Editing Dixiecrat

{{Short description|1948 U.S. segregationist political party}}
{{About|the American political party established in 1948|the post-Reconstruction southern Democratic Party|Solid South}}
{{protection padlock|small=yes}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2022}}
{{Infobox political party
| logo             = States' Rights Democratic Logo.jpg
| name             = States' Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrats)
| foundation       = July 17, 1948
| ideology         = {{plainlist|
*[[White supremacy]]
*[[Racial segregation in the United States|Segregationism]]<ref>{{cite web |last=Lind |first=Michael |date=1995-06-18 |title=The Southern Coup |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/73253/the-southern-coup |website=Newrepublic.com |publisher=The New Republic |access-date=2025-02-06 |quote=Strom Thurmond, the 1948 presidential candidateof the segregationist States' Rights Party, the so-called Dixiecrats…}}</ref>
*[[States' rights]]
*[[Conservatism]]
}}
| country          = the United States
| party logo       = 
| dissolution      = November 1948
| colors           = Red, white, blue (official){{cn|date=May 2025}}<br>{{color box|#3333FF}} Blue (de facto)
| split            = [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]]
| merged           = {{plainlist|
*[[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]]
*[[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]]
}}
| flag_title       = Party flag (''de facto'')<ref name="PBSNewsHour1">{{citation|author1-last=Costa-Roberts|author1-first=Daniel|title=8 things you didn't know about the Confederate flag|url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/8-things-didnt-know-confederate-flag|date=2015-06-21 <!--15:17 EDT-->|website=[[PBS NewsHour]] website|access-date=2022-09-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220907204938/https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/8-things-didnt-know-confederate-flag|archive-date=2022-09-07|url-status=live|language=en-US|quote=In 1948, the newly-formed segregationist Dixiecrat party adopted the flag as a symbol of resistance to the federal government.}}</ref><ref name="NPR1">{{citation|author1-last=Taylor|author1-first=Jessica|title=The Complicated Political History Of The Confederate Flag|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/22/416548613/the-complicated-political-history-of-the-confederate-flag|date=2015-06-22 <!--18:19 ET-->|website=[[NPR]] website|access-date=2022-09-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125152506/https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/22/416548613/the-complicated-political-history-of-the-confederate-flag|archive-date=2022-01-25|url-status=live|language=en-US|quote=After the war ended, the symbol became a source of Southern pride and heritage, as well as a remembrance of Confederate soldiers who died in battle. But as racism and segregation gripped the nation in the century following, it became a divisive and violent emblem of the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist groups. It was also the symbol of the States' Rights Democratic Party, or "Dixiecrats," that formed in 1948 to oppose civil-rights platforms of the Democratic Party.}}</ref>{{Sfn|Frederickson|2001|pp=173–174|ps=The adoption of the flag as the unofficial party symbol sparked considerable debate. Ralph McGill spoke out against southerners who “prostitute the Confederate Flag and the song ‘Dixie’ to their own uses.”}}
| position         = [[Far-right]]<ref>{{cite news |last=Huntington |first=John S. |date=2021-10-13 |title=Manipulating elections is a conservative tradition |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/13/manipulating-elections-is-conservative-tradition/ |newspaper=Washington Post |access-date=2025-03-06 |quote=After storming out of the convention, Southern Democrats formed their own far-right splinter faction, the States’ Rights Democratic Party, better known as the Dixiecrats, which became a third-party vehicle for opposing President Harry S. Truman, integration and modern liberalism in general.}}</ref>
| flag             = Battle flag of the Confederate States of America (3-5).svg
| flag_alt         = The Confederate battle flag: a blue saltire with white stars, bordered in white, on a red field.
| colorcode        = #C13649
| leader           = [[Strom Thurmond]]
}}
<!-- Do not add "political position" or "conservative/liberal" per repeated consensus on talkpage.-->

