Why didn't Maine and Vermont vote for FDR in 1936?

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

I already mentioned how much I love this thread, but one factoid I just want to correct - it was mentioned that Calvin Coolidge was an example of a conservative Republican from the area, and that would not be very correct to judge him based off of his Presidency. Massachusetts supposedly elected him off his progressive credentials according to a biography of him, but he didn't feel the Federal Government could operate in the same manner, which is why we remember him so differently. However, the diversity of the party across the spectrum could likely find other great examples of the same thing, even in the northeast.

[DS0816]

These states were more Republican for historical and structural reasons. You could switch the question: Why did all former confederate states, which were/are actually conservative, vote for the progressive FDR in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944, although the GOP candidates were more conservative?

Excellent point!

You're referring to voting patterns. They don't switch up easily—not even in a two-party contest when it would seem like the states' electorates should be able to keep score over the candidates' leanings.

No state has been loyal more times to the Republican Party, since they first competed in 1856, than Vermont. It carried Republican in every election from 1856 to 1988 with exception of Barry Goldwater in 1964; and 1964 was a preview of how the map would realign because Goldwater became the first Republican to carry Georgia (and that made Lyndon Johnson the first winning Democrat elected without Georgia). Five of Goldwater's six states were on what was the turf of the Democrats: Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and the two deep-south neighbors Alabama and Mississippi, which come off as the historical antithesis of Vermont. (Take a look at just how often Alabama and Mississippi, on one side, and Vermont, on the other side, agreed in given presidential elections! Since the Republicans-vs.-Democrats duopoly began in 1856, just five times during this period have the trio of states agreed: 1872, 1972, 1980, 1984, and 1988. And they were all from elections in which the winners carried more than 80 percent of the nation's states.)

Vermont did not carry for Franklin Roosevelt because it was regularly rock solid with the Republicans. Had Roosevelt been able to dislodge Vermont from the Republicans' grip…he would have ended up with all 48 states with his blowout re-election of 1936.

The electorates were perfectly able to keep score.  Your theories are trash.

You’re pathetic.

[Rockefeller GOP]

These states were more Republican for historical and structural reasons. You could switch the question: Why did all former confederate states, which were/are actually conservative, vote for the progressive FDR in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944, although the GOP candidates were more conservative?

Excellent point!

You're referring to voting patterns. They don't switch up easily—not even in a two-party contest when it would seem like the states' electorates should be able to keep score over the candidates' leanings.

No state has been loyal more times to the Republican Party, since they first competed in 1856, than Vermont. It carried Republican in every election from 1856 to 1988 with exception of Barry Goldwater in 1964; and 1964 was a preview of how the map would realign because Goldwater became the first Republican to carry Georgia (and that made Lyndon Johnson the first winning Democrat elected without Georgia). Five of Goldwater's six states were on what was the turf of the Democrats: Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and the two deep-south neighbors Alabama and Mississippi, which come off as the historical antithesis of Vermont. (Take a look at just how often Alabama and Mississippi, on one side, and Vermont, on the other side, agreed in given presidential elections! Since the Republicans-vs.-Democrats duopoly began in 1856, just five times during this period have the trio of states agreed: 1872, 1972, 1980, 1984, and 1988. And they were all from elections in which the winners carried more than 80 percent of the nation's states.)

Vermont did not carry for Franklin Roosevelt because it was regularly rock solid with the Republicans. Had Roosevelt been able to dislodge Vermont from the Republicans' grip…he would have ended up with all 48 states with his blowout re-election of 1936.

The electorates were perfectly able to keep score.  Your theories are trash.

You’re pathetic.

That description is better suited to someone who has devoted a comical amount of time to turning Presidential elections into some mathematical formula, dependent on two major political parties actually switching platforms, something only a true idiot would believe.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I already mentioned how much I love this thread, but one factoid I just want to correct - it was mentioned that Calvin Coolidge was an example of a conservative Republican from the area, and that would not be very correct to judge him based off of his Presidency. Massachusetts supposedly elected him off his progressive credentials according to a biography of him, but he didn't feel the Federal Government could operate in the same manner, which is why we remember him so differently. However, the diversity of the party across the spectrum could likely find other great examples of the same thing, even in the northeast.

I'm aware of that, and that was an oversight on my part. Nevertheless, Coolidge--and correct me if I'm wrong here--seems to have had a far more restrained view of the federal government than his predecessors or successors. Moreover, Coolidge made his reputation for crushing the 1919 Boston Police Strike. Coolidge's rhetoric while in office, from what I've seen of it, was fairly boilerplate "muh free markets" and so on.

Other examples might be, say, "first" Senate Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge, another Baystater. To my knowledge, the last conservative holdout in the Green Mountain State, Ralph Flanders. Of course he still wasn't a "doctrinaire" conservative like we would see today, but was aligned with the right in his own state party and he would be unelectable in modern-day Vermont. I find it hard to believe that a Senator like Arthur Vandenberg--to cite an example from the Rust Belt--would be as successful as he was in Michigan in the 1930's and 1940's. In a state like Vermont, there was an uptick in "progressive" Republicans. Aiken and one of his predecessors formed them as a recognized wing of the party, and even in the past, George F. Edmunds of 1880's fame was referred to as a liberal. But this was a growing movement that, based on my speed-reading of a few half-articles on Wikipedia, gained steam with the Great Depression. Aiken's progressive predecessor took office in 1933, as an example.

