Why did Carter do so much worse in FL/TX in 1980 than other Southern states?

[Alben Barkley]

In 1980, Jimmy Carter only very narrowly lost most of the Southern states where he had defeated Gerald Ford four years earlier even as he lost to Ronald Reagan in a national landslide. Even Mississippi, which Carter had barely won before, was extremely close. Yet the swings against him were much larger in the two most populated Southern states, Florida and Texas. He lost both by double digits after winning them by 4 or 5 points in 1976.

Why?

[E-Dawg]

In 1980, Jimmy Carter only very narrowly lost most of the Southern states where he had defeated Gerald Ford four years earlier even as he lost to Ronald Reagan in a national landslide. Even Mississippi, which Carter had barely won before, was extremely close. Yet the swings against him were much larger in the two most populated Southern states, Florida and Texas. He lost both by double digits after winning them by 4 or 5 points in 1976.

Why?

I'm guessing it was because they were the most urbanized Southern states at the time and had a lesser African American population than the Deep South states. (correct me if I'm wrong)

[darklordoftech]

Texas is wealthy and full of oil and military factories and Florida has the Cuban Exiles.

[Alben Barkley]

Texas is wealthy and full of oil and military factories and Florida has the Cuban Exiles.

OK but Carter still won them both in 1976 and they shifted far more to the right than other Southern states that voted about the same or closer. The oil in Texas shouldn’t have really hurt him either considering the state actually prospered economically as a result of the oil crisis. Unless I guess they didn’t like how he was starting to adopt more clean energy policies and encouraging people to conserve? But that doesn’t explain a like 20 point lurch to the right.

Also while it’s true that lots of Cubans migrated to Florida around 1980, I doubt a lot of the new arrivals were voting citizens. Carter won Miami-Dade in 1976 and while it flipped in 1980, there were fewer raw votes there. Plus Carter seems to have taken a bigger hit in places like the Panhandle, the most culturally “Southern” part of the state. Doesn’t really make sense why it would swing so much farther right than, say, Alabama itself.

[Mr. Smith]

Reagan did a lot to court the White Evangelical Vote, and you have to remember West Texas is very much like The West rather than The South...and Carter lost The West resoundingly.

[Alben Barkley]

Reagan did a lot to court the White Evangelical Vote, and you have to remember West Texas is very much like The West rather than The South...and Carter lost The West resoundingly.

Reagan courting the evangelicals is indeed how he won most of the South, but still it was very close across the board except in these states. You're right that West Texas is more like the West, and it shifted right much harder than East Texas, where Carter still won a lot of counties. Also looking at Oklahoma, where Carter nearly won in 1976 but got shellacked in 1980, you can perhaps see more evidence of that shift regardless of exactly why it happened.

But that still doesn't explain Florida. I guess the fact that Florida already had a lot of Northern transplants making it less "Southern" probably was a factor. But still it is weird how some of even the more "Southern" parts of it seem to have swung harder than similar parts of the more purely "Southern" states.

[Motorcity]

Today, most people in Texas and Florida do not consider themselves southerners. They both have strong regional indentities

I suppose this was apperent by 1980.

[Podgy the Bear]

In addition to the above, the Reagan campaign specifically targeted FL and TX in 1980--sensible strategy, as these states were rich in electoral votes and Carter didn't win them by very much in 1976. 

The drops for Carter in the other Southern states (save MS) were fairly similar.  The white evangelical vote was a big reason here.  It's just that Carter won those states by sizable margins in 1976, and he narrowly lost them in 1980--didn't look as dramatic as his big losses in FL and TX.  I was living in Nashville at the time.  No one expected that Carter was going to lose TN (or the states around it)--they were thought to be his true base.

Mississippi is somewhat of an exception.  As noted, Carter won MS by a narrow margin in 1976, and he lost by a similar narrow margin in 1980.  In 1980, the reduced white vote for the Democrats was partially offset by an increased black vote in counties where the participation had previously been quite low.  Carter's vote and percentage in many of these counties actually went up.

[Arbitrage1980]

FL, TX, VA, were the first Southern states to get re-aligned to GOP, driven by post-WWII influx of northerners and midwesterners who were fiscally conservative. The GOP's initial Southern base was the major cities such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, as well as their respective booming suburbs. Contrary to the "Southern strategy" myth, rural southern whites did not consistently start voting GOP in down ballot until the 90s and early 00s.

