Some did, many more did not -- from Texas Lyndon Johnson to West Virginia's Senator KKK Byrd.
How conservative were those new Republicans?
Well how much Federal "free stuff" are they known to have turned down?
So I'm not saying some Southerners weren't conservatives, but more conservative than everyone else?
Naw, they weren't.
Jesse Helms was probably the most conservative senator who ever served. He was Ronald Reagan’s NC campaign chair in 1976 and Helms’ well-oiled political machine secured Reagan his first primary win.
“Ford narrowly defeated Reagan in the New Hampshire primary, and then proceeded to beat Reagan in the Florida and Illinois primaries by comfortable margins. By the time of the North Carolina primary in March 1976, Reagan’s campaign was nearly out of money, and it was widely believed that another defeat would force Reagan to quit the race. However, assisted by the powerful political organization of U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, Reagan upset Ford in North Carolina and then proceeded to win a string of impressive victories, including Texas, where he carried all twenty-four congressional districts and won all ninety-six delegates at stake in the state’s first binding primary. Four other delegates chosen at the Texas state convention went to Reagan and shut out U.S. Senator from Texas John G. Tower, who had been named to manage the Ford campaign on the convention floor. Ford bounced back to win in his native Michigan, and from there the two candidates engaged in an increasingly bitter nip-and-tuck contest for delegates. By the time the Republican Convention opened in August 1976 the race for the nomination was still too close to call.
There’s a chance if Reagan had lost NC he was getting out of the race. He won the state and subsequently almost got the nomination. It paved his way for his crushing victory over the peanut farmer four years later.
Oh look who's back for the daily obsession