over the past half century, politicians, political scientists, historians, journalists, and others have chronicled
the breakup of the southern Democratic Party and the steady erosion of the one-party South. The current state of
this evolution to two-party politics makes it easy to forget how far and how fast the Republicans actually have
traveled. . . .
After a century as the smallest of minorities, the Republican Party now stands as a vibrant force throughout
the South - in some states the dominant force - with little on the horizon likely to reverse trends that have been
increasing the party’s strength for a generation. . . .
The elections of 1994 represented not just another step forward for the Republicans, but the kind of
quantum change that has the power to remake the politics of a region - and by implication the entire nation - for a
generation. For the first time in this century, southern Republicans emerged from an election in control of a
majority of the governorships, a majority of the seats in the U.S. Senate, and, most significant of all, a majority of
the seats in the U.S. House. Republicans also gained 119 southern state legislative seats and captured control of
three state legislative chambers, the Florida Senate, the North Carolina House, and the South Carolina House. For
the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans elected the Speakers of two southern legislatures. . . .
Given the inexorable trends in presidential elections over the past four decades, the changes may not seem
startling, but few people anticipated that the Republican force would hit the South with such a pounding fury in
November 1994. Despite the defection problems in presidential elections, Democratic candidates in the South long
assumed that they could insulate themselves from what southern voters regarded as the most unappealing aspects of
the national party. The 1994 elections robbed them of that illusion, perhaps for good, in large part because white
southern voters rebelled against one of their own in the White House. Several factors combined to produce the
earthquake, from the “rising tide lifts all boats’’ nature of national voting patterns, to the impact of redistricting on
boundaries that long had favored Democrats, to the evolutionary nature of the changes that had been under way in
the region. But Clinton’s presidency became a solidifying force for Republican voters in the South that southern
Democratic candidates could not overcome, and southern Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich and party
chairman Haley Barbour, intuitively recognizing the possibility for a historical transformation in their region, made
the South a special focus in their election strategy. . . .
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Storming the Gates - Dan Balz and Ronald Brownstein
As important as the 1994 elections were in transforming the political balance in the South, they were
equally significant in affecting the balance of power with the Republican Party. Those changes will shape the style,
culture, and priorities of the GOP into the next century. The elections solidified Sun Belt preeminence within a
party long accustomed to dominance by the Northeast and Midwest. Compared to the last time Republicans held
the House, the geographic conversion appears stunning. The South and West now control more than 55 percent of
Republican seats in the House, where forty years ago, the Northeast and Midwest held roughly 75 percent. In 1955,
Republicans held just 10 of 120 southern congressional districts; at the end of 1995 they controlled 78 of 137, and
during that same period, their strength in the Senate went from none of the 26 seats to 16 today.
White southerners, whose long memories of the Civil War made them among the most loyal of Democratic
constituencies, now identify with the Republican Party in roughly the same percentages as northern Protestants,
upon whose shoulders the GOP was founded. In practical terms, these white southerners, drawn over the years to
the GOP’s brand of economic and cultural conservatism, now represent the most loyal of all conservative
constituencies - and are more likely to shape the future than their northern brethren. . . .
Like the rise of the Gingrich generation within the Republican Party, the geographic transformation of
American politics did not occur suddenly, nor was it the result of transitory currents or a few dominant
personalities. Powerful forces changed the South and the political allegiances of the people there, and it has taken a
generation for them to fully flower . . . .
The most significant, of course, is race and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which
empowered African-Americans in the South, drove white voters out of the old Democratic Party, and established a
new Republican Party as their refuge. In 1994, southern Republicans received 94% of their votes from whites and
just 2% from African-Americans. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 enfranchised millions of black voters in the
decade after its passage by Congress, and allowed blacks who had long been excluded from the political process not
only to vote but to play increasingly powerful roles within the Democratic Party. But those changes also had the
effect of driving many white voters out of the Democratic Party toward the Republicans. Ironically, the
Republicans then used that same legislation as the legal centerpiece of a redistricting strategy after the 1990 census
that was designed to maximize the number of legislative and congressional districts with black or Hispanic
majorities and, as a consequence, diminish Democratic chances of winning the adjacent, increasingly white
districts. Thus, the civil rights revolution constructed the pilings of the modern Republican Party in the South and
the movement’s legal legacy topped off the GOP’s new southern mansion with their victories in 1994. It would be
a gross oversimplification to say that the racial politics of the 1960s primarily produced the results of the 1994
elections. But Republicans struggling to move beyond race deny reality when they attempt to wipe away their
party’s use of racial prejudice and paranoia to erode the strength of the Democratic Party and cement their
relationship with a generation of white voters.
Nearly as powerful as race in transforming southern politics was the region’s economic conversion
throughout the post-World War II era. Long the nation’s most impoverished region, the South over this period rose
closer to national standards. The decline of the agrarian South and the rise of a modern economy grounded in
manufacturing, defense, tourism, services, and technology has been, by anyone’s measure, one of the great success
stories of the late twentieth century - but in creating a more diversified society, the South’s economic
transformation made it difficult for Democrats to speak for the interests of all, as they once claimed to do. And the
absence of labor unions robbed the Democrats in the South of a key organizing tool available in the white ethnic
wards of the North.
