Southern whites opposed to integration were staunchly Democratic before 1964.

Evidence

Perhaps because of the Southern Manifesto, 1956 appears to be an extreme outlier, where white Southerners who wanted the government to involve themselves in school integration were also staunchly Democratic. Nor do we see a sharp drop in the Southern coefficient estimate between 1962 and 1964. Overall, however, we continue to see that in the pre-period, opposition to integration positively predicts Democratic identification in the South relative to elsewhere, and that this difference for the most part disappears in the post-period. — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 1333

Categorization

• XREF: Direct feed into the threatened-privilege thesis: privilege holders were mobilized Democrats BEFORE the precipitating event, then defected. — connects to: Racially conservative white Southerners abandoned Democratic identification after 1964. — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 1327; Racially conservative whites’ defection drove the Southern realignment; Civil-rights-era policy shifts drove southern whites into the Republican Party — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 105 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Racially conservative white Southerners abandoned Democratic identification after 1964. #expands (0.95) — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 1327
• Racially conservative whites’ defection drove the Southern realignment #expands (0.90)
• Civil-rights-era policy shifts drove southern whites into the Republican Party #expands (0.90) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 105
• Southern Democratic senators scored extremely high on authoritarianism. #corroborates (0.85)
• Historians still dispute whether race or economics drove white Southern exit from the Democrats. #qualifies (0.80) — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 49