There are two main shades of canines that are mentioned in the Democratic party: blue and yellow dog Democrat.
Blue dog democrats are more widely known mainly because of the role they play in 2009 during then-President Barack Obama’s fight to pass healthcare reform.
The yellow dog Democrat goes further back.
The term was popularized in 1928. During the presidential election that year, Democratic senator Tom Heflin (Ala.) turned his back on the party because they nominated Catholic New York Gov. Al Smith as their candidate for president.
Even though Heflin supported Republican Herbert Hoover in the election, his constituents in Alabama stuck with Smith. Heflin’s constituents declared that they would “vote for a yellow dog if he ran on the Democratic ticket” before they would cast a ballot for a Republican.
Since then, ‘yellow dog’ has been used in political circles to describe die-hard Democrats in the south.
The yellow dog Democrat has become a rare breed in the South especially as Republicans dominate legislatures and statewide offices across southern states. Their diminished political strength has given rise to a new breed of democrats—the blue dog Democrats.
The blue dog Democrats came together in 1995 to combat the liberal wing of their party after Democrats lost the House in the 1994 election. However, their origins could be traced back to Democrats who crossed party lines to support some of Ronald Reagan’s policies in the 1980s.