ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief overview of the 2006 Senate race and traces the evolution of the link between the white vote in Mississippi and the Republican Party. It offers a review of the extant literature on racial threat. Much of the debate in the extant literature has focused on states with substantial urban and suburban populations. The phenomenon described by V. O. Key has since labeled as racial threat or "black threat". Whites live in high-black-density areas perceive blacks to be a threat to their social, political and economic hegemony. Contrary to the racial threat hypothesis is the social contact hypothesis which holds that as majority group-members interact with members of the minority, they become more racially tolerant. The chapter explains the hypotheses, and the data and methods sections. It presents a systematic analysis of the white vote for Trent Lott and investigates whether additional explanations exist in explaining Trent Lott's landslide victory, following his verbal faux pas in 2002.
