conservative. In 2017, moderate Democrat Doug Jones was elected senator from Alabama in a special election, breaking the Democratic losing streak in Alabama. 2019 saw some additional successes for Southern Democrats, as they won control of both houses of the Virginia Legislature, Andy Beshear was elected governor of Kentucky, narrowly defeating Republican incumbent Matt Bevin, and Edwards won reelection in Louisiana. 2009–present In 2009, Southern Democrats controlled both branches of the Alabama General Assembly, the Arkansas General Assembly, the Delaware General Assembly, the Louisiana State Legislature, the Maryland General Assembly, the Mississippi Legislature, the North Carolina General Assembly, and the West Virginia Legislature, along with the Council of the District of Columbia, the Kentucky House of Representatives, and the Virginia Senate. In 2017, Southern Democrats still controlled both branches of the Delaware General Assembly and the Maryland General Assembly, along with the Council of the District of Columbia. However, they had lost control of the state legislatures in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and West Virginia. Due to growing urbanization and changing demographics in many Southern states, more liberal Democrats have found success in the South. In the 2018 elections, Democrats nearly succeeded in taking governor's seats in Georgia and Florida, won 12 national House seats in the South and performed well in Senate races in Texas and Florida: the trend continued in the 2019 elections, where Democrats took both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, and in 2020 where Joe Biden (a former Senator from Delaware, classified as a Southern state by the Census Bureau) narrowly won Georgia with Republicans winning down ballot, along with Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff narrowly winning both Senate seats in that state just two months later. However, Democrats would lose by wider margins, the governor races in Florida and Georgia in 2022. Election results Noted Southern Democrats John Lewis, U.S. Representative from Georgia and civil rights leader Huey P. Long, Louisiana governor and U.S. Senator Ross Barnett, governor of Mississippi Earl Long, three-term Louisiana governor Lloyd Bentsen, Representative and U.S. Senator from Texas, Secretary of the Treasury, and Democratic candidate for vice president in 1988 Jefferson Davis, Representative and U.S. Senator from Mississippi, President of Confederacy James O. Eastland, U.S. Senator from Mississippi John R. Edwards, U.S. Senator from North Carolina, 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 and 2008. D. Robert Graham, U.S. Senator from Florida and Governor