Southern voters speculate why Barack Obama won in 2008.

Southern Voters Answer the Question They Find Hardest To Understand

Southern Voters Answer the Question They Find Hardest To Understand

Who's winning, who's losing, and why.
March 15 2012 6:59 PM

Why Did Obama Ever Win in the First Place?

Southern voters answer the question they find hardest to understand.

Red states don’t get redder than Mississippi and Alabama. The Obama-Biden ticket lost the first state by 13 points, the latter by 21 points. (They would have been even bigger losses but for a surge of African-American voters who turned out for Democrats.) Most voters here never believed in Barack Obama, and could never understand why their countrymen did.

So, on my trip to Mississippi and Alabama, I asked, “Why do you think Obama won in the first place?”

David Weigel is a reporter for the Washington Post.