Famously, Senator Barry Goldwater, the party's nominee in 1964, stood strongly against Section 5 and voted against the entire Voting Rights Act because of it.
His contention was that a.) the section was unconstitutional because it applied different standards to the various states and b.) if it should be applied anywhere, it should be applied everywhere.
And...he was right.
Still, the Democrat party and the media tarred him as a racist. And...it stuck.
Racism must be a principled belief system, because whenever you do anything principled, they say you’re being racist.