The third great current of change was population growth, fueled by the influx of northern migrants drawn
by the South’s expanding economic opportunities, warm weather, cheaper living standards, and more relaxed
lifestyle. (Immigration from abroad reinforced the population growth, particularly in Texas and Florida.) Over a
forty year span, the population of the South grew by 81%, faster than the nation as a whole, and in states like
Florida (366%) and Texas (120%), exploded at a breathtaking pace. Not every state, of course, shared equally in
this growth. North Carolina and Georgia gained significantly; Mississippi and Alabama, long impoverished, did
not. The Outer South, or Peripheral South, gained far more than the states of the Deep South, but as a whole, the
region was transformed by the flood of new arrivals.
In concert with the economic changes, in-migration from the North and the swell of refugees from the
farms to the cities and the imposition of court-ordered busing gave rise to a suburban South where one had never
existed. Around cities like Dallas and Houston, Atlanta, Birmingham, Orlando, Raleigh, Richmond, Charlotte, and
Greenville, suburbs sprouted relentlessly. Between 1988 and 1990, the South could boast of thirteen of the twentyfive fastest growing congressional districts in the country (seven of the other twelve were in California alone),
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Storming the Gates - Dan Balz and Ronald Brownstein
while only four of the twenty-five slowest growing were southern based (and three of them were majority-black
districts). A wave of blue-collar migration hit during the early 1980s, when hard times humbled the Rust Belt, but
for the most part the migration brought middle-class, middle-income families to the corporations establishing
operations in the South. Almost every new housing development rising in the suburban and exurban [a prosperous
residential area outside the suburbs of a town] counties of the South represented another potential Republican
enclave and a further nail in the Democrats’ coffin.
These great forces transformed southern life in fundamental ways, but they did not dislodge the regions
most salient political characteristic, its abiding conservatism. “Conservatism occupies an exalted position in the
South,” wrote brothers Earl Black and Merle Black, two political scientists who study southern polities. ‘‘Although
the region has sometimes been portrayed as ripe for the construction of successful biracial coalitions of have-littles
and have-nots, the growth of the urban middle class and the popularity of middle class beliefs among southern
white workers have worked against explicit class polities and in favor of conservative politics generally.’’
Southern conservatism remains a unique blend of patriotism, religion. faith in free markets, and distrust of
outsiders. Through the enduring prism of the Civil War, the South long saw itself besieged by the hostile values of
the North, creating a sense beleaguerment that made the region protective of its own culture and cohesive in its
conservatism. The arrival of millions of northern immigrants somewhat diluted this sense of embattlement, but it
has not made the South significantly less conservative. No region is more resolute in its support for a strong
defense, and no region has so benefited from defense spending. The network of military bases and installations
across the South testifies to the tenacity of southern power brokers. But despite its dependence on federal largesse,
the South long has viewed government suspiciously, and its legislatures have been far more protective of the
economic elites and major industries than of using government to redistribute wealth to the impoverished masses.
Southern states have historically provided the least generous benefits to welfare recipients, for example, while
providing the most attractive incentives to local industries or to lure corporations to their states, although, to be fair,
the mostly impoverished southern states had fewer resources to redistribute.
Like the culture of the military, religion is woven more deeply into the daily life of the South than it is in
any other region. The conservative values of the pulpit spill regularly into the public arena, and on a wide variety of
social and cultural issues, the South is the country’s most conservative section.
The hardening of racial lines between the two parties represents the most troubling aspect of southern
political trends. The Republicans may aspire to become the nation’s majority party, but can a political institution
that derives 94% of its vote in the South from whites ever pretend to offer credible representation to AfricanAmericans? Most southern politicians, Republicans and Democrats, have long since abandoned overtly racial
campaign appeals, but Republicans still struggle to escape their own history in the South. Younger Republicans,
those who came of age with or in the aftermath of the civil rights movement, have tried to move beyond race-based
campaigning. “The southern strategy, in my opinion, has been very destructive for the Republican Party,” said Bob
Inglis, a second-term House member from South Carolina. “You can’t he a majority party if you write off 30% of
the vote. You can’t hold on. You’ve got to prove that conservative doesn’t equal racist.”
Colin Powell’s decision to become an active member of the party represents an enormous boost for the
GOP. But at a time when Republicans seek dramatic reforms in welfare programs that many blacks see as punitive,
and when leading Republican officials press to eliminate affirmative action programs, the burden of proof on the
party remains enormously high, as Powell himself has said. Who can forget the 1990 Senate race in North Carolina,
in which Jesse Helms played the race card in the final month of the campaign to defeat Harvey Gantt, the black
former mayor of Charlotte? Helms aired a television commercial that showed a pair of white hands holding a letter
saving the recipient had been rejected for a job in favor of a minority applicant with lesser qualifications.
