Fuzzy Bear
Atlas Star
Posts: 25,937
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« on: May 22, 2016, 09:12:52 PM » |
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It's not really fair to say Reagan Democrats were all Southerners. Southern Democrats who voted Democratic in downballot races were part of Reagan's 1984 coalition, but it doesn't explain why New Jersey voted as Republican as Georgia in 1984.
Reagan won many white working-class votes in major cities in 1984 from voters who were culturally conservative, but registered Democrats at the "local level". The local level reached all the way down to Congressional races. Then, too, the parties were less ideological back then; lots of Democrats moderated their voting records to tailor them to their constituencies in ways that seem to be no longer tolerated.
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