Who won Thurmond voters in 1952?

[coolface1572]

Did Ike or Stevenson receive more dixiecrat voters in 1952? My guess is that in the deep south Stevenson won them, but Ike won them in the upper south.

[Calthrina950]

Did Ike or Stevenson receive more dixiecrat voters in 1952? My guess is that in the deep south Stevenson won them, but Ike won them in the upper south.

The answer to this question depends upon the state. I'm going to just look at the Deep South. In Thurmond's home state of South Carolina, it appears that the lionshare of Dixiecratic voters went for Eisenhower. Eisenhower received 49.28% in the state, a massive 45.50% increase upon Thomas Dewey's 3.78% from four years prior. Stevenson got 50.72%, up 26.58% from Truman's 24.14%. Moreover, virtually all of Thurmond's counties in the Black Belt and Lowland regions went for Eisenhower, many of them by landslide margins. Stevenson however, regained just enough Democratic defectors in the whitier Upcountry to eke out a narrow victory. In Mississippi and Alabama, the bulk of Thurmond's vote went to Stevenson, but Eisenhower gained considerable ground as well: 39.56% in Mississippi (up from Dewey's 2.62%) and 35.02% in Alabama (up from Dewey's 19.04%).

In Louisiana, most of Thurmond's vote went to Eisenhower, who got 47.08%, a 29.63% increase on Dewey (17.45%), while Stevenson's vote-share was 52.92%, an increase of 19.83% upon Truman's 32.75%. And in Georgia, Eisenhower gained more Thurmond voters than Stevenson, rising from Dewey's 18.31% to 30.34%, an increase of 12.03%, while Stevenson's share increased from Truman's 60.81% to 69.66%, an increase of 8.85%.

[Podgy the Bear]

I am sure that much of the Thurmond vote nationally went to Eisenhower, primarily in the peripheral South (AR, FL, TN, NC, TX, VA).  

For the Deep South, there were varying trends.  AL didn't swing that heavily because John Sparkman was the VP nominee that year.   I wonder how Sparkman made the ticket--the first Deep South candidate in ages to do so.  Probably a weak effort to balance it.  It didn't work, but it may have held enough Deep South voters to keep those states in the Stevenson column for 1952.

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

It's hard to quantify especially considering the large turnout differentials between 48 and 52 in the Deep South. However, considering Eisenhower's strongest areas of the Deep South were often the lowland/black belt areas which went strongest for Thurmond, it appears he won a significant amount of them.

[morgankingsley]

What is with this forum and thurmond

[Fuzzy Bear]

Stevenson, but barely.

The bulk of the vote for Thurmond was in SC, AL, MS, and LA, all of which went for Stevenson.  These were the states where Thurmond was the Democratic Party's nominee in 1948.  It is arguable that the voters who voted for Thurmond on the States Rights Democratic ticket in states that went for Truman voted for Eisenhower.

[brucejoel99]

What is with this forum and thurmond

Atlas' daddy issue?

[DINGO Joe]

As most upthread have surmised, it's most likely Eisenhower did.

Thurmond vote by state:

Louisiana 204,000 (49-33-17 Thurmond) 53-47 Stevenson--obviously Eisenhower
Alabama  171,000 (80-0-19 Thurmond) 65-35 Stevenson--obviously Stevenson
Mississippi 167,000 (87-10-3 Thurmond) 60-40 Stevenson--obviously Stevenson
Texas 114,000 (9-66-24 Truman) 47-53 Eisenhower--very likely Eisenhower
South Carolina 103,000 (72-24-4 Thurmond) 51-49 Stevenson--obviously Eisenhower
Florida 90,000 (16-49-34 Truman) 45-55 Eisenhower--very likely Eisenhower
Georgia 85,000 (20-60-18 Truman) 70-30 Stevenson--probably Eisenhower
Tennessee 74,000 (13-49-37 Truman) 50-50 Eisenhower--don't know
North Carolina 70,000 (9-58-33 Truman) 54-46 Stevenson--probably Eisenhower
Virginia 43,000 (10-48-41 Truman) 43-56 Eisenhower--very likely Eisenhower
Arkansas 40,000 (17-62-21 Truman) 56-44 Stevenson--probably Stevenson

[brucejoel99]

Yeah, probably Eisenhower.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Kevin Phillips is pretty clear that in most states Deep or Outer South, the answer is Eisenhower, though Alabama and Mississippi are obvious exceptions that can largely be explained by the VP choice.

