Republican congressional holdouts in 1936

[DC Al Fine]

In 1936 the GOP was reduced to a mere 88 seats in the House of Representatives.



Some of the patterns are obvious, like ancestral GOP seats in New England and Eastern Tennessee, but others are not. What were the demographics of these districts that stayed GOP in one of the most lopsided results in American history?

[Mr.Phips]

In 1936 the GOP was reduced to a mere 88 seats in the House of Representatives.



Some of the patterns are obvious, like ancestral GOP seats in New England and Eastern Tennessee, but others are not. What were the demographics of these districts that stayed GOP in one of the most lopsided results in American history?

And even then they still held a monopoly on Upstate New York.

[Mr.Phips]

In 1936 the GOP was reduced to a mere 88 seats in the House of Representatives.



Some of the patterns are obvious, like ancestral GOP seats in New England and Eastern Tennessee, but others are not. What were the demographics of these districts that stayed GOP in one of the most lopsided results in American history?

And even then they still held a monopoly on Upstate New York.

[Gass3268]

The green in Wisconsin is from the La Follette sons' Wisconsin Progressive Party. They were the former Progressive wing of the Republican Party. They also allied themselves with the socialists in Milwaukee, by not running any candidates there. They pretty strongly allied themselves with the Roosevelt administration, but disbanded after World War II and rejoined the Republicans. One of the bigger what ifs of Wisconsin political history is always if the party would have survived or if they would have unified with the Democrats instead.

[Orser67]

Pennsylvania had an extremely strong Republican machine between the Civil War and the Great Depression, and it was one of only two states outside of New England that voted for Hoover in 1932. I'm not surprised that it still had a few Republicans.

[lfromnj]

Pennsylvania had an extremely strong Republican machine between the Civil War and the Great Depression, and it was one of only two states outside of New England that voted for Hoover in 1932. I'm not surprised that it still had a few Republicans.

yeah the philly area was pretty republican until FDR. Remember montgomery county was the only county to not vote for Bob Casey Sr(still Hillarys 3rd strongest county)

[TDAS04]

The green in Wisconsin is from the La Follette sons' Wisconsin Progressive Party. They were the former Progressive wing of the Republican Party. They also allied themselves with the socialists in Milwaukee, by not running any candidates there. They pretty strongly allied themselves with the Roosevelt administration, but disbanded after World War II and rejoined the Republicans. One of the bigger what ifs of Wisconsin political history is always if the party would have survived or if they would have unified with the Democrats instead.

And the green in Minnesota is Farmer-Labor (FL), which would merge with the state's Democrats to become the DFL the following decade.

[DINGO Joe]

Would be awesome to know what the population of those districts drawn in the 1930s are today.  Some could be less than 200,000 while others over 5 million.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Both the republicans re-elected in North Dakota were Non Partisan League people with little connection to the national party. In fact, one of them, Lemke, was actually simultaneously running for president himself on the Union Party ticket, outpolling Landon in a few counties. I don’t even think they had democrats runnning against them, and the other, Burdick, for all intents and purposes, became a democrat, ushering his own son as a democratic congressman when it became clear that he would lose the Republican primary in the late fifties.

[Kevinstat]

ME-01 and ME-02 (the western and central Maine districts, respectively), which you have as D pickups, were actually R pickups that year.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_delegations_from_Maine .

[Skill and Chance]

The most surprising thing is probably inland CA staying R.  The Plains states have basically always been R-leaning, and the remnants of the industrial/rural Northern Republican machines explain everything else.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

What the map does represent, is the residual GOP strength among Yankee white Protestants. The red in New England, Upstate New York, Northern PA, Northern OH, Halleck's Indiana district, the Michigan Seats and the Republican seats in Northern Illinois. Also in this would be Coastal Oregon, and Northern California. The seats in Eastern Tennessee, South Central Kentucky and and Ozark Missouri are the banner districts for the strongly GOP Mountain counties.

The map illustrates the divide clearly between Northern Yankee Whites who were the Republican lead demographic in virtually all of these states, and every other group in the Northern states that existed who were far less Republican (Irish, Germans, Southern originated, ethnics etc). They were basically the White Evangelicals of the day, voting 70% to 75% Republican in close and good years for them.

[Tintrlvr]

Would be awesome to know what the population of those districts drawn in the 1930s are today.  Some could be less than 200,000 while others over 5 million.

I'm guessing the smallest are some of the rural central Iowa seats, the southern West Virginia seat, the eastern Kentucky seat and the the western Nebraska and Kansas seats, with possibly a rural middle Pennsylvania seat thrown in the mix and maybe the Delta seat in Mississippi as well. A couple of the lower Manhattan seats might make it into the list, too. The largest is probably the Orange-San Bernardino-Riverside seat although the Arizona seat and the SE Florida seat are far up there, too.

I'm a little surprised by how many seats Texas had back in the 30s.

[Oryxslayer]

Would be awesome to know what the population of those districts drawn in the 1930s are today.  Some could be less than 200,000 while others over 5 million.

I'm guessing the smallest are some of the rural central Iowa seats, the southern West Virginia seat, the eastern Kentucky seat and the the western Nebraska and Kansas seats, with possibly a rural middle Pennsylvania seat thrown in the mix and maybe the Delta seat in Mississippi as well. A couple of the lower Manhattan seats might make it into the list, too. The largest is probably the Orange-San Bernardino-Riverside seat although the Arizona seat and the SE Florida seat are far up there, too.

I'm a little surprised by how many seats Texas had back in the 30s.

Well, they were not equal in population back then either.

[Skill and Chance]

Would be awesome to know what the population of those districts drawn in the 1930s are today.  Some could be less than 200,000 while others over 5 million.

I'm guessing the smallest are some of the rural central Iowa seats, the southern West Virginia seat, the eastern Kentucky seat and the the western Nebraska and Kansas seats, with possibly a rural middle Pennsylvania seat thrown in the mix and maybe the Delta seat in Mississippi as well. A couple of the lower Manhattan seats might make it into the list, too. The largest is probably the Orange-San Bernardino-Riverside seat although the Arizona seat and the SE Florida seat are far up there, too.

I'm a little surprised by how many seats Texas had back in the 30s.

My understanding is that CDs varying in population by more than a factor of 2 was rare even in that era.  The insane 50X differences were usually in state senates.  1 county = 1 state senate seat style rules were fairly common.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

There would have been a strong chance of Republicans being reduced to about the same number of seats as they had after 1936 in the 2010 elections had it been a McCain midterm.

[muon2]

I went to church for a number of years with the daughter of one of those Pubs who survived the 1936 election. Chauncey Reed was first elected from IL-11 in 1934, and IIRC may have been the only freshman Pub in that class. If not, I suspect that he was the only freshman Pub to win reelection in 1936. I also live a half a block from the house he lived in when he served, and at one time I looked at buying it, so I've learned a lot about his history.

Northern IL was hyper Pub in the 1930's. They saw themselves as the carriers of the mantle of Lincoln and Lincoln celebrations persist in the area to this day. For them the Dems were either big city machines or southern segregationists, neither of which they cared for. Minus Chicago, Landon probably carried the northern half of the state. Unlike WI and MN there was not a big third party movement to attract these ancestral Pubs.