When was the last election where D nominee was more right than the R?

[RINO Tom]

Never. On the other hand, "when was the last election where the Republican nominee was more progressive than their opponent" is a much more interesting question.

Good answer.

[MATTROSE94]

1904 or 1924 for economic issues, either 1960 or 2000 for foreign policy, and either 1940, 1944, 1960, or 1976 for social issues.

[OSR stands with Israel]

1904 or 1924 for economic issues, either 1960 or 2000 for foreign policy, and either 1940, 1944, 1960, or 1976 for social issues.

Coolidge is probably the most Economically right wing nominee probably ever

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

1912

I assume you must be including civil rights as a left-right issue where being against civil rights initiatives is presumably the "conservative" position?  Even then, I am not sure that - during the 1912 campaign - Taft was noticeably more pro-civil rights than Wilson.  A little, sure, but he wasn't too bold, to my knowledge.  Wilson really didn't gain an "anti-civil rights" reputation until well after he was elected, no?  I remember seeing that he actually got a lot of Black newspaper endorsements in 1912.

I also see little evidence that Wilson was running to Taft's right on economic issues?  Could be wrong.

Wilson was the LEAST economically interventionist candidate. His "New Freedom" platform called for limited government. Taft busted more trusts than any other President.

Opposition to trusts was a major theme of the New Freedom platform.  The major difference with Taft on the issue was that Wilson believed that the protective tariffs that Taft supported encouraged monopoly. 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's hard to overstate just how far right on economic issues the federal government was in the 1920s, by both diachronic American history standards and synchronic world standards. 1924 was definitely the nadir of this (Davis would go on to be implicated in the Business Plot), but it's hard to tell whether or not Davis was more right-wing than Coolidge. If we frame race relations as a left-right issue then Davis was to Coolidge's right on that (Davis would also go on to argue the losing side in Brown v. Board of Education, and of course he was a compromise candidate emerging from a convention in which one of the factions that settled for him was the Klan). The main "social issues" in the 1920s were Prohibition, on which Davis was more liberal than Coolidge, and eugenics, which is hard to frame as a left-right issue, especially in the interwar context. So 1924 might be the answer but it's really hard to say because of just how right-wing the national environment as a whole was.

[Lord Admirale]

I always felt like Carter was more conservative than Ford.

[RINO Tom]

I always felt like Carter was more conservative than Ford.

I don’t know what to say other than he wasn’t...

[Lord Admirale]

I always felt like Carter was more conservative than Ford.

I don’t know what to say other than he wasn’t...

The fact that he carried the former Confederacy? Shows he at least had conservative appeal.

[RINO Tom]

I always felt like Carter was more conservative than Ford.

I don’t know what to say other than he wasn’t...

The fact that he carried the former Confederacy? Shows he at least had conservative appeal.

Not necessarily.  That 1) assumes states’ politics are static over decades and 2) assumes Carter won the most conservative Southern voters.  Was Clinton more conservative than Dole just because he won WV, Trump’s best state?

[Lord Admirale]

I always felt like Carter was more conservative than Ford.

I don’t know what to say other than he wasn’t...

The fact that he carried the former Confederacy? Shows he at least had conservative appeal.

Not necessarily.  That 1) assumes states’ politics are static over decades and 2) assumes Carter won the most conservative Southern voters.  Was Clinton more conservative than Dole just because he won WV, Trump’s best state?

No because Clinton lost most of the former Confederacy. Carter carried every single Confederate state except for Virginia.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

1956

[Indy Texas]

Prior to Franklin Roosevelt's 1932 campaign, all of the Democratic presidential candidates who were not named William Jennings Bryan were by and large very conservative on economic issues and reactionary on social issues as far as they were about preserving racial hierarchy and limiting the federal government's ability to compel state governments to do anything.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I always felt like Carter was more conservative than Ford.

I don’t know what to say other than he wasn’t...

The fact that he carried the former Confederacy? Shows he at least had conservative appeal.

Yes, he had some appeal to Southern conservatives, being Southern and a "born-again" Christian. 
And yet, while Carter did well compared to other Democrats of the past 50 years, among white voters he only beat Ford in GA, AR, and probably TN.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Prior to Franklin Roosevelt's 1932 campaign, all of the Democratic presidential candidates who were not named William Jennings Bryan were by and large very conservative on economic issues and reactionary on social issues as far as they were about preserving racial hierarchy and limiting the federal government's ability to compel state governments to do anything.