The '''States' Rights Democratic Party''' (whose members are often called the '''Dixiecrats'''), also colloquially referred to as the '''Dixiecrat Party''', was a short-lived [[Racial segregation|segregationist]], [[States' rights|States' Rights]], and [[Southern Democrats|old southern democratic political party]] in the United States, active primarily in [[Southern United States|the South]]. It arose due to a Southern regional split in opposition to the national [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]]. After President [[Harry S. Truman]], the leader of the Democratic Party, ordered [[racial integration|integration]] of the military in 1948 and other actions to address civil rights of [[African Americans]], including the first presidential proposal for comprehensive civil and voting rights, many Southern white politicians who objected to this course organized themselves as a breakaway faction. They wished to protect [[states' rights|the ability of states]] to decide on [[racial segregation in the United States|racial segregation]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lemmon |first1=Sarah McCulloh |date=December 1951 |title=The Ideology of the 'Dixiecrat' Movement |journal=Social Forces |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=162–71 |doi=10.2307/2571628 |jstor=2571628}}</ref> Its members were referred to as "Dixiecrats", a [[portmanteau]] of "[[Dixie]]", referring to the [[Southern United States]], and "Democrat".

In the 1930s, a [[political realignment]] occurred largely due to the [[New Deal]] policies of President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]. While many Democrats in the South supported substantive [[Economic interventionism|economic intervention]], civil rights for African Americans were not specifically incorporated within the New Deal agenda, due in part to Southern control over many key positions of power within the U.S. Congress.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Lung-Amam |first=Willow |date=2021-01-18 |title=The Next New Deal Must Be for Black Americans, Too |language=en |work=[[Bloomberg News]] |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-18/the-next-new-deal-must-be-for-black-americans-too |access-date=2023-02-17}}</ref> Supporters assumed control of the state Democratic parties in part or in full in several Southern states. They opposed [[racial integration]] and wanted to retain [[Jim Crow law]]s and other aspects of ''de jure'' and ''de facto'' racial discrimination. On non-racial issues, they held heterogeneous beliefs. Despite the Dixiecrats' success in several states, Truman was narrowly re-elected. After the [[1948 United States presidential election|1948 election]], its leaders generally returned to the Democratic Party, at least for a time, although the Dixiecrats weakened Democratic identity among white Southerners.  The Dixiecrats' standard bearer, Senator [[Strom Thurmond]] of South Carolina, eventually switched to the Republican Party in 1964, in opposition to national civil rights legislation.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bibby|first1=John F.|last2=Maisel|first2=L. Sandy|author-link2=L. Sandy Maisel|title=Two Parties—Or More?: The American Party System|year=1998|publisher=[[Westview Press]]}|isbn=978-0-8133-9993-5|page=35|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5_sRAQAAMAAJ|access-date=24 April 2023|language=en}}</ref>

== Background (1865–1948) ==
{{conservatism US|parties}}
[[File:Map of USA Deep South.svg|thumb|left|300px|The states in dark red compose the Deep South today. Adjoining areas of [[East Texas]], [[West Tennessee]], and [[North Florida]] are also considered part of this subregion. Historically, each of these states were in the [[Confederate States of America]].]]

Since the beginning of Reconstruction, Southern white voters supported the [[History of the United States Democratic Party|Democratic Party]] by overwhelming margins in both local and national elections, (the few exceptions include minor pockets of [[History of the United States Republican Party|Republican]] electoral strength in [[Appalachia]], [[East Tennessee]] in particular, [[Gillespie County, Texas|Gillespie]] and [[Kendall County, Texas|Kendall Counties]] of central Texas) forming what was known as the "[[Solid South]]". Even during the last years of [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]], Democrats used paramilitary insurgents and other activists to disrupt and intimidate Republican [[freedman]] voters, including fraud at the polls and attacks on their leaders. The electoral violence culminated in the Democrats regaining control of the state legislatures and passing new constitutions and laws from 1890 to 1908 to [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchise most blacks]] and many poor whites. They also imposed [[Jim Crow]], a combination of legal and informal segregation acts that made blacks second-class citizens, confirming their lack of political power through most of the southern United States. The social and economic systems of the Solid South were based on this structure, although the white Democrats retained all the Congressional seats apportioned for the total population of their states.{{Sfn|Perman|2009|loc=part 4}} Three-time Democratic Party presidential candidate [[William Jennings Bryan]] opposed a highly controversial resolution at the [[1924 Democratic National Convention]] condemning the [[Ku Klux Klan]], expecting the organization would soon fold. Bryan disliked the Klan but never publicly attacked it.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Coletta |first1=Paolo Enrico |title=William Jennings Bryan: 1915-1925. Political puritan. 3 |date=1969 |pages=162, 177, 184 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1D_uzQEACAAJ |access-date=25 April 2023 |language=en}}</ref>

