Democratic victories across the South in recent midterm elections stemmed from a stark divergence in voter turnout. Counties that backed Kamala Harris in 2024 maintained near-presidential-level participation, while Donald Trump's counties saw turnout plummet, according to an NPR analysis.
The result: a 22-point swing toward Democrats across six southern states—Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina—compared to a 14.5-point national swing. Harris-won counties saw turnout drop 19 percent; Trump-won counties fell 26 percent.
The differential proved decisive. Democrats flipped Senate seats in North Carolina, South Carolina and Mississippi. In Mississippi, Democrat Scott Colom outpolled Harris by roughly 8,100 votes and now leads incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by just over 5,600 votes as final ballots are tallied. Louisiana's Senate race tightened beyond initial expectations.
Across the six states, Democratic Senate nominees collectively garnered more raw votes than Harris in 170 counties. Republican nominees registered hundreds of thousands fewer votes than Trump had in 2024.
Black voter participation proved the engine. The Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which curtailed enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, prompted states to redraw congressional maps. That ruling and the maps that followed galvanized Black turnout in special elections and primaries—and carried through to the midterms.
Majority-Black counties turned out at about 85 percent, compared to roughly 76 percent in white, non-Hispanic majority counties. Sixteen majority-Black counties recorded more Democratic votes than in 2024, with 12 in Mississippi. Clay County, Mississippi, saw turnout surge 17 points from 2024 to 2026.
The reshuffling extended to congressional delegations. In North Carolina, where Republicans had sought to engineer an 11-3 majority, Democrats are now poised to secure an 11-3 advantage after all 159 counties shifted toward them.
Georgia illustrated the pattern: Sen. Jon Ossoff drew roughly 79,000 fewer votes than Harris despite a statewide turnout decline of more than a million total votes. Every Georgia county moved toward Democrats.
