M.V. Hood, III and Seth C. McKee Win 2025 V.O. Key Award for Rural Republican Realignment in the Modern South

January 17, 2025 | by uscpress

The Southern Political Science Association presented M.V. Hood, III and Seth C. McKee with the 2025 V.O. Key Award for Rural Republican Realignment in the Modern South: The Untold Story, at their annual conference in January. This award honors author(s) of the best book on Southern Politics.

Since the 1948 Dixiecrat revolt from the national Democratic Party, rural white southerners have experienced a painstakingly slow transformational shift from being fiercely loyal Democrats to stalwart Republicans. In Rural Republican Realignment in the Modern South, M. V. Hood III and Seth C. McKee examine the factors driving this movement as they detail the long and winding path rural white southerners took to the Grand Old Party.

In this first book-length empirically based study focusing on rural southern voters, Hood and McKee examine their changing political behavior, arguing that their Democratic-to-Republican transition is both more recent and more durable than most political observers realize. By analyzing data collected from their own region-wide poll along with a variety of carefully mined primary-source data, the authors explain why rural white southerners have become the core group in the modern Republican voting coalition.

M.V. Hood III is professor of political science and director of the School of Public & International Affairs Survey Research Center at the University of Georgia.

Seth C. McKee is professor of political science at Oklahoma State University and former editor in chief of Political Research Quarterly.