United States presidential election in Virginia, 1952

The 1952 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on November 4, 1952. Voters chose twelve representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

For the previous five decades Virginia had almost completely disenfranchised its black and poor white populations through the use of a cumulative poll tax and literacy tests. So restricted was suffrage in this period that it has been calculated that a third of Virginia’s electorate during the first half of the twentieth century comprised state employees and officeholders.

This limited electorate allowed Virginian politics to be controlled for four decades by the Byrd Organization, as progressive “antiorganization” factions were rendered impotent by the inability of almost all their potential electorate to vote. Historical fusion with the “Readjuster” Democrats, defection of substantial proportions of the Northeast-aligned white electorate of the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia over free silver, and an early move towards a “lily white” Jim Crow party meant Republicans retained a small but permanent number of legislative seats and local offices in the western part of the state. In 1928 a combination of growing middle-class Republicanism in the cities and anti-Catholicism against Al Smith in the Tidewater allowed the GOP to carry Virginia and elect three Congressmen, including one representing the local district of emerging machine leader Byrd. However, from 1932 with the state severely affected by the Depression, Republican strength declined below its low pre-1928 level, although Byrd himself became highly critical of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies as early as 1940.

Largely because of fear of losing several seats in the House to resurgent Republicans, Virginia’s federal officeholders, although all firmly opposed to Harry S. Truman’s civil rights bills, did not endorse Strom Thurmond in 1948. However, Byrd became almost completely opposed to the Truman administration’s policies during the ensuing presidential term, and after initially preferred nominee Richard Russell Jr. called for repealing the Taft–Hartley Act, the Byrd Organization refused to endorse any Democratic nominee, explicitly rejecting eventual nominees Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II and Alabama Senator John Sparkman.

Background

Following the end of Reconstruction Virginia voted for every Democratic presidential nominee except for Al Smith in the 1928 election.

Campaign

U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd Jr. opposed President Harry S. Truman's support for civil rights and chose to remain neutral in presidential elections. This allowed his political machine to support Republican presidential candidates while voting for Democratic candidates down ballot.

Following this election Virginia would support every Republican presidential nominee except for the victory of Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 election. Virginia was the only southern state that Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter failed to win in the 1976 election.

Polls

Results

Despite polls being uncertain, Virginia would be comfortably won by Republican nominees, Columbia University President Dwight D. Eisenhower, running with California Senator Richard Nixon.

Results by county or independent city

Analysis

Eisenhower won Virginia by a 12.97 point margin, making this the first time Virginia voted for a Republican since it was won by Herbert Hoover in 1928, and the best Republican performance in the Old Dominion to this point. Virginia was Eisenhower’s strongest state state in the old Confederacy, marking a shift from Virginia being previously regarded as a safe blue state to more of a red state. Eisenhower ultimately won the national election with 55.18 percent of the vote, making Virginia two points more Republican than the nation at-large. This was the first occasion any Confederate State voted more Republican than the nation since Virginia itself in 1888 voted 0.30 points more Republican while its blacks remained enfranchised and large numbers of white Readjusters had joined the GOP.

The key to Eisenhower’s win was gains from the large in-migration to Northern Virginia, where the many new voters were not tied to the Democratic Party as Virginia’s older generation was, with the result that Eisenhower gained four-fifths of approximately two hundred thousand new voters since 1948. Like the rest of the former Confederacy, Eisenhower also gained from transfer of 1948 Thurmond votes and from increasing upper-class Republican voting in cites such as Richmond. Nevertheless, the basis of Republican strength remained the old Readjuster and pro-gold standard regions of the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia.

This was also the first election after Colonial Heights was incorporated as an independent city. Eisenhower won Colonial Heights by a close margin of roughly three points. In the decades since, Colonial Heights has established itself as one of the most Republican leaning independent cities in Virginia, and has yet to be won by a Democratic presidential candidate. Eisenhower’s 1952 and 1956 victories in Colonial Heights of three points and four points remain the two lowest margins of victory for a Republican presidential candidate .

, this is the last occasion when Virginia voted to the left of Oregon.

References

Works cited

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1952 Virginia elections