Wallace voters tended to be poor. Actual KKK members probably voted for Wallace. Nixon appealed to wealthy Goldwater voters who, even if segregationist, didn’t care for Confederate flags or Robert E. Lee statues. Nixon voters never again voted Democratic while some Wallace voters voted for Carter. In fact, Wallace himself endorsed Carter, as did Eastland.
Southern Senator is an expert on this.
A proportion of Wallace voters probably voted for Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton and Gore.
Nixon voters if suburban and wealthy/middle class stayed loyally republican, however if more rural and in unionist areas some of them switched over for Clinton, Carter and even Gore.
Certainly true. All four of these Democrats, for example, won Colbert, Jackson, and Lawrence Counties in Northern Alabama, which exemplifies this phenomenon. These counties were in the Appalachian or "TVA"-influenced section of the state. This was the region which was most resistant to Goldwater in 1964, and was like similar regions in Northern Georgia, South Carolina, and even Mississippi, where Johnson still got support from white voters who were opposed to the Civil Rights Act, but also objected to Goldwater's economic policies.
Lawrence County was the only one of the three to vote for Goldwater (and was more Democratic than the statewide average), with Colbert and Jackson supporting the Unpledged Democratic slate (as Johnson was not on the ballot in Alabama). In 1968, all three counties strongly backed Wallace, who won them with more than 80% or even 90% of the vote. In 1972, Nixon won them by landslide margins against McGovern. But in 1976, Carter won them back by landslide margins against Ford, and they voted Democratic in every presidential election over the next 24 years, until George W. Bush won them in 2004. Since then, they've become heavily Republican.
