Yellow Dog Democrat in modern usage?

Question

I am curious about the usage of the word "yellow dog Democrat". I read that it is a word that means a Democrat that always votes straight ticket and would never even think of voting for a Republican. Is this term still used or has it been retired (or replaced with a different color dog) to describe stubborn Democrats because of its past history in the South?
Its origin is "I would vote for a yellow dog if it were a Democrat".

Don Hosek · Answer

I have to admit the first time I ever heard the term "yellow dog Democrat" was during the 1990s when it came up in the context of the "blue dog Democrat" movement of centrist Democrats. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition). What was interesting to me was to pull up the Google n-gram which showed that until recently, "blue dog Democrat" has been consistently used less than "yellow dog Democrat", that the latter saw an upturn in usage beginning around the Carter administration and both terms have been in decline since the midpoint of the Obama administration.

Yellow Dog Democrat in modern usage?

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