The US 2014 Midterm Elections and Their Aftermath

AuthorAlan Draper
DOI10.1111/2041-9066.12088
Published date01 April 2015
Date01 April 2015
36 POLITICAL INSIGHT APRIL 2015
And then there were none. In
the 2014 midterm elections
Representative John Barrow, the
last surviving white Democratic
member of Congress from the Deep South,
was defeated. Forty years ago, following the
1974 elections, white Democrats composed
three-quarters of the congressional
delegation in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
Now, the Republican realignment of the
Deep South was so complete that none
were left. Eight black Democrats from
majority-minority districts spread across
the six states were the only vestige of life
left in what had once been a Democratic
stronghold.
Nor did any Senate Democrat from the
Deep South survive the 2014 midterm
elections. In 1974, every senator from the
heart of Dixie was a Democrat, with the
exception of one. In 2014, with the defeat
of two Democratic incumbents in 2014,
Mary Landrieu from Louisiana and Mark
Pryor from Arkansas, all were gone. The
same process of extinction evident at the
federal level in the Deep South was also
The Republican Party won big in the 2014 midterm elections in the US. Alan Draper examines the
Republicans’ success and its consequences for an increasingly polarise d American politics ahead of next
year’s presidential vote.
The US 2014 Midterm
Elections and their
Aftermath

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