Il Sud che volta le spalle a Trump

Translated by Federica Conti

"There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. A Civilization gone with the wind". In 1939, the director Victor Fleming decided to start the movie "Gone with the wind," both iconic and critized, with this line.

That line played with its romantic meaning, a mythical image of the South before the Civil War, which destroyed the lifestyle of certain families who had amassed enormous earnings and beautiful properties in a Greek style, from Florida to Arkansas. Actually, the so-called “Antebellum South” was founded on an economy based on farming and slavery, which during the 19th century progressively was dismantled, not only because there was less tolerance towards slavery but also because it was considered obsolete and structurally underdeveloped in comparison to the industrialized North. 

Since then, the concept of “Lost Cause”, namely the revisionist idea that illustrates the Old South as a myth and a superior and utopian civilization pursuing a noble cause, was spread in Southern America. This myth was reinforced by movies like "Gone with the Wind". The disappointment caused by the Civil War and the loss of certain status produced during that time a strong resentment from the South citizen towards the central government of Washington. This bitterness led the South electorate to vote massively for the Democrats for nearly a century (the so-called "Solid South"), considered as the main defender of regional interests and segregation. Later, between the 60s and the 70s, the majority of them voted for Republicans, who understood the presence of a conservative resentment against federal liberal policies promoted by Washington. After the ending of segregation laws signed by Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the final blow to Democrats' supremacy in the South was carried out by Nixon with its “Southern strategy”, an electoral strategy (later improved by Ronald Reagan) aiming at increasing the consensus among white people living in the South, focusing mainly on themes such as identity and racial resentment.

Therefore, in the last 50 years, Dixieland has been a Republican land, both for presidential elections and statal election. This direction progressively became stronger from 2000, resulting in the double election of Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Trump, indeed, individuated the growing resentment of the white working class, the anxiety linked to the economy caused by globalization, and the feeling of cultural neglect of various demographic sectors in the rural and industrial South, turning the area into a solid, monolithic electoral stronghold. But underneath the surface, today, something is changing.

In light of the next midterm elections, where Americans will vote for Congress candidates, the Trump administration is solid, but its consensus has decreased. Even though the GOP's control of Congress was guaranteed during the national elections held in 2024, today the party's condition is more complicated. Data show that, even though Trump's electors who support his presidency are still a huge number of people, the overall projections illustrate how the dissatisfaction towards the President has grown and spread in the USA, even among those who voted for him in 2024 [1].

In particular, the electoral development that has stood out most in recent months has come from special elections (or by-elections), that is, those held before the natural expiration of a term for unforeseen circumstances such as the resignation or death of the office-holder. More specifically, several Southern States that for years were Republican supporters demonstrate signs of fractures that are undermining the Republican dominance in the Sun Belt.

In Virginia, one of the northernmost Southern states, the Republican Party has governed for 28 of the past 30 years. Between 2020 and 2021, the Democratic legislature abolished the death penalty and life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for minors. These justice reforms were evidently not well received by Virginia voters, who in 2022 hastened to bring back to power a hardline conservative, Glenn Youngkin. In November 2025, however, after only 11 months of the Trump presidency, Democrats returned to victory in Virginia, expanding their majority in the House with 13 new seats and electing a new governor, Abigail Spanberger, who placed access to essential goods and services at the center of her agenda.

Although the growing trust in the Democratic Party in Virginia in recent years is indicative of how the state reacts to the figure of Donald Trump, one must look to the opposite side of the American South to observe a result less impactful but more surprising. The phrase “Thank God for Mississippi” is often used by residents of various U.S. states to suggest that there are always worse problems in other states, hence the problems of their own state are not so bad. Mississippi, indeed, is one of the poorest and least developed states of the USA, frequently ranking at the bottom of negative indicators (worst healthcare system, highest rates of gun violence, highest infant mortality, etc.). Moreover, the “Magnolia State” is among the most conservative states, traditionally tied to Southern culture and the American right. For roughly 50 years, Mississippi has been one of the few states to vote consistentlyfor the Republican Party. In November 2025, however, Democrats in the state managed to break the Republican supermajority in the State Senate, winning with two African American candidates. They also flipped a seat in the lower chamber, bringing another African American candidate to replace a Republican one. These victories take on historic significance because the Republican Party held the majority in the Parliament for 13 years, and the supermajority, now dismantled, for six of them. Although the data appears linked to strong urban voter mobilization, these results in one of the most Republican states in America could signal a shift in the political winds and have boosted confidence among Democratic leadership regarding the South. In Alabama, another conservative stronghold, Democrats say they are optimistic ahead of the midterms [2]. In Louisiana, a district where the GOP had won by 13 points in 2024 was lost in 2025 and reconfirmed under Democratic control this February with a 24-point margin. A similar development occurred in Kentucky, where, at the end of 2025, Gary Clemons confirmed Democratic momentum by winning an important State Senate seat with a 47-point margin over his Republican opponent. According to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Clemons' victory marked the 227th out of 255 elections in which the party either won or overperformed during 2025 [3]. Democratic optimism is further reinforced by what might be described as Republican near-misses. In Tennessee, for instance, the Republican candidate Matt Van Epps won an election in a solidly conservative district that historically leans by around twenty points. However, he did so with only a nine-point advantage over his Democratic challenger, avoiding an outright rout for the party in power, but clearly illustrating the electoral nightmare that MAGA is currently facing.

Another political setback for the GOP since Trump's re-election comes from Texas. At the beginning of February, indeed, Senate District 9 was won by the democrat Taylor Rehmet, a union leader and mechanic, who will become the district’s first Democratic representative since 1983. This victory is not only impressive in numerical terms but also concerning for Republicans. District 9 is larger than the average district used for congressional elections. It is home to one million people, and it hosts major defense contractors and has long been an epicenter of Christian nationalism. This success could pave the way for the Democratic Party toward a federal Senate victory in Texas later this year, dramatically reshaping the political landscape in a crucial state that has not elected a Democratic governor since 1990.

Democrats appear to be achieving better electoral results than in 2017. In the 2018 midterms, they had regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives. This does not mean that victory in the upcoming midterm elections is guaranteed. History, however, shows that the president’s party often loses seats in midterms, and Trump currently seems to be in a particularly precarious position.

The season of by-elections is acting as a warning for the Republican party, whose greatest challenge now will be to halt the decline of support in the regions of America that have historically been its strongholds. If the myth of the "Old South", represented in Gone with the Wind, told the story of a civilization swept away by history, today the Republican political establishment might be exposed to the currents of change. Nothing is permanent when the wind begins to shift.

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