Was 2006 the last hurrah was upper south Democrats?

[old timey villain]

In 2006, Dems did very well in the upper or peripheral regions of the south.

Phil Bredesen of Tennessee and Brad Henry of Oklahoma, both incumbents, won landslide reelections that year, and Mike Bebee of Arkansas picked up the seat vacated by Mike Huckabee. One year later Steve Beshear won his race in Kentucky by wide margins. Harold Ford Jr. came close to beating Bob Corker for the TN senate seat, and democrats held on to all of their seats in the region, and even picked up one in North Carolina.

Will we ever see Dems achieve the same success in that region of the country?

[freepcrusher]

In 2006, Dems did very well in the upper or peripheral regions of the south.

Phil Bredesen of Tennessee and Brad Henry of Oklahoma, both incumbents, won landslide reelections that year, and Mike Bebee of Arkansas picked up the seat vacated by Mike Huckabee. One year later Steve Beshear won his race in Kentucky by wide margins. Harold Ford Jr. came close to beating Bob Corker for the TN senate seat, and democrats held on to all of their seats in the region, and even picked up one in North Carolina.

Will we ever see Dems achieve the same success in that region of the country?

if another Clintonesque figure emerges, then possibly. Otherwise, NFW.

[old timey villain]

Oh, sorry about the title. I guess I shouldn't have made this thread right after getting home from the bar...

[Skill and Chance]

This is kind of a silly question when Obama just won VA twice and carried NC in 2008!  A D trifecta would even be plausible in VA sometime this decade under neutral maps.

[patd25]

In addition to NC, VA and FL, GA looks like it's in the range for a Democratic victory.

[HoosierPoliticalJunkie]

This should be renamed "Appalachian/Highlands South" or "inland South".  Obama does pretty well in the Atlantic coast part of the South relative to past Democrats.

[illegaloperation]

Nope. John Barrow of Georgia has a shot at the open senate seat if he runs.

[PJ]

KY, TN, AL, MS, LA, AR: Probably yes.

VA, NC, GA, SC, FL: No. I think FL, VA, and NC are fairly obvious. Based on current trends, Dems could extend all the way down the coast. This is pretty likely for GA, and I also added SC because of Stephen Colbert's sister.

[PJ]

I would actually like to change AR and LA to maybe because they still have 1 dem senator each.

KY, TN, AL, MS, LA, AR: Probably yes.

VA, NC, GA, SC, FL: No. I think FL, VA, and NC are fairly obvious. Based on current trends, Dems could extend all the way down the coast. This is pretty likely for GA, and I also added SC because of Stephen Colbert's sister.

[DS0816]

I think many in the states carried in the 1990s by Bill Clinton which rejected Barack Obama but would have gone for Hillary Clinton, had she instead been the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee, were motivated by racism. That's not a full 100 percent. But more than half.

The base states of both parties are the opposite of what they were in the late-1800s. So what made the maps for Barack Obama interesting is this: In the past a Democrat would have carried West Virginia and Arkansas but not Indiana. Obama did the opposite. Mitt Romney winning W.Va. and Ark. by margins exceeding 20 percentage points is bizarre … and clearly a new day in politics.

This Democratic party, which is not liberal, should be expanding the map and going after states presumed to be out of reach. One example is Montana.

[old timey villain]

Of course, when I talk about the upper south, I really don't mean Virginia or North Carolina. I'm talking more about the more rural states like Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and even Oklahoma, if you count that as the upper south. Clinton did well in all of these states but Obama did horribly. Yet in 2006, dems proved to be competitive in a lot of statewide races.

My guess is Bush. There were millions of registered Democrats and independents in these states that voted for Bush but weren't loyal Republicans in statewide elections. Once the s**t began to hit the fan in the Bush administration, Democratic candidates were given a foil that allowed them to successfully win over those Bush Democrats. But that all changed once Obama came into office. Republicans in those states were able to tie their Democratic opponents to Obama (or Nancy Pelosi) and the Dems lost the angle on independence that allowed them to run to the right of the national Democratic party.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Nah... the Democratic Party is still a big enough tent for a Clinton or a Gore to emerge. 

[TDAS04]

Nah... the Democratic Party is still a big enough tent for a Clinton or a Gore to emerge. 

Clinton maybe.  Gore?  That probably wouldn't help Democrats enough in to win the region; Gore lost AR/TN/KY/WV in 2000.  I don't see how WV would warm up that much to Mr. Global Warming now.  A Gore or Gore-like candidate would do better than Obama, but not enough to win any of the "Clinton-but-not-Obama" states.

[Beet]

I think he means Gore 1992, not Gore 2000.

In any case, it's no coincidence that 2006 was also the last pre-Obama election cycle. I believe it is still possible to speculate that the region will vote for Democrats when the face of the party is white.