After the 2008 elections, liberal bloggers chortled that the Republicans were becoming a “rump regional party” (the phrase became a cliché) that couldn’t compete outside the South. The 2010 midterms blew that theory out of the water, with GOP gubernatorial, senatorial, and House wins across the map. Now the front-runner for the party’s presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, is doing a feat that seemed even more improbable: building a big lead in the national race while performing poorly in southern states.
Yes, Romney won 60 percent in Virginia, but due to exigent listing requirements, he faced only Ron Paul on the ballot. Beyond the Old Dominion, he has put up disappointing-to-mediocre numbers in the states that made up the Confederacy: 28 percent in South Carolina, 28 percent in Tennessee, 26 percent in Georgia. He won Florida but lost most of its northern counties, the part of the state that is most southern in its culture. Most recently, Romney lost close races in Mississippi and Alabama, but in both states a fairly even split between Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich made Romney’s modest share of the vote look more impressive than it was.
Comments