Former Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, considered a son of the South, won this county twice in his presidential runs: 1992 and 1996. Clinton's vice president, Al Gore of Tennessee, another son of the South, won the county in 2000, the most recent Democrat to do so. Most of the minority of African-American voters have been affiliated since the 1960s with the national Democratic Party, even as conservative whites here shifted to the Republican Party.