In the 1930s, a [[political realignment]] occurred largely due to the [[New Deal]] policies of President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]. While many Democrats in the South had shifted toward favoring [[Economic interventionism|economic intervention]], civil rights for African Americans was not specifically incorporated within the New Deal agenda, due in part to Southern control over many key positions of power within the U.S. Congress. Nonetheless, civil rights gained an outspoken champion in First Lady [[Eleanor Roosevelt]], and supportive approaches from the administration's "[[Black Cabinet]]".<ref name=":0" />

[[File:DemocraticSolidSouth 1876-1964.png|thumb|left|270px|"[[Solid South]]": [[Arkansas]] voted Democratic in all 23 presidential elections from 1876 through 1964; other states were not quite as solid but generally supported Democrats for president.]]

With the entry of the United States into the Second World War, Jim Crow was indirectly challenged. More than one and a half million black Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II,<ref>{{Cite web |title=African American Service Men and Women in World War II |url=https://wwii.lib.ku.edu/background}}</ref> where they received equal pay while serving within segregated units. (While equally entitled to receive veterans' benefits after the war, the vast majority of African American veterans were prevented from accessing most benefits due in part to Southern success in Congress to have benefits administered by the states instead of the federal government.)<ref>{{Cite web |last=Blakemore |first=Erin |date=April 20, 2021 |title=How the GI Bill's Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans |url=https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits |access-date=March 5, 2023 |website=History.com}}</ref> Tens of thousands of black civilians at home were recruited in the labor-starved war industries across many urban centers in the country, mainly due to the promotion of [[Executive Order 8802]], which required defense industries not to discriminate based on ethnicity or race.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Equality |first1=Congress of Racial |last2=Committee |first2=Fair Employment Practices |last3=Robinson |first3=Jackie |last4=Randolph |first4=A. Phillip |last5=Ogata |first5=Kenje |last6=Ross |first6=Ellis |last7=Albertin |first7=Walter |last8=White |first8=Walter |last9=Houser |first9=George |date=2014-10-10 |title=World War II and Post War (1940–1949) - The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom {{!}} Exhibitions - Library of Congress |url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/world-war-ii-and-post-war.html |access-date=2023-05-06 |website=www.loc.gov |language=en}}</ref>

Members of the Republican Party (which nominated [[Governor of New York]] [[Thomas E. Dewey]] in 1944 and 1948), along with many Democrats from the northern and western states, supported civil rights legislation that the [[Deep South]] Democrats in Congress almost unanimously opposed.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Glenn |last=Feldman |title=Southern Disillusionment with the Democratic Party: Cultural Conformity and 'the Great Melding' of Racial and Economic Conservatism in Alabama during World War II |journal=Journal of American Studies |date=August 2009 |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=199–30 |doi=10.1017/S0021875809990028|s2cid=145634908 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |first=Simon |last=Topping |title='Never Argue with the Gallup Poll': Thomas Dewey, Civil Rights and the Election of 1948 |journal=Journal of American Studies |year=2004 |volume=38 |issue=2 |pages=179–98 |doi=10.1017/S0021875804008400 |jstor=27557513|doi-access=free}}</ref> Southern Democratic ideology on non-racial issues was heterogeneous.<ref>{{Cite news |date=January 6, 2012 |title=Letters on the Republicans |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/newsbook/2012/01/06/letters-on-the-republicans |access-date=2023-08-21 |issn=0013-0613}}</ref> Some such as [[Fielding L. Wright]] supported the tenets of the [[New Deal]], others such as [[Harry F. Byrd]] joined the [[conservative coalition]].<ref name=":0" /> The Dixiecrats' presidential candidate, [[Strom Thurmond]], became a [[GOP|Republican]] in 1964, as the Republican standard bearer opposed civil rights laws. The Dixiecrats represented the weakening of the "[[Solid South]]". (This referred to the Southern Democratic Party's control of presidential elections in the South and most seats in Congress, partly through decades of [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disfranchisement of blacks]] entrenched by Southern state legislatures between 1890 and 1908.) The Republicans of the [[lily-white movement]] in the South also turned against blacks. Blacks had formerly been aligned with the [[History of the United States Republican Party|Republican Party]] before being excluded from politics in the region, but during the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] African Americans had found the Democratic Party in the North, West and the national Democratic party more suited to their interests.{{Sfn|Frederickson|2001|p=238}}

