Are Democrats On The Verge Of Vanishing In The South? A Look At How They're Performing With White Voters in 2014 Senate Contests

Come next month, the days when successful national Democrats were almost exclusively from the South may very well come to an end. Al Gore, left, and Bill Clinton, right, represent the last era of locally popular Southerners making the leap to the national stage.

The Democratic struggle to win over white voters was a well documented failure of the 2012 presidential election, in spite of their four point national popular vote win. Republican Mitt Romney carried whites by a 20-pt margin, a figure only exceeded by Ronald Reagan's landslide re-election in 1984.

But in the South, where a large number of heated 2014 Senate battles will be held in just five weeks, the white disdain for Democrats is even more pronounced.

Consider North Carolina, where Romney won nearly 70% of the white vote. Or Alabama, where he won 84%. Or Mississippi, where he carried roughly NINE in TEN whites! Even in tough years for Republicans, like 2008, they still perform stronger among white voters in the South, relative to how they do nationwide.

Given the large number of high-profile Southern senate races this Fall, I thought it might be interesting to check in on some of those GOP contenders, and compare how they're doing with white voters now to how other recent candidates performed.

Consider the Arkansas Senate race between Sen. Mark Pryor and Rep. Tom Cotton. In an average of polls taken since August (only those that provide racial demographic crosstabs), Cotton attracts 50% of white voters, while Pryor draws 36%. Though that margin surpasses Cotton's overall advantage over Pryor, it falls well short of McCain's 68% among Arkansas whites in 2008, and John Boozman's 65% in 2010. But the 2014 Pryor/Cotton race isn't comparable to those contests in the first place - it was never expected that Cotton would pull off a 20+ point victory.

Michelle Nunn Looks Strong In Early Georgia Senate Polling, But Beware of Undecided Romney Voters

State Legislator Jim Martin nearly rode Obama's coattails into office in 2008, holding Sen. Saxby Chambliss to just 49% of the vote. He subsequently lost the Dec 2, 2008 run-off, despite the support of hip-hop artists T.I., Young Jeezy, & Ludacris. No Democrat has won a statewide race for President, Senate, or Governor in Georgia since 2000. Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

If anyone familiar with recent presidential electoral history said they weren't a little surprised by the 2008 election results in Georgia, they're probably bluffing.

The only Deep South  state in the last 5 presidential elections to see a Democrat come within 5 points of a Republican would hardly be recognizable to the Georgia that re-elected George W. Bush by 17 points just eight and a half years ago.

Yet four years later, the McCain-Palin ticket earned a worryingly low 52% of the vote, while Obama-Biden nabbed 47%, the highest percentage for a Democrat in the Deep South since Bill Clinton's 52% Louisiana victory in 1996.

And again in 2012, the year that Republicans were supposed to take back the White House after four years of a sluggish economy, Romney's margin over Obama was much closer than GOP strategists would have liked (slightly less than 8 points), and far from an '04-like landslide. 

Though for all their recent success at the presidential level, Georgia Democrats remain in pretty rough shape statewide.

 In 12 statewide elections for President, Governor, or Senate since 2000, Democrats have won ONE (and that was in 2000).

But fortunately for likely 2014 Democratic Senate nominee Michelle Nunn, her father and former 24 year U.S. Senator Sam Nunn is one of the few Georgia Democrats that still carries any sort of considerable bipartisan clout, boasting a 50% favorable rating with Democrats, a 58% rating with Republicans, and 64% with Independents. And if recent PPP poll results are any indication, his daughter is making good use of his political capital.

Of the seven total candidates tested against Nunn in a hypothetical 2014 Senate race, the Democrat leads or ties ALL of them, earning between 40-42% of the total vote. Her Republican opponents garner between 35-41%.

So, you can see why Georgia Democrats might find reason to rejoice in the wake of PPP's latest release. With the sole exception of the 2008 Senate contest between Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin (pre-run-off, and in a wave year), Democrats really haven't come close to beating Republicans in statewide elections for 13 years.

So why were a few pundits quick to dismiss PPP's results on Wednesday?

2014 just happens to fall during Obama's second term, which historically speaking, has been VERY harsh to the incumbent President's party.

But more than that, as Real Clear Politics Senior Elections Analyst Sean Trende noted on Twitter, most of the undecided voters in the PPP poll are likely to lean to the GOP Senate candidate.

Consider the chart below, which highlights the percentage of poll respondents who said they were "not sure" regarding their 2014 Senate vote, broken down by 2012 presidential vote, party I.D., and ideological I.D.: