Talk Elections

The South is a notoriously evangelical region, so it should have gone to Ted Cruz or another candidate who focused more on social/religious issues. Trump was mostly focused on economics in the Upper Midwest, though. Were these voters convinced by racism, or were there other factors involved in their decisions?

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Find a pattern and you have your answer.

He did well in the primaries with evangelicals who do not go to church weekly.  Weekly churchgoers preferred Cruz and Rubio in the primaries.  In fairness, there is a socioeconomic skew towards higher church attendance at higher incomes within evangelical communities.

He's a populist you see

Gingrich, who led the impeachment of Clinton while himself having an affair, called Obama a “food stamp President”, and pledged not to hire any Muslims if elected President, won South Carolina and Georgia (his home state), so maybe Gingrich-Trump is a common voting pattern in the South?

A mix of things.

He cornered the market on raw, unbridled populism and nativism.

Rubio and Cruz both stayed in, splitting the anti-Trump vote.

Judges.  Trump is politically pro-life.  That he personally didn't/doesn't hold these views never really mattered -- just like pro-choice voters haven't historically cared when prominent Democrats are "personally pro-life".

Hmm yes I wonder what it possibly could have been

To be fair, he didn't get 50% in any southern primary. And there's only two where he got more than 45%.

He was the most overtly racist.

Vote-splitting, basically. It was often the case that when the early votes would come in Trump would lead massively, with Rubio in a distant second, and then when the votes on election day came in Cruz would come within single-digits of making up the gap (as he did in LA and MS). It's very clear that he would have lost a straight fight against either man throughout most of the region.

One major thing Trump did that is very underrated is he took away the strengths of his competitors. He was never going to win on the issue of religion, but he talked about religion enough to be an acceptable candidate on the issue. Meanwhile, he dominated on other issues. I think religion is one of those black and white issues that you are either religious enough or you aren't, and you don't really get bonus points everybody is religious enough. The economy is different where no matter how good one candidate is on the economy, you always want the candidate that is best on the economy.

Because he's Trump.

Rural, southern whites are not "conservative" in the traditional sense nor are they particularly churchgoing; those are characteristics of Southern suburbs and exurbs.

Trump is a Andrew Jackson Republican, while Cruz is a Reagan Republican.

I don't know if this applies to other southern states, but in the dallas-houston suburbs, there is a divide between the evangelical, and churchgoing lot and the non-evangelical mainstream protestant and non-churchgoing lot. While before all four groups would be quite republican by various degrees in the past, in recent years, starting  with Obama they became less less republican, and in 2016 and especially 2018 midterms this group became quite democratic.

No, absolutely not. Trump's major selling point to GOP primary voters wasn't so much economics (although many liked his message there obviously) but that he was a fighter who would unashamedly and outrageously attack the liberal media and liberal cultural elites. Many, many evangelical voters in the South felt that the cultural progress under the Obama administration had put their very way of life at risk and they were excited by a candidate who was fighting dirty against it.

I agree with this, you cannot under estimate the siege mentality on the right and the feeling going back to Bush that Republicans lack a backbone to defend themselves from the left, much less go on the offensive.

As an additional point, this forum has historically failed to understand the importance of the immigration issue as it relates to the base and this is a factor across much of the South especially, particularly in the era of migrant labor being so widespread and the sense of jobs displacement and being blamed for declining wages in low skilled, non-college fields. Guess where Trump's strongest support came from? Those same people would express this concern openly.

How do these voters feel about social issues. Because in white working class Massachusetts/RI and across New England white working class (lower-middle class) areas, I have experienced an apathy towards social issues like abortion and ssm  and the reasons republicans did poorly there in the past is because no-one cared about these issues and economics were never going to be a vote winner for them.

Meanwhile, Trump spoke about Immigration and played into racial anxiety and the idea that latinos are taking their jobs (which sometimes happen) and their neighbourhoods are becoming less white ethnic and increasingly of a foreign culture. This was accompanied with economic issues like decline of industry which brought even those who don't care but don't support immigration into the trump fold.

I assume in the south, there would be a divide between evangelicals and non-evangelical working class vote? But with Trump (immigration) and Obama (race) the non-evangelical working class vote became increasingly republican, while the evangelicals were always solidly republican?

Because racist hypocrisy plays well with Southern Republicans. They're probably the least ideologically conservative faction of the GOP.

In the South both groups would be strongly conservative on social issues and thus why you saw consistent gains from 2000 onwards, with an acceleration of existing trends. It is easy to overlook now, but Bush's performance in places like Arkansas and West Virginia were considered amazing for the time and relative the popular vote especially.

You are right that outside the South these non-college whites are apathetic or even hostile to social issues, with many being Catholic or lapsed Catholic and thus rather secular in their outlook. Trump's success is owed to the fact that he was able to rally such strong support among a group of voters that Republicans previously had little to offer on economics and obviously the culture wars didn't interest them much.

Without straying too far off topic, this is a salient point about the whole history of Southern politics. ideological adherence is solely down to expediency. You see that in the application of State's Rights prior to the Civil War demanding it for themselves while denying it to others.

Cynical answer: he said the quiet parts out loud.
Technical answer: there was a Trump faction, represented by one candidate, and an anti-Trump faction, represented by 3+ candidates, so it came down to divided opposition.

He had a greatly appealing message for nativist southern white Republicans. To be honest, I think it’s a bit surprising he did so poorly with them... goes to show how many flaws he had as a candidate.

The key to Trump's success was his ability to harness a)racialized economic anxiety (basically, the idea that "non-whites/immigrants are taking our jobs/government benefits", and b)cultural grievance (the idea that liberal elites and their allies are changing American culture in unwelcome ways). Both of these themes played particularly well in the South.

What's interesting is that the South was probably his strongest area in the primaries. He did win NH and NV, but during the first half of March he won 10/13 Southern primaries; the ones he lost were Texas (Cruz's home state), OK (which sits at the border of the South, West, and Midwest) and D.C. During that same time period, he won just 6/13 non-Southern primaries (excluding territories). He clinched the nomination primarily through his dominance in the Acela primaries (plus a win in Indiana), but I wonder if he would have still won the nomination if Southern states hadn't made up a disproportionate share of the early primaries.

The two groups are both conservative on social issues, but it's a different sort of social conservatism.  One group tends to be a lot more "churchy" when it comes to things like cursing, drinking, and sex, while the other group is definitely not.  Also, while both groups are generally pro-life and oppose gay marriage, the way those issues are discussed is at least a little different.

Being perfectly honest, a lot of the GOP electorate in my state isn't very bright and pretty obnoxious. Rednecks loved him because he'd say what they wanted to hear and wanted someone who was unpolished. I think that is constant for much of the deep south.