==1948 presidential election==
{{main|1948 United States presidential election}}
After Roosevelt died, the new president [[Harry S. Truman]] established a highly visible [[President's Committee on Civil Rights]] and issued [[Executive Order 9981]] to end discrimination in the military in 1948. A group of Southern governors, including [[Strom Thurmond]] of South Carolina and [[Fielding L. Wright]] of Mississippi, met to consider the place of Southerners within the Democratic Party. After a tense meeting with [[Democratic National Committee]] (DNC) chairman and Truman confidant [[J. Howard McGrath]], the Southern governors agreed to convene their own convention in [[Birmingham, Alabama]] if Truman and civil rights supporters emerged victorious at the [[1948 Democratic National Convention]].<ref name="donaldson">{{cite book |last1=Donaldson |first1=Gary |title=Truman Defeats Dewey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_w_VBgcj7scC&q=%22fielding+wright%22+1948 |publisher=[[University Press of Kentucky]] |date=2000 |pages=118–122 |isbn=9780813128511 |access-date=8 October 2015}}</ref> In July, the convention nominated Truman to run for a full term and adopted a plank proposed by Northern liberals led by [[Hubert Humphrey]] calling for civil rights; 35 Southern delegates walked out. The move was on to remove Truman's name from the ballot in the southern United States. This political maneuvering required the organization of a new and distinct political party, which the Southern defectors from the Democratic Party chose to brand as the States' Rights Democratic Party.

Just days after the 1948 Democratic National Convention, the States' Rights Democrats held their own convention at [[Boutwell Memorial Auditorium|Municipal Auditorium]] in Birmingham, on July 17.<ref>{{cite journal |first=J. Barton |last=Starr |title=Birmingham and the 'Dixiecrat' Convention of 1948 |journal=Alabama Historical Quarterly |year=1970 |volume=32 |issue=1–2 |pages=23–50}}</ref> While several leaders from the [[Deep South]] such as Strom Thurmond and [[James Eastland]] attended, most major Southern Democrats did not attend the conference.<ref name="frederickson" /> Among those absent were Georgia Senator [[Richard Russell Jr.]], who had finished with the second-most delegates in the Democratic presidential ballot.<ref name="frederickson">{{cite book |last1=Frederickson |first1=Kari |title=The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_Y0MCgAAQBAJ&q=dixiecrat+1948+convention |publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]] |date=14 January 2003 |pages=135–142 |isbn=9780807875445 |access-date=7 October 2015}}</ref>

[[File:ElectoralCollege1948.svg|thumb|450px|1948 electoral votes by state. The Dixiecrats carried Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, and received one additional electoral vote in [[Tennessee]] (colored in orange). States in blue voted for Democrats [[Harry S. Truman]] and [[Alben W. Barkley]]; those in red voted for Republicans [[Thomas E. Dewey]] and [[Earl Warren]].]]
Prior to their own States' Rights Democratic Party convention, it was not clear whether the Dixiecrats would seek to field their own candidate or simply try to prevent Southern electors from voting for Truman.<ref name=frederickson/> Many in the press predicted that if the Dixiecrats did nominate a ticket, [[Arkansas]] Governor [[Benjamin Travis Laney]] would be the presidential nominee, and South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond or Mississippi Governor [[Fielding L. Wright]] the vice presidential nominee.<ref name=frederickson/> Laney traveled to Birmingham during the convention, but he ultimately decided that he did not want to join a third party and remained in his hotel during the convention.<ref name=frederickson/> Thurmond himself had doubts about a third-party bid, but party organizers convinced him to accept the party's nomination, with Fielding Wright as his running mate.<ref name=frederickson/> Wright's supporters had hoped that Wright would lead the ticket, but Wright deferred to Thurmond, who had greater national stature.<ref name=frederickson/> The selection of Thurmond received fairly positive reviews from the national press, as Thurmond had pursued relatively moderate policies on civil rights and did not employ the fiery rhetoric used by other segregationist leaders.{{Sfn|Frederickson|2001|p=143}}

