Jonathan Knuckey, "Racial Resentment and the Changing Partisanship of Southern Whites." Party Politics, 11 (January, 2005), 5-28.

First Paragraph:
The partisan changes that swept the South have been of interest for scholars for the past five decades.1 However, these changes have presented scholars with a puzzle. Specifically, why had Republican dominance at the presidential level (Black and Black, 1992) failed to translate into greater GOP gains in elections below the presidency? Although Republican strength at the congressional, state and local level has grown since the 1960s, by the 1980s this growth had stalled, and the GOP remained the clear minority party in the region (Black and Black, 1987; Bullock, 1988; Canon, 1992; Glaser, 1996; Stanley, 1988; Thielemann, 1992). Underlying the continuing Democratic advantage was the fact that more southern whites continued to hold Democratic rather than Republican Party identifications, which Black and Black (1987) note was the 'principal impediment to Republican success in nonpresidential elections' (p. 282)

Figures and Tables:
Figure 1. Party identifications of southern whites, 1952-2000
Table 1. Southern white Democratic Party identification, 1986-2000
Table 2. Southern white Republican Party identification, 1986-2000
Figure 2. Predicted probability of Democratic and Republican Party identification among southern whites, by racial resentment, 1986-2000
Figure 3. Predicted probability of Democratic and Republican Party identification among southern whites in 2000, by racial resentment and income level
Figure 4. Predicted probability of Democratic and Republican Party identification among southern whites in 2000, by racial resentment and ideology

First Paragraph in Conclusion:
The findings presented in this article demonstrate that racial attitudes should not be dismissed as an explanation for the gains in Republican Party identifications among southern whites in the mid-1990s. While racial resentment did not have an impact on party identifications prior to 1994, it did shape party identifications in 1994 and 2000. One would hope to extend this model to future elections in order to discern whether this relationship is maintained, but the evidence is at least suggestive that 1994 was what Carmines and Stimson (1989) might term a 'critical moment' in the linkage between racial resentment and the partisanship of southern whites