You need to understand the South and the state of Texas. The entire area was Democrat by tradition. Republicans were associated in those areas with the horrible Reconstruction Government after the Civil War, and with the Depression in the person of Herbert Hoover.
Now that I’ve reminded you of regional history, how did you feel about Ronald Reagan being a Democrat?
How do you feel that Herman Cain was a Democrat and voted for the Bill Clinton and Al Gore ticket?
My family has been Southern since 1749. The harshest name my grandmother ever called anyone was “carpetbagger”. I was probably the first to register republican, in 1963, primarily over the RKBA issue. Over the following years the democrats forged ever stronger obvious marxist ties and became dominated by Yankee urban interests, and I’ll be damned if I can figure why any conservatives remained in the democrat party.