Partisan Change Among Native White Southerners: 1965-1982

Tom W. Rice, University of Iowa

Abstract

In this article a unique three-wave parent-youth panel study is used to examine partisanship change among native white Southerners from 1965 to 1982. The data suggest that Southerners have not moved away from the Democratic Party slowly and methodically as most crosssectional studies suggest. Many of the respondents in the panel demonstrated substantial volatility on the party identification scale across the three panel waves.