Democrats mistake these purely racial appeals as the principal reason for their decline in the South. In reality,
Republicans have gained much more in recent elections by identifying themselves with less government, fiscal
conservatism, and lower taxes than by race-based arguments. But the current agenda in Washington, coupled with
the desire by many prominent Republicans to end affirmative action programs, hinders the GOP’s ability to reach
out to black voters. Some Republican strategists posit a future in which GOP candidates routinely receive 15-20%
of the black vote in the South, built upon the emerging black middle class. Some candidates have achieved those
numbers, but not many: The party as a whole remains suspect to the most significant minority in the region, and the
current agenda nationally likely will prevent the GOP from reaching those targets. . . .
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Storming the Gates - Dan Balz and Ronald Brownstein
The wreckage of the Democrats, increasingly divided between its liberal-minority wing and its shrinking
moderate wing, lies strewn across the region. The movement of conservative voters into the GOP ensures that the
liberal wing of the Democratic Party increasingly will dominate primary elections in the South, making the party’s
nominees less electable in general elections. The safest Democratic seats (other than those held by longtime white
incumbents) belong to some of the most liberal members of the Democratic caucus, many of them AfricanAmericans in newly created majority-minority districts. Moderate-to-conservative Democrats have become an
endangered species. Of 42 white southern Democrats in the House in 1995, 28 were elected before 1990, while 44
of 77 white southern Republicans arrived after the 1990 elections. The process of generational replacement augurs
well for the Republicans, for increasingly, white voters see the GOP as the party that will protect their interests.
The 1994 elections, rather than strengthening the hand of moderates within the party, nearly decimated the
wing symbolized by the Democratic Leadership Council, the organization founded largely by southern Democrats
after the 1984 election to push the party toward the center, and the party switches and retirements in 1995
underscored the sense of gloom now pervasive among Democrats in the South. “The only conservative Democrats
who can survive in the South are those known as conservatives, not Democrats,” Merle Black said. “In the minds of
white voters, a conservative Democrat is an unreliable conservative.” Unless Democrats find some new way to
reverse these trends, the old-fashioned conservative Democrat could soon face extinction, as a young generation of
white politicians looks to the Republicans to fulfill their ambitions. The one hope for Democrats may lie in their
ability to attract populist voters who are fearful about the changes Republicans are making in Washington.
While the Democrats are pulled left, southern Republicans have assembled a coalition that is more purely
conservative than anywhere else in the country, with the possible exception of parts of the West. The southern GOP
draws on a voter base that includes not only economic conservatives but far more religious and cultural
conservatives than elsewhere as well. Exit polls from 1994 showed that a quarter of white southern voters
identified themselves as Christian fundamentalists, compared to less than one in six nationally. The growing
strength of this constituency and its locus in a region that has become the party’s new base of power, not only
guarantees greater attention by the party to divisive issues like school prayer and abortion, but threatens to make
secular conservatives and moderates think twice about their longer-term allegiance with the GOP. Comments by
Republicans like Mississippi’s Kirk Fordice that America is a “Christian nation” represent a minority view even
among the most religious of the GOP leadership, but they still damage the party’s national image.
The new southern Republican coalition doesn’t just reinforce the party’s conservative tendencies, it
threatens to accelerate them. No region, with the possible exception of the West, better typifies the strength of the
conservative, anti-government coalition that helped drive the Republicans to power. Exit polls showed that a
quarter of white southern voters owned guns, that one in five regularly listened to talk radio, and that two in three
agreed with the proposition that government should do less, not more, seven points higher than the national
average. Northern moderates may rebel against some of the priorities of a party with such strength in the South, but
the electoral trends suggest that over time there will be more southerners within the congressional ranks, not fewer.
On a sweltering day in the summer of 1995, George W. Bush sat in his office in the Texas capitol, reflecting on the
implications of the changes in his party and the strength of its new foundation in the South. “Lesson 101 in
politics,” he said, “is never leave your base.” That lesson was lost on Bush’s father, who in 1992 struggled
unsuccessfully to reassemble the conservative coalition that twice powered Ronald Reagan to victory. But the
younger Bush’s words stand as an article of faith among the members of the new Republican majority that emerged
from the landslide of 1994.
In breaking the Democrats’ historic hold on the South, the Republicans not only helped secure their own
future but also bound themselves to issues and constituencies that now push them ever rightward. The South stands
as the Republicans’ protective shield against Democratic counterattacks in the North, and as migration continues to
increase the population of the South and West at the expense of the North and Midwest, the advantage will only
enlarge. But this reshaping also risks propelling the party far enough to the right to threaten losses at the center of
the political spectrum. Those dangers remain prospective. For now, the GOP can look around the South as an
enlarging electoral fortress. The speed and breadth of the transformation startled even many who have worked to
advance it - and the impact on the party is equally surprising. Sitting one day in an Austin, Texas, office piled high
with computer printouts and Texas paraphernalia, Bush strategist Karl Rove summed up the transformation with a
Civil War analogy. “The party of northern aggression,” he said, “has become the party of southern dominance.”
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