The Nixon-Trump Southern Strategy Goes North: The Midwest, Race, and the 2020 Presidential Election

Donald Trump’s recent tweet telling Congresswomen  Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Pressley, and Omar  (all female and people of color) to leave the country is the most recent example of his effort to take Richard Nixon’s old southern strategy and apply it to the Midwest.  Trump is betting that it will work as effectively in 2020 as did it work for Nixon in 1968.  Whether it does, tells us a lot about where the US is today in terms of race relations.

Consider some American history.  From the US Civil War until the 1960s political scientists such as V.O. Key refer to the “Solid South.”   Republican Party opposed slavery and Democrats resisted civil rights.  The result was that the US South voted consistently for Democrats at all levels of office, but especially for president.  The south was a mainstay for the Democratic Party.

But beginning in the 1960s the Solid South cracked, and it did so over civil rights.  First it was the 1954 Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision that demanded integrated schools.  Then it was President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the 1964 Civil Rights bill (and where he reputedly declared that with the signing of the bill the Democrats had lost the south for the rest of the century).  These two events launched a chain reaction of events. In 1963  George Wallace inaugurated his Alabama governorship by declaring “"segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," and he mounted his 1968 presidential campaign on opposition to civil rights.

While never as overtly racist as Wallace, Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign centered on race.  Nixon ran as a law and order, war on drugs, get tough on crime president.  Given the unrest in urban cores in the US and the civil rights demonstrations, these phrases of Nixon were code words for race.  The strategy worked–Nixon won, and he did so by winning several southern states no Republican had secured in 100 years.

The Republican Southern strategy of appealing to race and white conservatism was well described by Kevin Phillips, the architect of Nixon’s 1968 campaign and author of the 1969 The Emerging Republican Majority.  It described a majority of white working class American who in reaction to civil rights and cultural progressivism, would break away from the Democrats and vote Republican.
Largely the strategy worked.  Subsequent Republicans appealed to race and also to economic insecurities and anxieties to move working class Democrats over.  At first they were called “Reagan  Democrats, then perhaps Tea Parties, then perhaps now Trump Democrats.  Race was covert in moving them.  But sometimes, such as in the presidential race between George  H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, race was overt.  In that campaign the “Willie Horton” ads depicted a Black felon who had raped and murdered a woman.  Polls and evidence suggested these ads were decisive in helping Bush win by peeling off white voters from the Democrats.  All this was part of the Republican Southern Strategy.

And it worked.  By the mid 1990s Democrats had all but disappeared from the South at all levels of office.  The solid south was now a Republican south.

Enter Donald Trump.  His 2016 presidential campaign was famous for at least two points.  One, it appealed to the economic and racial anxiety of white working class America.  Two, it was a Midwest strategy.  Attacks on Mexicans and immigrants as rapists, drug smugglers, and criminals who take American jobs and collect welfare were a mainstay of his 2016 campaign. No surprise that such rhetoric appealed to many southern whites, but what surprised many was its success in appealing to working class whites in the Midwest.    These were individuals who had seen their coal mine, auto, or steel plants disappear.  Trump offered an answer–it was immigration, immigrants, and off-shoring of jobs that was to blame.  Bringing back coal was less about really bringing back coal than it was code word for race.  And it worked.  Trump split the Midwest–one described as a firewall for Democrats, by winning all the states there except for Illinois and Minnesota.

What Trump did in 2016 was to take Nixon’s Southern Strategy that split the Solid South  in 1968 and use it in the Midwest to break the Democrats’ firewall.  Only now for 2020, the rhetoric  is more explicit–it looks more like George Wallace than Richard Nixon.  Attacking Representatives  Congresswomen  Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Pressley, and Omar was explicitly and outwardly racist.  The House of Representatives will condemn it, the media will attack it, many Republicans will renounce it.  But it may work as an effective 2020 strategy, further motivating Trump’s base to show up and vote.

