What causes certain states to be red all the time?

[Smuckies]

Why are states like MS, OK, AL, GA, TX, etc always red? What makes them out of reach to win for Dems in the elections?

[PearliePoo2]

1. ignorance

[polichick]

2. Fear of a changing America - and their own shadows.

[Smuckies]

4. But what makes them afraid?

[polichick]

11. They know they're losing their automatic (white, male) power...

They have a sense of loss and anxiety about living in a country they don't recognize.

[LeftInTX]

12. Rednecks???

[DrToast]

3. Fixed voters

Some people aren't ever going to vote for the other guy. If too many people are like that, it becomes a "safe state."

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

5. Alabama: From birth to age 39

1) Religion
2) Affirmative Action
3) Abortion
4) Gay Rights
5) Immigration
6) Education
7) Tolerance

[2Design]

6. been red since civil war - they were against mixed race marriages, civil rights, etc

[Smuckies]

10. Oh... do u think they could ever flip ?

maybe a chance if we campaign there

[2Design]

23. just like romneys it is inbred through strict teaching and brainwashed since birth

[AndyTiedye]

7. Diebold Republican Electing (DRE) Machinez

in Georgia, at least.

Georgia used to have a Democratic Governor and Senator.
Then the Diebold voting machinez went in, and they "lost"
despite substantial leads in all pre-election polls.
Double-digit vote flipping in the 2002 elections.

No Democrat has won a statewide office in Georgia since.

[Lionessa]

8. Strong religion. Add ID and UT

Sorry, but the main thing that seems different to me is the percentage of intense religious types, whether they're Baptist, S.Baptist, M. Baptist, Catholic, or Mormon. They are raised at the teat of ignorance and obedience through blind faith. Republicans rely on their willingness to remain faithfully ignorant just as they are with their skydaddy religious intensity.

[Anthony McCarthy]

21. Stereotypes, an answer that is deceptively plausible and allows

people to feel smug and superior. People knowing that folks feel smug and superior to them is not likely to persuade them. It will make them angry.

[Lionessa]

25. Unless one is willing to worship as they do, one is entirely discounted by them anyway.

The drone of human instructions imagined to be from non-existent authority figures to whom they bow, kneel, differ their thinking to, and believe through faith rather than reason and fact simply overpowers anything one might suggest to the contrary, even if one is of their ilk. If one is not, one should simply not waste one's time.

I can change a winger's POV, but not a religious winger. Those states have a very high devout religious percentage of populace. What else do you see that is consistent through all?

[geek tragedy]

9. Uneducated, racist white people. nt

[kydo]

28. thats what I was going to say nt

[phantom power]

13. consider these two maps:

Remember, the GOP has adhered to the "Southern Strategy" for the last 40 years, where "Southern" is euphemism for "Former Confederacy"

[jenw2]

18. Exactly, it is about slavery

[BarKim]

14. Rural counties

If you look at GA. You will see that Obama won all the major cities like Atlanta, Savanna, and Athens with a lot of their surrounding counties. What Romney won was all the rural CO that make up most of the state.

[MANative]

15. I'd lay odds that these five states consistently rank at the bottom in...

academic achievement. Deliberate dumbing-down of the electorate with drastic and ongoing underfunding of education.

[Anthony McCarthy]

16. MS, OK, AL, GA, TX,

How soon you forget. Georgia went for the Democrat in 1976 and 1992. Texas gave us LBJ. When Eugene Debs ran for president his vote in OK was higher than it was in the industrial North East.

And Texas is on the cusp of being majority "minority". Things change. Why they change is complex.

If we didn't have the Electoral College liberals in Alabama would count so Alabama wouldn't be "red". It's an artificial situation.

[Smuckies]

19. Good point. Do you think if Dems try in the next 4 yrs in TX and GA that they will flip again?

[Anthony McCarthy]

22. I'm in favor of the 50 state strategy

it's worth trying. I remember when saw Georgia put in Clinton's column I was sure he'd won the election.

[Pisces]

17. Religion and racism

[treestar]

20. the larger cities in those states are blue

It is quite clear that in the US the more urban the more liberal.

[jberryhill]

24. I'm thinking it is something in the water

Agricultural chemical run-off or some kind of brain-eating micro-organism.

[Blue4Texas]

26. Gerrymandering, guns, bibles, big hair

[ladjf]

27. The people in these "red states" have, by their histories, formed a culture, which

they fervently believe to be "THE" right one. The main details that influenced them during the period 1750-2012 were religion, slavery, agriculture, education,war, plus whatever ideas they had brought with them from their Countries of origin.

Of course, MS, AL, GA and TX were solidly Democratic until the Civil Rights Movement launched the racial integration of the public schools in the South. After that, for certain unspecified reasons, a majority of the White people in the Southern States abandoned the Democratic Party and moved en mass to the Republican fold.