Lol no Wilson was very liberal when it came to economic issues and Al Smith was considered pretty liberal for the time, and Cox was considered progressive on economic issues as well. 1896 is the turning point not 1932 and even in elections where the Democrats nominated economic conservatives like 1924 the Republican candidate was even more conservative

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

Prior to Franklin Roosevelt's 1932 campaign, all of the Democratic presidential candidates who were not named William Jennings Bryan were by and large very conservative on economic issues and reactionary on social issues as far as they were about preserving racial hierarchy and limiting the federal government's ability to compel state governments to do anything.

Wilson was very conservative on economic issues....? His "New Freedom" reforms resulted in the implementation of an income tax, the creation of the federal reserve and drastically increased the power and functions of the federal government.

I also press X to doubt on James M. Cox and Al Smith, who were both considered economic progressives. Smith was anti-prohibition as well (He was a Catholic after all).

[The Mikado]

Prior to Franklin Roosevelt's 1932 campaign, all of the Democratic presidential candidates who were not named William Jennings Bryan were by and large very conservative on economic issues and reactionary on social issues as far as they were about preserving racial hierarchy and limiting the federal government's ability to compel state governments to do anything.

Al Smith was neither of those things.

[RINO Tom]

You can’t make ARGUMENTS for certain years, but the answer is MUCH closer to “never” than it is a magical “turning point” ... including 1896.

[The Mikado]

You can’t make ARGUMENTS for certain years, but the answer is MUCH closer to “never” than it is a magical “turning point” ... including 1896.

Really? Cleveland was pretty clearly to the right of Harrison in 1888/1892.

[darklordoftech]

You can’t make ARGUMENTS for certain years, but the answer is MUCH closer to “never” than it is a magical “turning point” ... including 1896.

Really? Cleveland was pretty clearly to the right of Harrison in 1888/1892.

On what issues?

[The Mikado]

Cleveland was a hardcore free trader, while Harrison was a protectionist.

If you need something a bit more "social," Harrison stuck his neck out in support of an anti-lynching law, which Cleveland never supported.

[OSR stands with Israel]

You can’t make ARGUMENTS for certain years, but the answer is MUCH closer to “never” than it is a magical “turning point” ... including 1896.

1896 though was a massive massive shift : Going from Grover Cleveland to William Jennings Bryan is a massive shift in every way possible as there was probably a bigger difference between both of them politically than there was between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater in 1964.

There really is no way Grover Cleveland stays a Democrat (assuming he is active in politics) through the Wilson years let alone the FDR ones. The Presidency since then which most resembles his is Coolidge(Who is also the only President I would argue was more right-wing than Cleveland since 1860)

[OSR stands with Israel]

You can’t make ARGUMENTS for certain years, but the answer is MUCH closer to “never” than it is a magical “turning point” ... including 1896.

Really? Cleveland was pretty clearly to the right of Harrison in 1888/1892.

On what issues?

Cleveland was clearly more Laissez-Faire than Harrison

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Cleveland was a hardcore free trader, while Harrison was a protectionist.

Not the best example, as that also applies to William Jennings Bryan/McKinley and FDR's elections.

[TDAS04]

The Gilded Age is tricky.  Both parties were extremely pro-business.  From a lefty point of view, one could argue that while Republicans favored aid to big business, at least Cleveland and the Democrats didn’t want to help anyone, rich or poor.

The best example of and era where the Democratic candidates were to the right of their Republican counterparts would be 1856-1868.

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

I always felt like Carter was more conservative than Ford.

I don’t know what to say other than he wasn’t...

The fact that he carried the former Confederacy? Shows he at least had conservative appeal.

Yes, he had some appeal to Southern conservatives, being Southern and a "born-again" Christian. 
And yet, while Carter did well compared to other Democrats of the past 50 years, among white voters he only beat Ford in GA, AR, and probably TN.

Ford managed to still win in the white South because he performed well in Southern urban and suburban areas. His strongest performances in the south include Jefferson and Shelby counties (Birmingham metro,AL), Montgomery county (Montgomery, AL) and Mobile and Baldwin counties (Mobile metro, AL), Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties (Houston metro, TX), Dallas, Tarrant, Denton, Collin and Rockwall counties (Dallas Metro, TX), Lubbock county (Lubbock, TX)), Wake county (Raleigh, NC), NOVA, Virginia beach county (Virginia Beach, VA), Hinds County and Rankin county (Jackson metro, MS), Oklahoma and Cleveland counties (Oklahoma City metro, OK), Tulsa county (Tulsa,OK), Greenville county (Greenville, SC), Lexington county (Lexington, SC), East Baton rouge parish (Baton rouge, LA), Southern and Central Florida (Orlando, Palm beach, etc.), Hamilton count (Chattanooga, TN), Knox county (Knoxville, TN), Jefferson County (Louisville, KY), etc.


Carter definitely won rural Southern whites in 76.