[Wallace T.]

While the states of the former Confederacy, with the partial exception of Tennessee, were one party Democrat states between the end of Reconstruction and the 1970s, the state Democratic Parties had liberal, moderate, and conservative factions. A few of the conservative Democratic governors of Texas, particularly Coke Stevenson, were more conservative than George W. Bush, Rick Perry, and Greg Abbott. The Byrd political machine that ran Virginia from the 1920s to the 1960s was noted for its frugality and low taxes

[ansel12]

I often point out how Texas and California are different and why Texas abandoned the modern democrats while California got absorbed by them in spite of being largely republican.

Social conservatism was the difference, the left devoured the social liberal republicans of California because they didn’t have the strong Christian foundational leg of conservatism.