The people who were defecting from the Democrats in 1948 were as stated a combination of urban/lowland/black belt whites. It must be remembered that these counties are basically rotten boroughs where only a small group of rich whites are actually voting. African-Americans cannot vote obviously in most of these places at this time. As for poor whites they are few in number because a lot of those lower end jobs are held by African-Americans and such was thus the case for a century or more in some of those places so they just didn't move to those places to begin with, leaving a stratified apartheid like social caste of rich whites and poor blacks. In some cases where they did live in those areas they were restricted as well by poll taxes and other hindrances to voting.

So you have a large group of voters who skew wealthier on average and are very race conscious as well. Therefore they don't have much affinity for the New Deal economic program and after the desegregation of the Army and adding of a civil rights plank to the Democratic platform, they essentially had nothing left to keep them as Democrats. By comparison in 1928, theses places largely stayed loyal to the Democrats because they were seen as the best vehicle to maintain the social structure, by 1948 that is removed and so they defect.

Now a number of Thurmond voters did return to the Democrats especially since he got 70% in SC and Ike and Nixon didn't win that many votes, but it would be accurate to say that the newly competitive situation in the deep South was born of a combination of Thurmond voters augmented by Northern transplants. Over time these voters would consolidate into the metros as blacks started voting and the black belt counties became heavily Democratic and then they would move out to the Suburbs leading to a situation of heavily Republican metros that existed through 2004.

[DINGO Joe]

A special shout out goes to Plaquemines Parish, La which was controlled (and I mean controlled) by segregationist boss, Leander Perez and gave 94% of the vote to Thurmon in 48 and 93% of the vote to Eisenhower in 52.

[darklordoftech]

Kevin Phillips is pretty clear that in most states Deep or Outer South, the answer is Eisenhower, though Alabama and Mississippi are obvious exceptions that can largely be explained by the VP choice.

The people who were defecting from the Democrats in 1948 were as stated a combination of urban/lowland/black belt whites. It must be remembered that these counties are basically rotten boroughs where only a small group of rich whites are actually voting. African-Americans cannot vote obviously in most of these places at this time. As for poor whites they are few in number because a lot of those lower end jobs are held by African-Americans and such was thus the case for a century or more in some of those places so they just didn't move to those places to begin with, leaving a stratified apartheid like social caste of rich whites and poor blacks. In some cases where they did live in those areas they were restricted as well by poll taxes and other hindrances to voting.

So you have a large group of voters who skew wealthier on average and are very race conscious as well. Therefore they don't have much affinity for the New Deal economic program and after the desegregation of the Army and adding of a civil rights plank to the Democratic platform, they essentially had nothing left to keep them as Democrats. By comparison in 1928, theses places largely stayed loyal to the Democrats because they were seen as the best vehicle to maintain the social structure, by 1948 that is removed and so they defect.

Now a number of Thurmond voters did return to the Democrats especially since he got 70% in SC and Ike and Nixon didn't win that many votes, but it would be accurate to say that the newly competitive situation in the deep South was born of a combination of Thurmond voters augmented by Northern transplants. Over time these voters would consolidate into the metros as blacks started voting and the black belt counties became heavily Democratic and then they would move out to the Suburbs leading to a situation of heavily Republican metros that existed through 2004.

Thank you for this post. There’s been plenty of discussion on Atlas about how suburban transplants voted and how Appalachian whites voted, but there’s been little discussion about how the Jim Crow elite voted from 1952 on (although we all know how they voted in 1964).