The Consolidation of the White Southern Congressional Vote: The Roles of Ideology and Party Identification

Abstract

This article examines the effects of party identification and ideology on white southerners’ vote choices in U.S. House races from 1980 to 1994. Using American National Election Studies data, we employ descriptive statistics and a variety of regression techniques to test these relationships. We find party identification was more important in explaining vote choice in the election of 1994 than in previous years, and a majority of white southerners first identified with Republicans in 1994. We also find ideology had an independent effect on party identification for white southerners throughout the time series. We conclude that increasingly class‐based, ideologically polarized parties, opposition to President Clinton and his health care plan, the success of the Republicans in framing the election as a national ideological struggle, and race‐based redistricting after 1990 created a tendency of conservative white southerners to identify with Republicans and to vote for Republican House candidates in 1994.