The States' Rights Democrats did not formally declare themselves as being a new third party, but rather said that they were only "recommending" that state Democratic Parties vote for the Thurmond–Wright ticket.<ref name=frederickson/> The goal of the party was to win the 127 electoral votes of the Solid South, in the hopes of denying Truman–Barkley or Dewey–Warren an overall majority of electoral votes, and thus throwing the presidential election to the [[United States House of Representatives]] and the vice presidential election to the [[United States Senate]].<ref name=frederickson/> Once in the House and Senate, the Dixiecrats hoped to throw their support to whichever party would agree to their segregationist demands.<ref name=frederickson/> Even if the Republican ticket won an outright majority of electoral votes (as many expected in 1948), the Dixiecrats hoped that their third-party run would help the South retake its dominant position in the Democratic Party.<ref name=frederickson/> In implementing their strategy, the States' Rights Democrats faced a complicated set of state election laws, with different states having different processes for choosing [[United States Electoral College|presidential electors]].<ref name=frederickson/> The States' Rights Democrats eventually succeeded in making the Thurmond–Wright ticket the official Democratic ticket in [[Alabama]], [[Louisiana]], [[Mississippi]], and [[South Carolina]].{{Sfn|Frederickson|2001|pp=145–147}} In other states, they were forced to run as a third-party ticket.{{Sfn|Frederickson|2001|pp=145–147}}

In numbers greater than the 6,000 that attended the first, the States' Rights Democrats held a boisterous second convention in [[Oklahoma City]], on August 14, 1948,{{Sfn|Frederickson|2001|pp=133–147}} where they adopted their party platform which stated:<ref name=platform>{{cite web |url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25851#axzz1iGn93BZz |title=Platform of the States Rights Democratic Party, August 14, 1948 |work=Political Party Platforms, Parties Receiving Electoral Votes: 1840-2004 |publisher=The American Presidency Project |access-date=January 1, 2012}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race; the constitutional right to choose one's associates; to accept private employment without governmental interference, and to earn one's living in any lawful way. We oppose the elimination of segregation, the repeal of [[anti-miscegenation laws|miscegenation statutes]], the control of private employment by Federal bureaucrats called for by the misnamed civil rights program. We favor home-rule, local self-government and a minimum interference with individual rights.}}

The platform went on to say:<ref name=platform/>

{{Blockquote|We call upon all Democrats and upon all other loyal Americans who are opposed to totalitarianism at home and abroad to unite with us in ignominiously defeating Harry S. Truman, Thomas E. Dewey and every other candidate for public office who would establish a Police Nation in the United States of America.}}

In Arkansas, Democratic gubernatorial nominee [[Sid McMath]] vigorously supported Truman in speeches across the state, much to the consternation of the sitting governor, Benjamin Travis Laney, an ardent Thurmond supporter. Laney later used McMath's pro-Truman stance against him in the 1950 gubernatorial election, but McMath won re-election handily.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Tribble |first1=Riley |title=A Term Denied: The Election Campaigns of Gov. Sid McMath through the Eyes of the Arkansas Gazette |url=https://uca.edu/cahss/files/2020/07/Tribble-CLA-2018.pdf |website=University of Central Arkansas — UCA |access-date=25 April 2023}}</ref> Efforts by States' Rights Democrats to paint other Truman loyalists as turncoats generally failed, although the seeds of discontent were planted which in years to come took their toll on Southern moderates. On election day in 1948, the Thurmond–Wright ticket carried the previously solidly Democratic states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, receiving 1,169,021 popular votes and 39 [[United States Electoral College|electoral]] votes. [[Progressive Party (United States, 1948)|Progressive Party]] presidential nominee [[Henry A. Wallace]] drew off a nearly equal number of popular votes (1,157,172) from the Democrats' left wing, although he did not carry any states. The splits in the Democratic Party in the 1948 election had been expected to produce a victory by GOP presidential nominee Dewey, but Truman defeated Dewey in an upset victory.

