Deep South - 2024 Election Compendium

Topic: 2024 Election Analysis

Deep South 2024 Presidential Election Review

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Author’s Note: All other election reviews can be found here.

This portion of the 2024 Election Compendium focuses on four solid red states in the deep south – Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. They are assessed first to provide a deep contrast to the coming review of Georgia.

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Outcomes

Alabama Trump +30.6%

Louisiana Trump +22.0%

Mississippi Trump +22.9%

South Carolina Trump +17.9%

My Predictions

Alabama Trump by minimum of 28.0%

Louisiana Trump by minimum of 20.0%

Mississippi Trump by minimum of 20.0%

South Carolina Trump by minimum of 16.0%

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Preface

These four states have all the nuance of an Alabama vs. Troy football game in August. One side lines up and runs it down the throat of the other. In this case, all of these states were bound to be Trump landslides from the start – the only question was, “how big?” All of these states have voted for every Republican nominee since 2000, and had it not been for Louisiana backing Bill Clinton twice, this group would be a unified Republican bloc dating back to 1980. Now that the black vote is unraveling for Democrats, it is only going to be worse from here for team blue. I have excluded Georgia from this group, even though I would classify it as part of the “Deep South” region. It is unique among the region in that Atlanta has become a hub for the white professional class and resulted in massive black inter-county shifting, which makes pegging trends in the metro area very difficult and a one-election-at-a-time endeavor.

The analytical value in these states, other than observing demographic trends with a large sample, has to do with how they contrast with Georgia, and to a lesser extent, North Carolina. The contrast between these states and the Peach State are striking, to say the least.

Only one state of these four registers voters by party, and it moved heavily Republican and in all 64 county equivalents (parishes):

· Louisiana from D+7.7% in 2020 to D+2.7% in 2024

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Analysis

· In Louisiana, which calls its counties parishes, a major partisan realignment is underway from this working-class state that, while voting Republican in federal races in recent years, has held to a legacy Democrat registration advantage like North Carolina, Kentucky, or West Virginia. All 64 parishes have shifted toward the GOP in registration since 2020, when Trump won the state by 18.6%.

The party registration indicator went 61 for 64 in predicting parish trajectory, with just St. Tammany, Livingston, and St. John the Baptist tipping to the left, and none by more than 1.5%. This statistical noise is likely caused by low turnout, with Trump coming in short of his 2020 vote tally statewide, and Harris down from Biden by 89,164 votes, and even short of Clinton’s 2016 total statewide. Trump flipped Iberville, St. James, and Tensas Parishes; the former two had not been won by a GOP nominee since Nixon took them in 1972.

· Trump carried Mississippi by nearly 23 points in another state reflecting a massive black voter wipeout, flipping eight counties in the process – Copiah, Issaquena, Jasper, Marshall (first GOP presidential win since 1972), Oktibbeha, Pike, Warren, and Yazoo. 81 out of 82 counties move to the right in margin from 2020, and Harris failed to match Clinton’s statewide vote total from eight years before.

· Next door, the results aren’t surprising. Mississippi and Alabama have backed the same candidate in every election since 1872. All 67 counties shifted to the right in margin since 2020, and Trump flipped highly competitive Marengo County in central Alabama. Only Richard Nixon’s 1972 statewide margin (+46.9%) eclipses Trump’s for GOP presidential nominee margin of victory.

· South Carolina showed a massive rebound for Trump and some signs of the Florida effect, with revitalized GOP margins coming from new transplants that have settled in conservative coastal areas, and others in the northwestern Republican strongholds. Despite the significant population gain in the state, Harris lost substantial amounts of Biden’s 2020 votes throughout the rural Black Belt counties, coming below Clinton in many, and in urban counties like Charleston and Richland, underscoring my assessment that substantial ballot stuffing was likely in play in 2020 and a contributing factor to Trump’s relatively low margin of victory four years ago. This year, all 46 counties swung to the right for Trump, including Jasper County, which backed Trump for the first GOP presidential win there since Nixon in 1972.

· Amazingly, in 259 counties profiled here, Harris produced fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in 185 of them. Harris lagged Clinton’s raw vote total in 54 out of 64 Louisiana parishes thanks to a total wipeout with the rural black vote and by massively underperforming in Orleans and East Baton Rouge Parishes. In Mississippi, she had pre-Clinton totals in 70 out of 82 counties, gaining in just one (DeSoto).