FL was Reagan's strongest Southern state in both 1980 and 1984. It was HW Bush 1988's 2nd strongest Southern state after South Carolina. The South saw the smallest shift from 1984 to 1988 due to the Reagan re-alignment. Bush lost major ground in northeast, upper midwest, and west coast, relative to Reagan 1984.

[Alben Barkley]

FL, TX, VA, were the first Southern states to get re-aligned to GOP, driven by post-WWII influx of northerners and midwesterners who were fiscally conservative. The GOP's initial Southern base was the major cities such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, as well as their respective booming suburbs. Contrary to the "Southern strategy" myth, rural southern whites did not consistently start voting GOP in down ballot until the 90s and early 00s.

FL was Reagan's strongest Southern state in both 1980 and 1984. It was HW Bush 1988's 2nd strongest Southern state after South Carolina. The South saw the smallest shift from 1984 to 1988 due to the Reagan re-alignment. Bush lost major ground in northeast, upper midwest, and west coast, relative to Reagan 1984.

1. The Southern Strategy is not a myth. Go look at maps of 1964-1972 and then say again, with a straight face, that it is. (Never mind reading direct quotes from the Republican architects of the strategy who have openly explained exactly what they did, how, and why.) Carter’s subsequent unique appeal to the South was the last hurrah of Democratic strength in most of the South on the presidential level. And don’t move the goalposts to down ballot races. Nobody is talking about down ballot when they talk about the Southern Strategy and you know it. You’re conflating the two, seemingly deliberately, and selectively picking only what’s convenient to support your argument.

2. Even McGovern won the cities of Atlanta and Houston. Surrounding suburbs are another story; THAT was where the GOP strength in the South really was at this time. Not in the cities themselves. Yes, some rural areas took longer to move right, but with the exception of Carter and to a lesser extent Clinton, even most of them had started to consistently vote R on the presidential level post-Civil Rights Act. The ones that didn’t were either majority black counties (after more blacks were allowed to vote) or some ancestral D counties with few blacks. Otherwise the racial polarization in the South was already alive and well by this time.

[Arbitrage1980]

FL, TX, VA, were the first Southern states to get re-aligned to GOP, driven by post-WWII influx of northerners and midwesterners who were fiscally conservative. The GOP's initial Southern base was the major cities such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, as well as their respective booming suburbs. Contrary to the "Southern strategy" myth, rural southern whites did not consistently start voting GOP in down ballot until the 90s and early 00s.

FL was Reagan's strongest Southern state in both 1980 and 1984. It was HW Bush 1988's 2nd strongest Southern state after South Carolina. The South saw the smallest shift from 1984 to 1988 due to the Reagan re-alignment. Bush lost major ground in northeast, upper midwest, and west coast, relative to Reagan 1984.

1. The Southern Strategy is not a myth. Go look at maps of 1964-1972 and then say again, with a straight face, that it is. (Never mind reading direct quotes from the Republican architects of the strategy who have openly explained exactly what they did, how, and why.) Carter’s subsequent unique appeal to the South was the last hurrah of Democratic strength in most of the South on the presidential level. And don’t move the goalposts to down ballot races. Nobody is talking about down ballot when they talk about the Southern Strategy and you know it. You’re conflating the two, seemingly deliberately, and selectively picking only what’s convenient to support your argument.

2. Even McGovern won the cities of Atlanta and Houston. Surrounding suburbs are another story; THAT was where the GOP strength in the South really was at this time. Not in the cities themselves. Yes, some rural areas took longer to move right, but with the exception of Carter and to a lesser extent Clinton, even most of them had started to consistently vote R on the presidential level post-Civil Rights Act. The ones that didn’t were either majority black counties (after more blacks were allowed to vote) or some ancestral D counties with few blacks. Otherwise the racial polarization in the South was already alive and well by this time.

Eisenhower won FL, TX, VA, TN, KY, while Nixon 1960 won VA, KY, TN, FL. LBJ won the non-deep southern states. So 1964 was not the first election in which the GOP candidate won southern states. The flaw of the Southern Strategy story is that the South immediately flipped from Dem to GOP as soon as the civil rights act passed, due to southern white racism. That is not supported by data. Even in his 1980 defeat, Carter did very well with rural white southerners, who ostensibly would have been the most "racist" and resistant to civil rights.

[Mr. Smith]

FL, TX, VA, were the first Southern states to get re-aligned to GOP, driven by post-WWII influx of northerners and midwesterners who were fiscally conservative. The GOP's initial Southern base was the major cities such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, as well as their respective booming suburbs. Contrary to the "Southern strategy" myth, rural southern whites did not consistently start voting GOP in down ballot until the 90s and early 00s.