Longer term the Trump’s Southern Strategy in the Midwest will fail.  Demographic trends  point to working class whites as a decreasing percentage of the electorate each year.  But right now this group is still the largest voting bloc in America.  For Trump to win in 2020 he needs the Midwest, but he needs his base to come out to vote in even greater percentages than in 2016.  Were he to win in 2020 it suggests that America is not yet “post-racial.” that large chucks of the American electorate still resonates to racial cues, and that Nixon’s 1968 Southern Strategy is not dead but has shifted to the Midwest.

Hillary Clinton’s Southern Strategy

If ever there were a state perfect for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run it was South Carolina.  In fact, looking forward to Super Tuesday, it is a demographic well suited for her.  It is a repeat of Nixon’s 1968 southern strategy, but with a twist.  And that may be a problem for both her and Sanders.

Much has been made of the fact that Iowa and New Hampshire were demographically perfect states for Sanders in that they were heavily white.  Sanders has struggled to break through to people of color, more so with African-Americans than Hispanics, because his message has been more about class than necessarily about race and sees the politics of rich and poor as the defining force uniting the party and his coalition.  Clinton has made her campaign that of unity via identity politics, drawing heavily upon the current coalition of forces that define the Democratic Party and which elected Obama in 2008.  Sanders is challenging that coalition, seeking to build a different one that refines the party along generations and class.

It is no surprise that Clinton did well in South Carolina.  It is a state Democratic Party heavily African-American and relatively conservative.   A perfect demographic for Clinton.  Sanders failed to make many inroads into the African-American community and largely also fell flat with  young people and college students who did not show up.  This is something for him to worry about in the future.

But looking at Super Tuesday Clinton should do well in the Southern states of Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. They look more like SC than they differ.  But Sanders also has his states of Colorado, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Minnesota.  The point is that there is a real possibility that both Clinton and Sanders will do well where they are expected to do so, failing where one would also assume so.  But overall, Super Tuesday’s demographics favor Clinton.

In some ways the Clinton strategy is a twist on the Nixon southern strategy, or on challenging the notion that Democrats no long can win in the south.  Yes Clinton will do well in southern primary states, but there is no evidence that she will do well there in a general election.  Her husband had mixed success in the south in 1992 and 1996 and 20 years later, it is even less likely that the south will vote Democratic in a presidential election, especially for Clinton.  White conservative southerners are probably not going to vote for her no matter what.  Thus, Clinton is doing well in states where the Democrats probably will not win or even challenge as a rule during the 2016 general election.  Winning the south does little except to rack up delegates to  get the nomination.  As I constantly point out, the issue is how (Democratic) candidates do in swing states among swing voters compared  to Republicans.

This is important because the race for the Democratic nomination is far from over, even after this Tuesday.  Clinton has some of her best states up front here and if Sanders can survive the demographics look better.  However, and this is the challenge–he does need to figure out how to reach out to people of color much in the same way that Clinton needs to reach out to liberals and to young people.  Neither of them can win the presidency without making a credible move to winning over half of the Democratic Party.  So much has been written about how divided or torn up the Republican Party is, but Clinton and Sanders too are showing a powerful demographic split within their party.  But more importantly, both need to reach out to the swing voters, and here there is some evidence that Sanders does better based on the first four contests.

Neither candidate can assume that the supporters of the other will just naturally come along and vote for them if the others get the nomination.  This is a bigger problem for Clinton.  Those supporting Sanders are either less likely to vote if she get the nomination, or they are independents, with whom Clinton has a difficult time, especially in the critical swing states.  Conversely, Sanders were he to get the nomination, would perhaps benefit from the fact that older persons are more likely to vote and that people of color are solid supporters of Democratic candidate in general elections, and would probably be unlikely to vote for any Republican.  But as we know, turnout among people of color  is often a problem, and it is not clear how well he can motivate them to vote.

Overall, Clinton did exceptionally well in SC and should also do well in pursuing her southern strategy, but it is not clear that such a strategy is a winning one for the 2016 election.