Southern and non-Southern whites agreed on economic policy in 1956

Evidence

In matters of economic policy, there was remarkable consensus among whites in the South and elsewhere. We find no significant differences by region on job guarantees, tax cuts, the appropriate influence of big business and (somewhat surprising to us, given South- ern legislators’ support for the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act) labor unions, and the regulation of housing and utilities. — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 674

Categorization

• XREF: Key for mechanism test: shows Southern whites were not economically distinct before the trigger, so the racial-policy trigger explanation holds weight over polarization.