what happened to Nebraska in 1940?

[freepcrusher]

it seemed that the state was only a pink or light red state before then and often elected democrats to congress, even in the 1920s. The state had a sort of maverick political persuasion as evidenced by George Norris and WJB. Also, it usually wasn't as republican as other parts of the midwest since it had a decently large sized "ethnic" population of Czechs and Germans.

From then on, it became a pretty hard core red state.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

The dust bowl drought of 1930's affected the prairies and it lasted way too long. Which reflected KS, NEB and Dakotas transition to the GOP party.

As well as facism and confederate symbols penetrating the region from dixie, during 1940's.
.

[Podgy the Bear]

Also the isolationists had a significant presence in the Midwest in 1940--even though Wendell Willkie wasn't one.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The midwest lost a lot of population in the 1930s. And there tended to be people moving from rural to urban/suburban areas.

[Rockefeller GOP]

First of all: I have no idea.

More importantly, I haven't seen one response that accurately describes why the state might have become more Republican.

[MATTROSE94]

The dust bowl drought of 1930's affected the prairies and it lasted way too long. Which reflected KS, NEB and Dakotas transition to the GOP party.

As well as facism and confederate symbols penetrating the region from dixie, during 1940's.
.

The Republican Party was very weak in the South up until the 1980s, so I doubt that the spread of Confederate symbols in Nebraska during the 1940s played any role in shifting the state to the Republicans. Also, many Republicans were much more liberal on the Civil Rights issue than the Democrats at the time, so I doubt that they would have viewed Confederate symbols in a positive light and used them to promote their political goals.

If anything, population changes due to the effects of the Dust Bowl, opposition to U.S. involvment in World War 2, and anger towards the Roosevelt Administration's farm policy were probably the main reasons why Nebraska began to vote increasingly Republican starting in 1940.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Class had a much stronger influence on voting behavior back then, and the poorer small-time farmers who had to leave because they lost their farms in the Dust Bowl had previously voted Democratic (or even Socialist). Isolationism was another major factor.

The dust bowl drought of 1930's affected the prairies and it lasted way too long. Which reflected KS, NEB and Dakotas transition to the GOP party.

As well as facism and confederate symbols penetrating the region from dixie, during 1940's.
.

You're projecting contemporary attitudes onto a time when they didn't apply. If anything, Confederate Symbols were associated with the Democrats in the 1930s and 40s, because they were still the party of Southern sectional interests, and had been since the Civil War. The Republicans were still the party of the Northern Middle Class, which had been staunchly pro-Union during the Civil War, and who had little reason to be nostalgic for the South's Lost Cause.

[freepcrusher]

poorer small-time farmers who had to leave because they lost their farms in the Dust Bowl had previously voted Democratic (or even Socialist).

[/quote]

Where did most of those farmers end up? Arizona and California? I wonder if they stayed dem or if they switched to the republicans in the postwar era.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Class had a much stronger influence on voting behavior back then, and the poorer small-time farmers who had to leave because they lost their farms in the Dust Bowl had previously voted Democratic (or even Socialist). Isolationism was another major factor.

The dust bowl drought of 1930's affected the prairies and it lasted way too long. Which reflected KS, NEB and Dakotas transition to the GOP party.

As well as facism and confederate symbols penetrating the region from dixie, during 1940's.
.

You're projecting contemporary attitudes onto a time when they didn't apply. If anything, Confederate Symbols were associated with the Democrats in the 1930s and 40s, because they were still the party of Southern sectional interests, and had been since the Civil War. The Republicans were still the party of the Northern Middle Class, which had been staunchly pro-Union during the Civil War, and who had little reason to be nostalgic for the South's Lost Cause.

You forgot the other part; spread of facism, was associated with the GOP party.

Dont forget Harding and Hoover who were the conservatives in the GOP party, carried southern states of TN in deep south, so not all of the GOP party were Teddy Roosevelts.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

TN is not a Deep South state. It has long had a Republican bastion in its Eastern Half and a few counties along the MS border, that dates back to the post Civil War era. It was long one of the closest of the former Confederate states and it is not surprising that in the landslide of 1920 that it gave way to the Republicans.

Hoover played on anti-Catholic/Anti-Urban fears to get Democrats to vote for him in the Southern States. However, they were born Democrats and most of them probably died Democrats, and once the Great Depression occured, the Solid South re-solidified behind the Democrats.

Coolidge was more conservative than either, but certainly more so than Hoover.