<P> One opinion piece attributed the political and cultural changes, along with the easing of racial tensions, as the reason why southern voters began to vote for Republican national candidates, in line with their political ideology . Since then, white Southern voters have voted for Republican candidates in every presidential election except in the 1976 election when Georgia native Jimmy Carter received the Democratic nomination, the 1980 election when Carter won Georgia, the 1992 election when Arkansas native and former governor Bill Clinton won Georgia and Louisiana, and Arkansas, and the 1996 election when the incumbent president Clinton again won Louisiana and Arkansas . In 1995, Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich was elected by representatives of a Republican - dominated House as Speaker of the House . </P> <P> Since the 1990s the white majority has continued to shift toward Republican candidates at the state and local levels . This trend culminated in 2014, when the Republicans swept every statewide office in the region midterm elections . As a result, the Republican party came to control all the state legislatures in the region, as well as all House seats that were not representing majority - minority districts . </P> <P> Presidential elections in which the Deep South diverged noticeably from the Upper South occurred in 1928, 1948, 1964, 1968, and, to a lesser extent, in 1952, 1956, 1992, and 2008 . Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee fared well in the Deep South in 2008 Republican primaries, losing only one state (South Carolina) while running (he had dropped out of the race before the Mississippi primary). </P>

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