Democratic victories in the South this year were driven as much by who showed up as by who stayed home, according to an NPR analysis of turnout data.
Midterm elections normally have lower participation than presidential contests. But from Louisiana to the Carolinas, counties that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 came closer to matching — and in some cases exceeding — presidential turnout. Counties won by President Trump saw a sharper decline and fewer Republican votes.
In six Southern states — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina — turnout dropped by 19 percent in Harris-won counties, compared with 26 percent in Trump-won counties. (In Louisiana, counties are called parishes.) Across those six states, the average swing toward Democrats was 22 points, larger than the national swing of about 14.5 points, NPR reported.
Senate flips, and a closer race in Louisiana
That differential turnout was a key factor in Democrats flipping Senate seats in North Carolina, South Carolina and Mississippi, and it contributed to the closer-than-expected margin in Louisiana's Senate race. In Mississippi, Democrat Scott Colom outperformed Harris, earning roughly 8,100 more votes than she did in 2024. Colom's margin over incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith was just over 5,600 votes as final ballots were being tallied, NPR reported.
Democratic Senate nominees in the six states earned more raw votes than Harris in 170 counties. Republican nominees, by contrast, garnered hundreds of thousands fewer votes than Trump.
Black turnout, and a map that backfired in North Carolina
In special elections and primaries leading up to the midterms, voting data and polls showed a surge in Black voter participation, spurred in part by a Supreme Court decision that gutted part of the Voting Rights Act. The Louisiana v. Callais decision led to changed congressional maps across the South, including in Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana and North Carolina. After North Carolina redrew boundary lines in a way that aimed to elect an 11-3 Republican majority delegation, Democrats there are now on track to hold an 11-3 majority, NPR reported.
Majority-Black counties overall had higher turnout, about 85 percent compared with 76 percent for white, non-Hispanic majority counties. Sixteen majority-Black counties had more Democratic votes than during the 2024 election, with 12 of them in Mississippi. Clay County, Miss., had the largest turnout increase, 17 points from 2024 to 2026.
Even where Democrats did not top Harris's raw totals, they often declined less than Republicans. In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff finished with roughly 79,000 fewer votes than Harris, NPR reported, while large metro counties including Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb and Cherokee lost between 35,000 and 77,000 GOP votes each. Democrats saw smaller losses in those areas, with slight gains in Gwinnett and Cherokee counties.
The pattern is a reminder that midterm swings are not only about persuasion. In this Southern map, staying closer to a presidential-year electorate in Harris counties, and watching Republican turnout fall further in Trump counties, was enough to move Senate seats and invert a congressional delegation that had been drawn to do the opposite.