== Subsequent elections ==
The States' Rights Democratic Party collapsed after the 1948 election, as Truman, the Democratic National Committee, and the New Deal Southern Democrats acted to ensure that the Dixiecrat movement would not return in the [[1952 United States presidential election|1952 presidential election]]. Some Southern political figures, such as [[Leander Perez]] of Louisiana, attempted to keep it in existence in their districts.<ref>Glen Jeansonne, ''Leander Perez: Boss of the Delta'' (Jackson, MS:University Press of Mississippi, 1977) pp. 185-189.</ref> Wright continued to defend racial segregation, but conceded that complete obstinance along the lines of the 1948 departure from the Democratic Party would cause his home state of Mississippi to lose "its standing with everybody in America."{{sfn|Smith|2019|pp=77–78}} Former Dixiecrats received some backlash at the [[1952 Democratic National Convention]], but all Southern delegations were seated after agreeing to a party loyalty pledge.<ref name="white">{{cite news |last1=White |first1=William S. |date=25 July 1952 |title=Democrats Vote Today; Southerners Seated; Truman Puts His Support Behind Stevenson |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/520725convention-dem-ra.html |access-date=2022-07-20}}</ref> Segregationist Alabama Senator [[John Sparkman]] was selected as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1952, helping to boost party loyalty in the South.<ref name="white" />

=== Legacy ===
The Dixiecrats are considered to have begun the weakening of the Democratic Solid South.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Cohn |first=Nate |date=2014-12-04 |title=Demise of the Southern Democrat Is Now Nearly Complete |language=en |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/upshot/demise-of-the-southern-democrat-is-now-nearly-compete.html |access-date=2023-08-21}}</ref>

Regardless of the power struggle within the Democratic Party concerning segregation policy, the South remained a strongly Democratic voting bloc for local, state, and federal Congressional elections, but increasingly not in presidential elections. Republican [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] won several Southern states in the [[1952 United States presidential election|1952]] and [[1956 United States presidential election|1956 presidential election]]s. In the 1956 election, former [[Commissioner of Internal Revenue]] [[T. Coleman Andrews]] received just under 0.2 percent of the popular vote running as the presidential nominee of the States' Rights Party.<ref name="uselectionatlas">{{cite web |title=1956 Presidential General Election Results |url=http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1956&minper=0&f=0&off=0&elect=0 |access-date=25 April 2023}}</ref> In the [[1960 United States presidential election|1960 presidential election]], Republican [[Richard Nixon]] won several Southern states, and Senator [[Harry F. Byrd]] of Virginia received the votes of several [[unpledged electors]] from Alabama and Mississippi. In the [[1964 United States presidential election|1964 presidential election]], Republican [[Barry Goldwater]] won all four states that Thurmond had carried in 1948. In the [[1968 United States presidential election|1968 presidential election]], Republican [[Richard Nixon]] or third-party candidate [[George Wallace]] won every former Confederate state except Texas. Thurmond eventually left the Democratic Party and joined the Republican Party in 1964, charging the Democrats with having "abandoned the people" and having repudiated the [[Constitution of the United States|U.S. Constitution]]; he subsequently worked on the [[Barry Goldwater 1964 presidential campaign|presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=1964-09-17 |title=Thurmond Break is Made Official; He Will Work as Republican for Goldwater Election |language=en-US |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/17/archives/thurmond-break-is-made-official-he-will-work-as-republican-for.html |access-date= |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Within the next few decades, a realignment took place whereby most conservatives (economic, cultural, and racial conservatives included) migrated to the Republican Party, with liberals on the same issues going to the Democrats, resulting in more heterogenous national platforms. The Southern states subsequently shifted over time to voting mainly Republican, with the Northeast switching to voting mainly Democratic.

