What was going on in South Carolina, 1952-1960?
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  What was going on in South Carolina, 1952-1960?
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Author Topic: What was going on in South Carolina, 1952-1960?  (Read 1790 times)
TDAS04
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« on: June 08, 2015, 04:26:29 PM »

1952
Stevenson: 51%
Eisenhower: 49%

1956
Stevenson: 45%
Unpledged: 29%
Eisenhower: 25%

1960
Kennedy: 51%
Nixon: 49%

Why did Ike go from almost winning the state in 1952, to coming in third place in 1956?  And fellow Republican Nixon then coming close in 1960?
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Rockefeller GOP
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« Reply #1 on: June 08, 2015, 04:30:53 PM »

My guess:

1952 - South Carolina was one of the first states to notice a Republican trend, and Ike was fresh off of being a war hero.

1956 - A sour reaction to the Eisenhower administration's stands on civil rights.

1960 - Anti-Catholic sentiment against Kennedy.
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RFayette
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« Reply #2 on: June 08, 2015, 04:31:29 PM »

http://www.nps.gov/brvb/learn/historyculture/index.htm
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Sumner 1868
tara gilesbie
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« Reply #3 on: June 08, 2015, 05:15:36 PM »

The unpledged was a "insert segregationist here" vote, probably in response to Board v. Brown. The 1948 platform still angered a lot of Southerners, and Catholicism was no help. I also suspect Stevenson being from Illinois helped Republicans as well.
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #4 on: June 08, 2015, 06:41:42 PM »
« Edited: June 08, 2015, 06:43:27 PM by PR »

Keep in mind that it was South Carolinian Governor turned Senator Strom Thurmond who led the Dixiecrat walkout from the 1948 DNC and then became the segregationist third-party candidate for President. There was still bad blood in the South from that, which only continued in the 1950s as Northern, pro-civil rights liberals started to become more influential within the Democratic Party. Furthermore, a lot of South Carolinians weren't about to vote for a Northern "egghead" liberal like Stevenson, and Eisenhower was both a popular war hero as well as the kind of Republican who was more committed to involvement in foreign affairs and Cold War anticommunism (while  Robert Taft, needless to say, was opposed to foreign policy internationalism and military interventionism) than he was to undoing the New Deal (unlike many conservative Republicans at the time). In fact, Eisenhower (but not the Republican Party!) was popular among Northern working-class Democrats as well.

FWIW, I believe that (white) voter turnout was higher in the 1950s in SC than in previous decades.
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TDAS04
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« Reply #5 on: June 08, 2015, 08:04:19 PM »

It appears that Strom Thurmond had endorsed Ike in 1952.  That explains that year.  I don't know who he supported the other two elections.

It makes sense that Ike may have antagonized Southerners over integration by 1956, although most of the South swung his direction that year, except for South Carolina and Mississippi.
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #6 on: June 09, 2015, 12:08:28 AM »

It appears that Strom Thurmond had endorsed Ike in 1952.  That explains that year.  I don't know who he supported the other two elections.

It makes sense that Ike may have antagonized Southerners over integration by 1956, although most of the South swung his direction that year, except for South Carolina and Mississippi.

I mean, you could make an argument that those were the two most defiantly Southern states (along with Alabama), so it's not crazy to think there'd be more of a backlash there when it came to civil rights than in the rest of the South.
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