Both of my parents were “Kennedy Democrats” in a region of NC near the Blue Ridge, where allegiances started to shift to the historical Republicanism of the mountain people, so it wasn’t always an easy thing to be.
They remained proudly Democrat through the turmoil of the sixties and into the seventies, but cracks began to show in my dad’s Democrat beliefs with McGovern. He hated him, couldn’t believe he’d actually been nominated. Didn’t like Nixon much better but voted for him. Mom stayed Democrat, still is in fact.
My dad was disturbed by Watergate, felt somewhat responsible, and was glad to have what then appeared to be a down-to-earth, God-fearing southerner to vote for and did. Carter was a disaster, he would freely admit by two years into Carter’s only term.
Reagan, he responded to immediately, campaigned for him, donated money, the whole nine yards. He was Republican from then on until he passed away in 2008. He’d begun to doubt George W. Bush, though. Thought he was doing some stupid things that were damaging the country.
My mom has been a "Kennedy Democrat" for most of my life. Before my time, she was an FDR kid.
Dad, on the other hand, only came around to siding with the Dems after he remarried in the late sixties. He was raised in a Republican household and voted straight R until his second wife convinced him of the rightness of liberalism.
Despite a long and admirable career in the US Army, he nonetheless changed sides, and has never come back. We can't even talk about current events today. About the only good quality he still has, is his patriotism. He's one of them strange, flag waving Democrats.