· Harris fell back another 365,994 in margin from Biden’s losing balance in these four states from 2020. Much of this decay was from lagging black turnout in rural areas, but also in some urban counties, such as Richland County, South Carolina, Hinds County, Mississippi, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, and Jefferson County, Alabama. Her drop-off in Jefferson (core Birmingham) was 19,576 (-10.8%), highlighting not only black voter apathy, but the likelihood of significant ballot stuffing taking place in the 2020 race, which I flagged.

· Harris gained votes over Biden in just 13 county equivalents, with 6 of those being in fast-growing South Carolina counties, such as those in the Charlotte metro area and in Horry County, home to Myrtle Beach. Horry posted the largest Democrat gain in these four states, just 3,145, and moved another 5.4% more Republican from 2020. I tagged Horry County as a likely cheat zone in 2020, and its total vote count is still high given the Republican gains, overall regional trend, and population growth, which has remained constant for decades. There is slight growth present in suburban Madison, Alabama, which may confirm stuffing in 2020 which I have long suspected, but not enough to sustain the leftward trend that had been present there prior to Trump’s blowouts.

· Despite the scorching Trump margins and rightward progression of margin in 255 of 259 counties, Democrats picked up two net new U.S. House seats in these four states thanks to court decisions related to gerrymandering and racial demographics. Republican legislatures in Louisiana and Alabama were forced to carve up one new district in each state, which Democrats won.

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Opportunities for Election Manipulation

Here is how these four states rank with regard to my most commonly assessed demerits:

· Voter ID – All four states have strong voter ID laws.

· Same Day Registration – None of these states allow for Same Day Registration.

· Excessive Mail-In Voting – None of these states have universal mail-in voting.

· Ballot Harvesting – All these states have strong laws against ballot harvesting. Alabama has been looking to make ballot harvesting a felony.

· Ranked Choice Voting – Not present in any of these states.

· Automatic Voter Registration – Not operated in any of these states.

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The Pathway Ahead

With the falling away of black voters from the Democrat Party, the growth and rightward progression of the Latino population, and the staunch reliability of white voters, including transplants from the northeast, the Republican coalition should stand strong in these states for generations. The most likely state to trend toward competition, which is a bit of a reach given the heavy right shift this year, is South Carolina, thanks primarily to the growth of its coastal areas and the influx of out-of-state transplants that are all that is keeping adjacent North Carolina from developing into the next GOP superstate.

Election integrity activists in these states don’t have a lot of great targets (this is a good thing) and should focus most of their efforts on purging urban county voter rolls of fraudulent registrations, while ensuring no stupid ideas make it onto ballots or into legislative chambers. All Republican nominees for the foreseeable future should carry all these states, and minority community outreach will continue to keep Democrats distant at the polls.

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Final Grades and Closing Commentary

Please review my grading criteria for election integrity quality ratings.

It is clear, particularly given that Harris lagged Clinton’s raw vote count in 71.4% of county equivalents, there was no widespread effort to stuff ballots in these states. This does not rule out the possibility that it is occurring in places like Horry County or the southern suburbs of Charlotte for local races, but this area appears to have been left to run organically, and the result was a black vote die-off and sharp Republican shift.

The Top 5 Election Integrity Targets in the Deep South are (in no order):

· Horry County, SC

· York County, SC

· Jefferson County, AL

· Madison County, AL

· Orleans Parish, LA

Most Suspect Outcome

· none

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Alabama receives a Grade of 1 – Lowest Concern – based on 2024 shifts and the presence of strong election laws.

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Louisiana receives a Grade of 1 – Lowest Concern – based on 2024 shifts and the presence of strong election laws.

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Mississippi receives a Grade of 1 – Lowest Concern – based on 2024 shifts and the presence of strong election laws.

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South Carolina receives a Grade of 1 – Lowest Concern – based on 2024 shifts and the presence of strong election laws.

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Seth Keshel, MBA, is a former Army Captain of Military Intelligence and Afghanistan veteran. His analytical method of election forecasting and analytics is known worldwide, and he has been commended by President Donald J. Trump for his work in the field.