Question: when did the south switch from democrat to republican

title: Southern strategy
text: Political scientist Nelson W. Polsby argued that economic development was more central than racial desegregation in the evolution of the postwar South in Congress . In The End of Southern Exceptionalism : Class , Race , and Partisan Change in the Postwar South , the British political scientist Byron E. Shafer and the Canadian Richard Johnston developed Polsby 's argument in greater depth . Using roll call analysis of voting patterns in the House of Representatives , they found that issues of desegregation and race were less important than issues of economics and social class when it came to the transformation of partisanship in the South . This view is backed by Glenn Feldman who notes that the early narratives on the Southern realignment focused on the idea of appealing to racism . This argument was first and thus took hold as the accepted narrative . However , he notes that Lassiter 's dissenting view on this subject , a view that the realignment was a `` suburban strategy '' rather than a `` Southern strategy '' , was just one of the first of a rapidly growing list of scholars who see the civil rights `` white backlash '' as a secondary or minor factor . Authors such as Tim Boyd , George Lewis , Michael Bowen and John W. White follow the lead of Lassiter , Shafer and Johnston in viewing suburban voters and their self interests as the primary reason for the realignment . He does not discount race as part of the motivation of these suburban voters who were fleeing urban crime and school busing .