A Changing South: The 2008 Elections Illuminate Demographic and Economic Trends

The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States opened a window for an examination of the most recent round of demographic, social and economic change in the American South. Using the 2008 election—in which the nation’s first black president won three states of the former Confederacy—as a launching pad for analysis, this paper presents a South that has become metropolitan-driven, more prosperous and economically diverse than ever in its history. The paper also depicts a South with inter-regional differences and with distinct inequalities, especially in income and educational attainment.