The realignment of American politics has already begun. Utah, long considered the reddest of the red states, is no longer quite as red. The reddest of the red is now Oklahoma.
In six out of the last twelve elections since 1960, Utah has attained the highest percentage of the Republican vote. Mississippi made it three times. Nebraska did it twice. Wyoming broke into that category once.
This year McCain received nearly 66% of the vote in Oklahoma. He actually improved from Bush’s total in 2004. The other states where McCain improved his vote total were Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee. That means the geographic base of the GOP is now in the lower Mississippi River area.
In Oklahoma, Republicans bucked the national trend by adding seats in the state legislature. All this in a state that has 300,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans.
The answer to Obama’s poor showing probably rests with race, and a strategy that Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Inhofe calls “Guns, God and Gays.”
With barely 7% of its population African-American, African-American voters are a minor voting bloc. Over half the voters identify themselves as white evangelicals, a highly Republican identification.
However, race is not all of it. Obama is too liberal for Oklahoma. Inhofe’s “Guns, God and Gays” strategy has been extremely successful for him. Obviously, Obama is on the wrong side of the political spectrum on these issues, at least in the eyes of Oklahoma voters.
The last time a Democrat carried Oklahoma was 1964. With the state trending even more Republican, there is little possibility of that happening again for at least a generation.