Parting note: The "Know Nothing" Party held the Governorship in Massachusetts in the 1850's. Hooray left-liberalism.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Maine elected Ralph Owen Brewster, who had KKK ties. Both states had long histories of being hostile to immigration and generally shared in the Puritanical moralism that defined the Republicans of the late 19th century. It had a long history of being on the cutting edge of what would be defined as "progressive ideas". They abolished slavery before anyone else for instance.

This becomes a culture or a tradition that gets hyped up to the point that Progressive and Vermont are expected to be two things that go together.

However, Vermont was a far different place 70 and 80 years ago. It was far more Protestant, far more religious and far less diverse, lacking the people that moved into the state in the mid 20th century. There were Conservative and Progressive factions within the GOP in the state and that of course was the case nationwide for the GOP. The move to the left by the GOP in the state helped to prolong their ability to compete, but eventually, the state became Democratic leaning as people moved in from New York and Massachusetts. This strenghened and even doubled the state's previous tradition to the point where any thought of Conservatism together with Vermont is incomprehensible.

One thing that should be noted, FDR cracked the Republican bastion of WASP NE counties. He won the Berkshires and won counties in Northern Vermont. However, this was as much new turnout by White ethnics, and unionized industrial workers as it was defection of previously steadfast Republican WASPs. There were also some leftover Jacksonion/Jeffersonian Democrats in these areas (rural Northern New England was strong for them and NH/ME were Democratic states until the GOP was formed), that voted for FDR as well.

[Torie]

FRD always lost his home county of Dutchess too. Can anyone think of a rural county that is more famous than Dutchess? Yes, I didn't think so.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The trope that "New England was always liberal, it's just that at the time the Republicans were the more liberal party" is patently false and quite easy to debunk. I'll just say this: Griswold v. Connecticut. Please note what state was being sued there and had its law overturned.

[RINO Tom]

The trope that "New England was always liberal, it's just that at the time the Republicans were the more liberal party" is patently false and quite easy to debunk. I'll just say this: Griswold v. Connecticut. Please note what state was being sued there and had its law overturned.

But ... but ... DS0816!

[Prince of Salem]

Historic sidenote to be taken into account:

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[Torie]

The trope that "New England was always liberal, it's just that at the time the Republicans were the more liberal party" is patently false and quite easy to debunk. I'll just say this: Griswold v. Connecticut. Please note what state was being sued there and had its law overturned.

Some of it is that all those Congregationalist Protestants in New England tended to turn Godless as the decades went by. And being Godless, and well, having Democratic voting habits, tend to go together like bacon and eggs these days.

[All Along The Watchtower]

All this talk about Yankee/New England Protestant voting habits, yet curiously less discussion regarding the influence that Catholic immigrants  (French/French Canadians and Irish, primarily) and their descendants - or indeed, more historically working-class populations in general -  have had on the political culture of northern New England.

(There's this politician from Vermont...a self-described democratic socialist, of working-class Jewish background and originally from Brooklyn. You might have heard of him....)

[All Along The Watchtower]

All this talk about Yankee/New England Protestant voting habits, yet curiously less discussion regarding the influence that Catholic immigrants  (French/French Canadians and Irish, primarily) and their descendants - or indeed, more historically working-class populations in general -  have had on the political culture of northern New England.

(There's this politician from Vermont...a self-described democratic socialist, of working-class Jewish background and originally from Brooklyn. You might have heard of him....)

That was the Democratic base in those days. But that was more in New York, Massachusetts, and the like. NH, Vermont, and Maine didn't have quite as many of those groups until recently. And I like how you tried to bring Bernie Sanders up in a discussion about Vermont's voting patterns in 1936. Boy, there were few Brooklyn Jews in Vermont at that time. Even today there aren't a majority.

French Canadian and Irish Catholics have been in northern New England for a long time...

Anyway, I was really referring to the change in the politics of these states since the 1930s.

[Rockefeller GOP]

All this talk about Yankee/New England Protestant voting habits, yet curiously less discussion regarding the influence that Catholic immigrants  (French/French Canadians and Irish, primarily) and their descendants - or indeed, more historically working-class populations in general -  have had on the political culture of northern New England.

(There's this politician from Vermont...a self-described democratic socialist, of working-class Jewish background and originally from Brooklyn. You might have heard of him....)

That was the Democratic base in those days. But that was more in New York, Massachusetts, and the like. NH, Vermont, and Maine didn't have quite as many of those groups until recently. And I like how you tried to bring Bernie Sanders up in a discussion about Vermont's voting patterns in 1936. Boy, there were few Brooklyn Jews in Vermont at that time. Even today there aren't a majority.

French Canadian and Irish Catholics have been in northern New England for a long time...

Anyway, I was really referring to the change in the politics of these states since the 1930s.

Well, VT and ME never had (inverse) Deep South-type results.  Ever.  They always had RELATIVELY respectable Democratic floors if you look at old Presidential results.  I'm guessing the folks you mentioned are largely responsible for that.