FL was Reagan's strongest Southern state in both 1980 and 1984. It was HW Bush 1988's 2nd strongest Southern state after South Carolina. The South saw the smallest shift from 1984 to 1988 due to the Reagan re-alignment. Bush lost major ground in northeast, upper midwest, and west coast, relative to Reagan 1984.

1. The Southern Strategy is not a myth. Go look at maps of 1964-1972 and then say again, with a straight face, that it is. (Never mind reading direct quotes from the Republican architects of the strategy who have openly explained exactly what they did, how, and why.) Carter’s subsequent unique appeal to the South was the last hurrah of Democratic strength in most of the South on the presidential level. And don’t move the goalposts to down ballot races. Nobody is talking about down ballot when they talk about the Southern Strategy and you know it. You’re conflating the two, seemingly deliberately, and selectively picking only what’s convenient to support your argument.

2. Even McGovern won the cities of Atlanta and Houston. Surrounding suburbs are another story; THAT was where the GOP strength in the South really was at this time. Not in the cities themselves. Yes, some rural areas took longer to move right, but with the exception of Carter and to a lesser extent Clinton, even most of them had started to consistently vote R on the presidential level post-Civil Rights Act. The ones that didn’t were either majority black counties (after more blacks were allowed to vote) or some ancestral D counties with few blacks. Otherwise the racial polarization in the South was already alive and well by this time.

Eisenhower won FL, TX, VA, TN, KY, while Nixon 1960 won VA, KY, TN, FL. LBJ won the non-deep southern states. So 1964 was not the first election in which the GOP candidate won southern states. The flaw of the Southern Strategy story is that the South immediately flipped from Dem to GOP as soon as the civil rights act passed, due to southern white racism. That is not supported by data. Even in his 1980 defeat, Carter did very well with rural white southerners, who ostensibly would have been the most "racist" and resistant to civil rights.

Unless perhaps the ostensible racists and most resistant were actually the suburbanites of The South, anyway.

[darklordoftech]

FL, TX, VA, were the first Southern states to get re-aligned to GOP, driven by post-WWII influx of northerners and midwesterners who were fiscally conservative. The GOP's initial Southern base was the major cities such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, as well as their respective booming suburbs. Contrary to the "Southern strategy" myth, rural southern whites did not consistently start voting GOP in down ballot until the 90s and early 00s.

FL was Reagan's strongest Southern state in both 1980 and 1984. It was HW Bush 1988's 2nd strongest Southern state after South Carolina. The South saw the smallest shift from 1984 to 1988 due to the Reagan re-alignment. Bush lost major ground in northeast, upper midwest, and west coast, relative to Reagan 1984.

1. The Southern Strategy is not a myth. Go look at maps of 1964-1972 and then say again, with a straight face, that it is. (Never mind reading direct quotes from the Republican architects of the strategy who have openly explained exactly what they did, how, and why.) Carter’s subsequent unique appeal to the South was the last hurrah of Democratic strength in most of the South on the presidential level. And don’t move the goalposts to down ballot races. Nobody is talking about down ballot when they talk about the Southern Strategy and you know it. You’re conflating the two, seemingly deliberately, and selectively picking only what’s convenient to support your argument.

2. Even McGovern won the cities of Atlanta and Houston. Surrounding suburbs are another story; THAT was where the GOP strength in the South really was at this time. Not in the cities themselves. Yes, some rural areas took longer to move right, but with the exception of Carter and to a lesser extent Clinton, even most of them had started to consistently vote R on the presidential level post-Civil Rights Act. The ones that didn’t were either majority black counties (after more blacks were allowed to vote) or some ancestral D counties with few blacks. Otherwise the racial polarization in the South was already alive and well by this time.

Eisenhower won FL, TX, VA, TN, KY, while Nixon 1960 won VA, KY, TN, FL. LBJ won the non-deep southern states. So 1964 was not the first election in which the GOP candidate won southern states. The flaw of the Southern Strategy story is that the South immediately flipped from Dem to GOP as soon as the civil rights act passed, due to southern white racism. That is not supported by data. Even in his 1980 defeat, Carter did very well with rural white southerners, who ostensibly would have been the most "racist" and resistant to civil rights.

Unless perhaps the ostensible racists and most resistant were actually the suburbanites of The South, anyway.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Jim Crow elite moved into the suburbs as soon as they were built.

[Schiff for Senate]

TX is explicable. Bush, the GOP's VP candidate, was a Texaan himself. Also, Carter was weak in the west (which I'd argue would include West Texas) on water issues.