1976 is the only time since the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that a Democrat has won a majority of the south. !976 was definitely not a regular election. The Democratic candidate was white evangelical southerner. The Republican candidate was a northerner who had been Nixon's vice president and had pardoned Nixon. It took pretty extreme circumstances for the south to vote for a Democrat after 1964.
What are the extreme circumstances there? That the Democrat was a Southerner? So were Clinton and Gore.
That Ford was closely associated with Nixon and had pardoned him? Why would the South have cared more about that than the rest of the country? Despite the pardon, Ford won 27 states, including California, and 48% of the popular vote.
In 68 much of the South voted for Wallace, a Democrat running as an independent, and Texas voted for the Democrat ticket. In 72 every state save MA and DC voted for Nixon, so the South doesn't stand out there. Then in 76 the South voted for the Democrat, Carter.
It's not until Reagan that we see the South reliably voting Republican.
