Shields and Hillygus (2008) defines the term "Southern strategy" as a strategy aimed towards winning the Southern Caucasian vote costing 90% of the Southern ethnic vote. .
Through encouraging Southern state rights by overlooking state segregation laws and appealing to religious opinions by discouraging civil rights riots, Nixon was able to gain enough votes to win the election. This strategy would eventually lead to its utilization by President Reagan and George W. Bush (107-10). President Nixon also hurt the Republican Party's reputation by participating in the Watergate Scandal from 1969 to 1974. Nixon paid "hush money" to a group of men who broke into the Democratic Party's National Headquarters located at the Watergate Hotel in 1972. .
These men hoped to discover the Democratic Party's campaign strategy for the presidential election that year. Nixon lied to Congress and the American people about his involvement. Facing impeachment, Nixon chose to resign. This caused minorities to distrust the Republican Party and believe that the Democratic Party had better solutions to minority desires due to the Republican Party's interest in Democratic strategies (Galvin 2010, 71-9). According to the University of Connecticut's Roper Center, every presidential election from 1976-2008 revealed that minorities voted Democrat or Independent 55-80% of the time (2011). This research proves that minorities have favored parties other than the Republican one since the civil rights movement. .
Literature Review: Is The Republican Party for or Against Minorities? .
The prior research presented reveals that the Republican Party was founded on pro-minority principles. Many argue that those principles are no longer relevant. Others argue that the Republican Party remains true to its political roots. Gaining the support of minorities is an important issue to address. Jones (2000) asserts that it is difficult for the Republican Party to win elections without the ethnic vote.