Democrats shouldn't give up on the south

2. There are still Democrats in the South — even the Deep South. Democrats hold U.S. congressional seats in every former Confederate state except Arkansas. Even if Democrats cannot win statewide in places like Alabama or Mississippi, they still hold a base of power in these states. Yes, most of these congressional seats are from majority-black districts, but those seats are worth every bit as much as those held in majority-white districts.

3. We’ve been here before. On the presidential level, the South isn’t all that much more Republican-leaning than it was 14 years ago. President Obama did 17.7 percentage points worse in the 11 former Confederate states in 2012 than he did in the rest of the nation. John Kerry did 16.7 points worse in 2004. Al Gore did 15.6 percentage points worse in 2000.

4. Blue Dog Democrats may return. Democratic hopelessness in the South is being driven, in part, by the results in 2014, when several of the party’s well-known incumbent senators lost seats (Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina and Sen. Mark Pryor in Arkansas, for example). But that’s more of an anomaly than you might think.