Truman 1948 MA

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Compared to 1944, Truman did worse in the interior/west and Cape Cod/Plymouth, but better in Boston/the northeast and Bristol.   A lot of Irish were not enthusiastic about going into WW2, so it's possible that played a role; David Walsh, senator until 1947, in particular did not have a good relationship with FDR in part due to their different foreign policy views. Many were probably be more motivated to support the Democrats over issues like labor relations (Truman having just unsuccessfully vetoed Taft-Hartley).   Over this period I believe there was also some demographic shift due to differential birth rates, though there was no longer much immigration.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It might just be as simple as the demographics caught up.  Replace "Catholics" or "Irish" with "Hispanic" or something today, in a state like Arizona, along with some continued White defection from the GOP.  I remember seeing a quote that during the 1930s, alongside the fact that the GOP was being routed, Democrats were saying that the GOP coalition was too ethnically restrictive to survive in the future.  Turns out they were right, as the GOP made HUGE inroads with Catholics of both Irish and Italian descent over the next several decades.

This makes sense. According to the US Religion Census, in 1936 Catholics made up 39.9% of MA’s population, but by 1952 this had risen to 48.4%.

note though also that the Catholic church had a lot of conversions in the US in the postwar era, so some of the change is due to that.