The University of Arkansas Press is pleased to announce the From Blue to Red: The Rise of the GOP in Arkansas by John C. Davis, is now available.
On the morning of Election Day 2010, Democrats occupied three of the four Arkansas seats in the US House of Representatives, both US Senate seats, all state constitutional offices, and decisive majorities in both chambers of the Arkansas General Assembly. By the time votes were counted that evening, it was clear that the balance of power had shifted. Within five years, Arkansas Republicans would hold all six US congressional positions and every state constitutional seat and claim growing supermajorities in both state chambers. Since then, Republicans have enjoyed robust electoral success in Arkansas—formerly the last remaining state of the “Solid South” held by Democrats.
John C. Davis’s From Blue to Red: The Rise of the GOP in Arkansas provides a rigorous yet accessible study of this partisan shift, tracking changes in voter preference at the top of the ticket in the 1960s, generational replacement in Arkansas’ political power structure in the 1990s, and the emergence of a more nationalized and polarized electorate in the 2000s, among other developments. From Blue to Red is a fascinating look at how Arkansas went from being one of the country’s most solidly Democratic states to one of its most ardently Republican in just a few years.
“From Blue to Red,” writes Pearl K. Ford Dowe, “provides a new view on the shifting partisan behavior within the South by looking at the uniqueness of the state of Arkansas. John C. Davis uses interviews, historical overview, and voting data to explore the trends that began in the 1970s but did not culminate until years after the Reagan administration. This is a story worth exploring.”
John C. Davis is the executive director of the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History and associate teaching professor of political science at the University of Arkansas. An eighth-generation Arkansan, Davis lives with his family in Fayetteville.