A lack of those damn Yankees?
Population growth would be my guess. It takes a while for the FDR democrats from the 30’s & 40’s to die off.
______________
Both good answers. Arkansas was the most rural and agricultural of Southern states, without even a little bit of coastline where northern retirees moved, so the state was the slowest one to change.
______________
In olden days, as Vermont went, Arkansas went the other way:
I appreciate all the comments — and especially your map, x.
I’m world-experienced, but a born-and-bred Southerner (to me, growing up, Arkansas was the Northwest). Now I have happily adopted Arkansas as “my” state for some 35 years. (Still a newbie; it’ll be a half-century before anyone refers to my land as “the old WombatArk place, LOL.”)
I think folks are overlooking the sweeping changes that started in the northwest part of the state with two titanic individuals: Sam Walton and J.B. Hunt.
Between them they brought growth, innovation, economic success and pride to a state that had long suffered “poverty of the spirit.”
They and their suppliers also brought a new understanding of economics and politics, along with new employees who understood both as more than mere party servitude. Their spirit infused not only the state but the type of retirees it has attracted from the North.
Interestingly, the remaining Democratic area of the state is the one diametrically opposed geographically: The old plantation area of the southeast Delta — and even that is beginning to change.
I have (he said immodestly) chosen a beautiful, varied and politically fascinating state in which to live out my life.