海角大神

贵谤辞尘听Mississippi retiring its state flag聽to local governments聽removing Confederate statues聽from public spaces, a bipartisan push across the South is chipping away at reminders of the Civil War and Jim Crow segregation.

Now, during a national reckoning on racism, Democratic Party leaders want those symbolic changes to become part of a fundamental shift at the ballot box.

Many Southern electorates are getting younger, less white, and more urban, and thus less likely to embrace President Donald Trump鈥檚 white identity politics. Southern Democrats are pairing a demographically diverse slate of candidates for state and congressional offices with presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, a 77-year-old white man they believe can appeal to what remains perhaps the nation鈥檚 most culturally conservative region.

鈥淭here鈥檚 so much opportunity for everyone in this region,鈥� said Jaime Harrison, Democratic challenger to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and a Black man.

Decades of economic development have coaxed new residents to the area. That includes white people from other parts of the country, Black families returning generations after the Great Migration north during the lynching and segregation era, and a growing Latino population. Mr. Harrison noted that even younger native Southerners, Black and white, are less wed to hard-partisan identities than their parents and grandparents were.Decades of economic development have coaxed new residents to the area.聽

鈥淪ometimes we get held back by leadership that鈥檚 still anchored in old ways,鈥� Mr. Harrison said. But 鈥渁ll of these changes are starting to move the dynamics in so many communities. 鈥� That鈥檚 not to say we鈥檙e forgetting our past. But it won鈥檛 be the thing that鈥檚 dragging us back.鈥�

The November elections will determine the extent of the change, with competitive races in the South affecting the presidency, U.S. Senate control, and the balance of power in statehouses from Raleigh, North Carolina; to Austin, Texas.

Democratic victories would redefine policy fights over expanding health insurance access and overhauling criminal justice procedures, among other matters. The general election is also critical because voters will elect the state lawmakers who will draw legislative and congressional boundaries after the 2020 census.

Republicans, for the most part, aren鈥檛 as quick as Democrats to frame 2020 as a redefining year. Still, they acknowledge obvious shifts that began with suburban growth in northern Virginia and extended southward down the coastline and westward to Texas.

鈥淣orth Carolina, Georgia, Texas 鈥� these are becoming real two-party states,鈥� said Republican pollster Brent Buchanan, whose firm, Cygnal, aides GOP campaigns across the country.

Mr. Biden鈥檚 campaign manager, Jen O鈥橫alley Dillon, talks eagerly of 鈥渁n expanded map鈥� that puts North Carolina and Florida in the same toss-up category as the Great Lakes states that sent Mr. Trump to the White House. Georgia and Texas, she adds, will be tighter than they鈥檝e been in decades.

Mr. Buchanan said GOP-run state House chambers in Georgia and Texas are up for grabs, as are Republican U.S. Senate seats in North Carolina, Georgia, and perhaps Texas. Senate contests in South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi could be much closer than typical statewide races in those Deep South states.

鈥淕eorgia and the South are changing faster than most people think,鈥� said DuBose Porter, a former Georgia lawmaker and state party chair. 鈥淭hat was happening before Trump,鈥� Mr. Porter said, but the president 鈥渉as accelerated it.鈥�

True two-party states in the Old Confederacy 鈥� at least beyond Florida and Virginia and occasionally North Carolina 鈥� would be relatively newfound. For generations after post-Civil War Reconstruction, the 鈥淪olid South鈥� was uniformly Democratic, white voters' visceral rejection of President Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party. Beginning with the 1960s civil rights movement, most whites drifted to Republicans. That trend peaked during Democrat Barack Obama鈥檚 two terms as the first Black president. More than party identity, the common controlling force was white cultural conservatism.

鈥淰oters align first on principles, then on policy,鈥� Mr. Buchanan said.

Democrats see Mr. Biden as a party leader who can put a metro-based coalition over the top by mitigating margins beyond big cities and suburbs. 鈥淏iden is a safe vessel for these [white] voters who might have been OK with Trump when everything鈥檚 going well, but now are just looking for a stable leader who鈥檒l do the right thing,鈥� said Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster based in Alabama and whose firm is aligned with Mr. Biden's campaign.

If Mr. Biden manages the feat, it would bridge the Southern appeals of the last three Democratic presidents. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were native Southerners who, with whiter, less urban electorates, attracted white moderates and Black voters. Mr. Carter, for example, styled himself a racial progressive, yet courted Alabama Gov. George Wallace, a former segregationist, in the 1976 primary. Mr. Carter won across the South.

Mr. Clinton, who won several Southern states in 1992, campaigned seamlessly among Black voters yet made a show of his death penalty support by traveling back to Arkansas during the campaign for the execution of a Black inmate. Mr. Obama won North Carolina and Virginia in 2008, leaning more heavily on diverse cities and battleground suburbs.

Mr. Biden, putting his needle-threading attempt on display, has noted his list of potential running mates includes 鈥渟everal鈥� Black women. He speaks about centuries of injustice and systemic inequalities, most recently using an Independence Day address to describe American history as a 鈥渃onstant push and pull between two parts of our character, the idea that all men and women 鈥� all people 鈥� are created equal and the racism that has torn us apart.鈥�

But with civil unrest spurred by the latest police violence against Black Americans, Mr. Biden has sought a middle ground, making clear he opposes progressives' calls to 鈥渄efund the police.鈥�

Confederate symbols, Mr. Biden has argued, should come down, but ideally not through mob action, and he鈥檚 drawn distinctions between memorials to traitorous Confederates and those to national founders who owned slaves, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Their monuments, Mr. Biden said, should be protected.

Mr. McCrary said that approach, with Mr. Biden's center-left positioning on policy, should prevent a white backlash that benefits Mr. Trump. Mr. Buchanan argued it's an open question of what uneasy white Southerners choose. 鈥淭hose voters are still scared about the direction of their country,鈥� he said.

In South Carolina, Mr. Harrison sees progress, even as more tangible policy fights remain.

鈥淎lmost all of my life, the Confederate flag flew over the state Capitol dome or on the grounds of the Statehouse,鈥� Mr. Harrison said. 鈥淔or my sons, they will have no memory of that.鈥�

This story was reported by The Associated Press.聽

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