Introduction

Reuters

A recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that while Gov. Mitt Romney is thought to have a solid lead over President Obama among white working class voters, that’s almost entirely because of his lead among those voters in the South, where he has a 40 percent edge. The survey, like a recent Gallup poll, found white working class voters in the South far more conservative on several social and political issues.

Decades after the apparent arrival of a post-racial New South, and after years of economic and social changes, why does the Deep South remain so much more conservative than the rest of the country?