By the early 2010s, statistician and political analyst [[Nate Cohn]] wrote of the "demise of the Southern Democrat".<ref name=":1" />

== Presidential candidate performance ==
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center"
|-
! Year
! [[President of the United States|Presidential candidate]]
! [[Vice President of the United States|VP]]
!  Popular votes
!  Percentage
! [[Electoral College (United States)|Electoral votes]]
|-
| [[1948 United States presidential election|1948]] || [[File:Strom Thurmond, c 1961 (cropped).jpg|80px]]<br>[[Strom Thurmond]] || [[File:Fielding L. Wright, 1948.jpg|80px]]<br>[[Fielding L. Wright]]
| style="text-align:right"| 1,175,930 (3rd) || 2.4%   || 39
|}

==See also==
* [[Boll weevil (politics)]]
* [[Filibustering]]
* [[Politics of the Southern United States]]
* [[Southern Democrats]]

==Footnotes==
{{Reflist|2}}

== Works cited ==
* {{cite journal| last = Smith| first = James Patterson| title = Fielding L. Wright (1946-1952): Legacy of a White-Supremacist Progressive| journal = The Journal of Mississippi History| volume = LXXXI| issue = 1–2| pages = 61–80| date = 2019| url = https://www.mississippihistory.org/sites/default/files/spring_summer_2019_final.pdf| issn = 0022-2771}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin}}
*{{cite book |last1=Bass |first1=Jack |author-link=Jack Bass |last2=Thompson |first2=Marilyn W. |author2-link=Marilyn W. Thompson |title=Strom: The Complicated Personal and Political Life of Strom Thurmond |date=27 June 2006 |publisher=PublicAffairs |isbn=978-1-58648-392-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aNxyswEACAAJ |access-date=25 April 2023 |language=en}}
*{{cite book |last1=Black |first1=Earl |title=Politics and society in the South |date=1987 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Mass. |isbn=978-0674689596 }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Buchanan |first1=Scott E. |title=The Dixiecrat Rebellion: Long-Term Partisan Implications in the Deep South |journal=Politics & Policy |date=December 2005 |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=754–769 |doi=10.1111/j.1747-1346.2005.tb00221.x |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2005.tb00221.x |access-date=25 April 2023 |language=en}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Ragan |first1=Fred D. |title=Strom Thurmond and the Politics of Southern Change |journal=History: Reviews of New Books |date=1 April 1995 |volume=23 |issue=3 |pages=111 |doi=10.1080/03612759.1995.9951079 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03612759.1995.9951079 |access-date=25 April 2023 |issn=0361-2759}}
*{{cite book |last1=Frederickson |first1=Kari A. |title=The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968 |date=2001 |publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-4910-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EWu2AX7Gx4YC |access-date=25 April 2023 |language=en}}
*{{cite book |last1=Karabell |first1=Zachary |title=The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election |date=2000 |publisher=Knopf |isbn=978-0-375-40086-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HF93AAAAMAAJ |access-date=25 April 2023 |language=en}}
*{{cite book |last1=Perman |first1=Michael |title=Pursuit of Unity: A Political History of the American South |date=2009 |publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-3324-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jVHODYI1fNUC |access-date=25 April 2023 |language=en}}
{{Refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Dixiecrats}}
*Scott E. Buchanan, [http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1366 Dixiecrats] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121012151334/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1366 |date=October 12, 2012 }}, [http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org ''New Georgia Encyclopedia''].
*[http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25851 1948 Platform of Oklahoma's Dixiecrats]

{{Historical right-wing third party presidential tickets (U.S.)}}
{{United States political parties}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Dixiecrats| ]]
[[Category:Anti-communist parties]]
[[Category:Defunct political parties in the United States]]
[[Category:History of the Southern United States]]
[[Category:Factions in the Democratic Party (United States)]]
[[Category:Strom Thurmond]]
[[Category:Political terminology of the United States]]
[[Category:Democratic Party (United States)]]
[[Category:Neo-Confederate organizations]]
[[Category:Political parties established in 1948]]
[[Category:Political repression in the United States]]
[[Category:1948 establishments in the United States]]
[[Category:Political parties disestablished in 1948]]
[[Category:1948 disestablishments in the United States]]
[[Category:1948 United States presidential election]]
[[Category:Politics of the Southern United States]]
[[Category:Protestant political parties]]
[[Category:White nationalist parties]]
[[Category:History of the Democratic Party (United States)]]
[[Category:White supremacy in the United States]]