Talk Elections

Presidential Elections - Analysis and Discussion => U.S. Presidential Election Results => Topic started by: Sir Mohamed on January 04, 2018, 09:34:40 AM



Title: Why did Truman so well in Texas?
Post by: Sir Mohamed on January 04, 2018, 09:34:40 AM
I just noted that Texas was Harry Truman's best state in 1948. He got almost 66% of the vote. This is even better than Johnson in the ’64 landslide, who won 63%. What were the reasons that Truman did so well here? That is surprising since there was a Thurmond's candidacy, who only got nine percent of the vote in the Lone Star State while he won 39 electoral votes from the Deep South. I think the margin itself is much more stunning than the fact that he actually carried the state. Worth mentioning is also that JFK in 1960 just barely carried the state, although he received roughly the same PV and EVs nationally and had a Texan running mate.

Perhaps Dewey, a moderate east coast dude, was just a horrible fit for the state and Truman appealed to farmers and rural voters?


Title: Re: Why did Truman so well in Texas?
Post by: Bidenworth2020 on January 04, 2018, 09:41:12 AM
swings were more drastic back then because partisanship was at an all time low, and people rallied around a message of FDR 2.0. This was especially odd though cause NYT predicted this was gonna be a tossup, and in their final prediction siad it would go to Dewey


Title: Re: Why did Truman so well in Texas?
Post by: Hydera on January 04, 2018, 07:15:20 PM
Texas was only 14% African american which meant White Texans didnt swung as much to Thurmond because there wasnt a high black population to cause that defection of Dixiecrats.

A more interesting question is how North Carolina and Georgia avoided the huge shift to Thurmond considering Thurmond's home state was between these two states and they both had high african american populations as a percentage of the demographics at a time.


Title: Re: Why did Truman so well in Texas?
Post by: The Govanah Jake on January 04, 2018, 10:00:44 PM
Texas was only 14% African american which meant White Texans didnt swung as much to Thurmond because there wasnt a high black population to cause that defection of Dixiecrats.

A more interesting question is how North Carolina and Georgia avoided the huge shift to Thurmond considering Thurmond's home state was between these two states and they both had high african american populations as a percentage of the demographics at a time.

For Georgia its because the Democratic state party backed Truman. I'm pretty sure it's the same reason for North Carolina. You see in the states Thurmond won he was the nominee of the Democratic Party in the state.


Title: Re: Why did Truman so well in Texas?
Post by: mianfei on January 21, 2018, 09:17:55 AM
Texas was only 14% African american which meant White Texans didnt swung as much to Thurmond because there wasnt a high black population to cause that defection of Dixiecrats.

A more interesting question is how North Carolina and Georgia avoided the huge shift to Thurmond considering Thurmond's home state was between these two states and they both had high African American populations as a percentage of the demographics at a time.
North Carolina was because there was a large population of Mountain Republicans in the west descended from communities that opposed secession, so that having the state party back Thurmond would have most likely handed the electoral votes to Dewey. Georgia was because the “Three Governors Crisis” led Hermann Talmadge to fear a challenge in the concurrent gubernatorial race if he backed Thurmond.

in Texas, as others have pointed out, there was not the Republican threat found in North Carolina (or in Tennessee, Oklahoma, or Virginia) but there were relatively fewer Negroes and consequently more concern over economic issues – which even among an electorate limited by poll taxes to a quarter of those eligible favoured Truman over Thurmond very strongly.


Title: Re: Why did Truman so well in Texas?
Post by: Oldiesfreak1854 on February 02, 2018, 02:38:46 PM
Lots of blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics, not to mention it was still a solid D state.


Title: Re: Why did Truman so well in Texas?
Post by: America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗 on February 02, 2018, 04:37:08 PM
Lots of blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics, not to mention it was still a solid D state.
Lol what?
I'm quite sure the electorate in Texas in 1948 was overwhelmingly white, given the voter suppression and poll tax.


Title: Re: Why did Truman so well in Texas?
Post by: SingingAnalyst on February 02, 2018, 06:52:05 PM
Truman must have been a good fit for the region, as his 5 best states were in order TX, OK, AR, GA, and MO, 4 of which are contiguous.

Has TX been either the most Dem or the most GOP state in any other election?


Title: Re: Why did Truman so well in Texas?
Post by: Oldiesfreak1854 on February 04, 2018, 03:09:27 PM
Lots of blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics, not to mention it was still a solid D state.
Lol what?
I'm quite sure the electorate in Texas in 1948 was overwhelmingly white, given the voter suppression and poll tax.
True, but the second part of my statement stands.