'If Republicans had a racist “Southern strategy,” it didn’t work on the racists. Nor did Nixon — or Reagan — ever win over segregationist voters. Republicans only began sweeping the South after the segregationists died.Even as late as 1980, when Reagan won a 44-state landslide, the old segregationists were still voting Democrat' These “Southern oppressors” were liberal Democrats when they were racists and remained liberal Democrats after they finally stopped being racists (in public)'