Does anyone know how many white rural Democrats are left in the old Confederacy, particularly in the legislatures? I imagine most would be concentrated in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, as well as a few in the Virginia Senate (Creigh Deeds, John Edwards, Lynwood Lewis).
Difficult to say exactly, but i can almost guarantee dozens in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas and few scattered (2-5) in most other states except Florida and Texas, where there are almost none (1-2 at most). The problem is they are gradually replaced by Republicans (or, in some cases, switch). Right now Democratic caucus in, say, Louisiana and Mississippi legislatures is majority-black, and there are considerable chances it will be almost "Black only" rather soon.
Just checked Texas, these are our white Democrats
of any kind (I left out the ones whose terms ended after this election, including the infamous Once and Future Governor Wendy Davis)...
Senate: (2 out of 31)
Kirk Watson (Austin)
John Whitmire (Houston)
House: (5 out of 150)
Donna Howard (Austin) -- standard issue urban white Austin liberal
Tracy King (Batesville) -- probably the closest you'll get these days: older white guy representing a rural area of West Texas that is fairly Hispanic but not monolithically so
Elliott Naishtat (Austin) -- Yankee transplant representing the People's Republic of Austin; no dice
Joe Pickett (El Paso) -- not Southern
Chris Turner (Grand Prairie) -- represents an ethnically diverse Dallas suburb
tl;dr There are no rural, white Southern Democrats in the Texas Legislature.
