There is no doubt that 1968 was more “modern” than that of 1988, at least inasmuch as there was much more overwhelming white opposition in the South to the Democrats, apart from the critical difference (which I discuss
here.) of then-unionized coal counties, which in fact were Humphrey’s largest single area of white support in the South.
Humphrey received only around 5 to 10 percent white support in the Deep South and Arkansas, only around one-sixth of the white electorate in Tennessee and North Carolina (in these two states McGovern probably garnered a larger share of white votes than Humphrey), around one-quarter in Florida, Oklahoma and Virginia, and around one-third in Texas.
Excepting coal counties and some parts of central Texas (called “brass-collar” by Kevin Phillips) Humphrey was as totally demolished in the white South as we have come used to since 2000 (more so in urban areas, less in rural). In contrast, Democrats between 1976 and 1996 often won a quarter of white votes in the Deep South and over forty percent in the Outer South. Consider the following representative figures for overwhelmingly white rural southern counties:
| 1968 Humphrey vote | 1988 Dukakis vote | 2016 Hilary Clinton vote |
| Cameron Parish, LA | 20.56% | 55.45% | 8.75% |
| Jackson County, AL | 9.37% | 54.27% | 17.50% |
| Clay County, AR | 26.16% | 55.16% | 23.06% |
| Nowata County, OK | 29.14% | 52.03% | 17.51% |
| Benton County, TN | 22.15% | 56.42% | 23.29% |
