Why did the GOP do so well in early 20th, late 19thc despite massive immigration

[Matty]

This was a party that had a know-nothing reputation

How was it able to withstand all the new voters from ethnic groups who voted democrat: Italians, Irish, etc

[RINO Tom]

I mean, did those immigrants make up any higher percentage of the population than minorities do today?  I feel like their votes were also crammed into a few areas (Boston, NYC, Philly, etc.).  Just a guess.

[Del Tachi]

Immigrant votes were pretty isolated to big cities, and a lot of big cities had pretty robust Republican machines that were able to court a significant portion of the immigrant vote (when immigrants did vote, that is, many of them did not).

[OSR stands with Israel]

While they did well from 1876-1892 they didnt do really well as during that period The Republicans won 3 elections while the Democrats won 2 and all 5 of those elections were very close. In the House Democrats controlled the House for a longer period of time from 1874-1894 than the Republicans did.


It was from 1894-1930 where Republicans really dominated and much of that had to do with the Panic of 1893 and the Bryan wing of the party taking control of the party. William Jennings Bryan was far too radical and far too left wing to be elected and he was the Democratic nominee 3 out of 4 times from 1896-1908.

The 1920s had to do more with the fact that Woodrow Wilson had become very unpopular by 1920 allowing the Republicans to utterly dominate the 1920s election and the roaring 20s gave the people no reason to vote for change

[darklordoftech]

1. The GOP used the "Protestant Strategy". They appealed to people's fear of immigrants with issues such as alcohol prohibition, banning parochial schools, cracking down on political machines, etc.

2. The memory of the Civil War made people vote Republican because they saw the Democrats as the party of "rebellion".

3. Tariffs were a partisan issue. In fact, it was a shared hated of tarifffs that got the South and immigrants to vote together.

4. Some immigrant groups, such as Germans and Norweigans, tended to vote Republican.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Lots of good points have been made already, but also Wilson badly alienated Irish and German-American voters by joining the Entente in WWI, and they abandoned the Democrats en masse in 1920.

[RINO Tom]

Lots of good points have been made already, but also Wilson badly alienated Irish and German-American voters by joining the Entente in WWI, and they abandoned the Democrats en masse in 1920.

Very true, and I feel that this isn't discussed nearly enough among historians due to the fact that they all hopped back on board (relatively) quickly for the New Deal.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Don’t forget Bryan being in favor of silver hurt him greatly in the cities, where immigrants lived.

[mianfei]

Don’t forget Bryan being in favor of silver hurt him greatly in the cities, where immigrants lived.

More than that, if not to nearly the same extent as in the Old Confederacy, Republicans in the North and West made voter registration much more difficult than before 1890.

This meant that only a small proportion of the urban poor was voting in most elections between 1900 and 1930. Failure to redistrict out of fear that a radical left party would take over urban areas meant that there was less value in voting at least for the legislature.

[Red Wall]

Same reason the gop has dominated big immigration times: backlash from culturally assimilated groups who feel immigrants have it easy today.

Democrats are pro immigration because they buy onto demographics theories but don't realize their most successful eras for democrats came when immigration was low.

[Alcibiades]

To put it simply, Northern Protestants were a majority of the country.

Of course this is a bit of an oversimplification, but the fact that the GOP commanded a demographic majority is very true, because in reality many immigrant groups were not particularly Democratic:

-Non-culturally Southern/non-ancestrally pro-Confederate WASPs (in the literal, broadest sense of the word i.e. not necessarily wealthy) were basically a lock for the GOP (except, crucially, in 1884 when many balked at Blaine’s corruption).

-Germans leaned Republican overall; the Protestant ones strongly, the Catholics more mixed.

-Italian, Poles and other Southern/Eastern European Catholics were mixed, showing strong regional variance in their voting patterns, often in response to local factors; in many cities they were Republican due to resentment of Irish machine control of the Democrats.

-Jews were always left-leaning, but initially split their votes fairly evenly three ways between Democrats, Republicans and Socialists; they voted Democratic at lower than expected rates for similar reasons as Italians and Poles i.e. distrust of Irish machines.

-Scandinavians tended to be Republicans, but also provided the base for Progressive/Farmer-Labor parties in the Upper Midwest.

-African-Americans, in the limited places where they could vote, were staunchly Republican.

This leaves the Democrats with only two ethnic/cultural groups they commanded a clear majority among: Southerners and Irish Catholics. While their unwavering loyalty and structural advantage in the Senate and formidable machine and political organising skills respectively provided the Democrats with an anchor with which to stay afloat and viable during the post-Civil War years, they were nowhere near to commanding an electoral majority, even when parts of the above groups were added. The New Deal changed all this.

[Intell]

Republicans courted protestants which outvoted catholics. Bryan alienated urban/manufacturing america- where immigrants lived. Wilson alienated the Irish and the germans.

American politics before the new deal was basically an issue of identity- class, religious and racial, regional than it was about any policy.  For example weaver voters shifted to McKinley in 1896 in Alabama.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The areas where immigrants are in large numbers, is where you see the immigrant backlash. It is also worth remembering that these states overall were majority Protestant even as late as the 1920s. This means that you have the immigrants there to motivate high Republican vote margins among the assimilated demographics, while said group still has enough numbers to dominate the area. The best analogue for what happened in say Massachusetts in the early to mid 20th Century, is SoCal in the past twenty years.

Eventually you reach a point when the math no longer works obviously.

[Agonized-Statism]

All of the above are great answers. Essentially, Protestant moral panic, the geographic isolation of big city Democrat machines, and the fact that a majority of the nation was WASP at the time IIRC.