Talk Elections

I can think of people who would flip for most elections, but this one stumps me. Any ideas?
Bonus: Describe a Goldwater 64-Humphrey 68 voter
Extra Bonus: Describe an Al Smith 1928 Hoover 1932 voter

One more bonus: A Charles Hughes 1916- James Cox 1920 voter

Maybe someone who likes people from New York or hates people from Missouri? Maybe someone who was offended by Nixon’s “egghead” attacks?

Bonus: Someone who opposed Medicare and Medicaid, but also opposed “law and order” politics.

Extra Bonus: Someone who wanted a Catholic President but supported tariffs.

Someone who wanted America to join WWI in 1916 and was happy about Wilson’s decision to join WWI in 1920. Remember that in 1916, Wilson ran on having “kept us out of war”, but in 1920, Harding ran on isolationism.

A conservative or Republican Catholic voter who supported Smith in 1928 because of their common religion, but returned to their normal partisan loyalties in 1932, despite the Depression. This could describe voters in Elk County, Pennsylvania. Elk County was won by Smith in 1928, due to its predominantly Catholic population, but Hoover gained several points there in 1932, even though he did much worse in Pennsylvania as a whole. It may also describe some voters in Boston or New York City, as Roosevelt didn't improve much upon Smith's margins with Catholics.

As for the Dewey-Stevenson voter, possibly a New Yorker who supported Dewey out of home-state solidarity, or more likely, a handful of rural voters in North Georgia (Dawson County, north of Atlanta, was the only Dewey county that Stevenson won in 1952).

There had to be Catholic Smith-Hoover voters based on the trends of some counties. And for Dewey-Stevenson voters, those would be the North East liberal Intellects, especially in Philly's suburbs.

I didn't think of this, but this makes sense. Truman almost lost Philadelphia to Dewey in 1948, winning it by less than 7,000 votes-and his underperformance here, combined with Dewey's strong performance in the Philadelphia suburbs, is why Dewey was able to carry the state. 1948 was the last time that Philadelphia was remotely competitive in a presidential election. Four years later, even though Eisenhower won Pennsylvania by a wider margin than Dewey, there was a dramatic pro-Democratic swing in Philadelphia, as Stevenson won the city by nearly 150,000 votes. Philadelphia has been Titanium Democratic since.

Northeastern places would be where to look.

Southern places would be places to look for R 64, D 68 voters.

MA would be the place to look for D 28, R 32 voters.

As someone else alluded, voters who prefer the more intellectual candidate. Or maybe voters who like governors/Washington outsiders.


Any swings towards Humphrey in the South were likely due to the VRA passing. It'd be hard to find Goldwater '64/Humphrey '68 voters other than people who just changed their politics.

For the original question, probably somebody from Tennessee

It's fascinating that Tennessee was so razor-thin close in both 1952 and 1956. Eisenhower won it by narrow pluralities, of less than a percentage-point margin, over Stevenson both times. 1956 can probably be explained by the fact that Stevenson's running mate that year was the state's Senator Estes Kefauver. But I'm not sure about 1952, given that Hoover and Harding, the previous two Republicans in the 20th century to carry Tennessee before Eisenhower, both received majorities. And in 1960, Tennessee was one of the few states (Oklahoma was the other), where Nixon did better than Eisenhower had in either of his elections.

Maybe a low information voter who voted GOP out of family tradition since 1932 who finally became convinced that the Democrats were a permanent majority party and finally voted for them in 1952 to be on the winning side?