Can somebody explain this couple sentences to me?

[Morgan Kingsley]

"Thurmond's Dixiecrats carried only four Southern states, a lower total than predicted."

On the surface, it's meaning is obvious. Thurmond was projected to win more states. But I have some confusion to this sentiment, and want a person knowledgeable on this to help me out here.

My first problem is a more superficial one. Four states is not a bad measure for a non republican non democrat candidate to do, and was several more than LaFollette in 1924, and only 2 less than Roosevelt in 1912, the two recent third parties to win states at the time. I still say third party because even though in some states they were listed as the Official Democratic Nominee, nationally, they were considered a reactionary third party.

Second, is the more important thing in mind for me. What do they mean that Thurmond was expected to win more states? I thought it was a common sentiment even back then that Thurmond was locked into just the states he was listed as the democratic nominee, hence why he tried so hard to get the label in the other states, and did have a chance in Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas if it weren't for some local issues.

Or was there genuine wishful thinking (or dreading in other areas of the nation) that Thurmond was going to perform stronger than polls had him showing at. Thurmond at his peak was polling 3-4 percent, which would have only tipped Georgia and Arkansas, but nothing else. At election time, he was back down to 2 percent in polls, so were people seriously expecting him to really win much more than just four states?

The only way he would have won even five states or six states with his popular vote total at 2 percent is to have him perform substantially worse in the states he won, but better in the states he lost, but that is probably not happening due to how deeply embedded the hatred Mississippi and South Carolina had for any non democratic party candidate.

I'm just utterly perplexed by this, and sort of need help to understand the point of it.

[brucejoel99]

Probably just that he was expected to win at least a few more former Confederate states, yeah.

[Morgan Kingsley]

Probably just that he was expected to win at least a few more former Confederate states, yeah.

But I explained in relatively decent detail why that expectation people could have makes borderline zero sense

[brucejoel99]

Probably just that he was expected to win at least a few more former Confederate states, yeah.

But I explained in relatively decent detail why that expectation people could have makes borderline zero sense

It might've just been an expectation going into the election that states like GA, AR, & FL were gonna be (relatively) closer like LA rather than the Truman runaways they ended up being. I wouldn't say that's necessarily an unreasonable expectation to have had.

[Morgan Kingsley]

Probably just that he was expected to win at least a few more former Confederate states, yeah.

But I explained in relatively decent detail why that expectation people could have makes borderline zero sense

It might've just been an expectation going into the election that states like GA, AR, FL were gonna be (relatively) closer like LA rather than the Truman runaways they ended up being. I wouldn't say that's necessarily an unreasonable expectation to have.

Yeah I guess I can sort of see that, since I doubt anybody was expecting a 60 to 20 vote

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Thurmond's expectations or calculus was to force the the election into the House and then extract concessions in return for Truman's election. It was basically the same strategy that was used by later candidates including George Wallace.

Since the Reconstruction, no Democrat had failed to win these states (except for 1928 in some cases), and with the Democrats shifts on civil rights to reflect the urgent needs of their big city machines in the north  (They were losing middle class Irish/Germans/Italians at an alarming rate and needed African-Americans to maintain their, relatively new in most cases, hold on the cities. Ike's winning of several cities demonstrates this dynamic, though white flight later on makes this easy to overlook), it looked like the Democrats were "forsaking their old base" for "undesirables" in their view.

The Thurmond effort was meant to force Democrats into realizing who buttered their bread for the last 75 years. What it did do was demonstrate to Democrats that their new coalition didn't need staunchly conservative Southern bourgeoisie middle class and cultural elites to still win, and they very quickly found themselves streaming into the Republican Party.

It is worth noting that Thurmond's strength drops off considerably as you move into states that had more of a history of competition between Mountain Republicans and the Democrats, even if lopsided, states like TN, VA, NC. Kevin Phillips notes that the partisan warfare in these states helped keep voters in line lest defections benefit one side or the other. Democrats organizational strength in NC, GA, TX is also of note. Thurmond did best in those states where there was virtually no opposition. SC was the most Democratic state in the nation, followed by Mississippi and it was this way election after election, so they didn't feel any risk that a Republican might win those states via backing this third party effort.

[RINO Tom]

In addition to NC Yankee's excellent post (as usual), wasn't Thurmond listed on the ballot as the official "Democratic nominee" in multiple Southern states?  Maybe the prediction that he would "win more states" was based on the assumption that he was near-guaranteed to win said states and was likely to pick off at least a few more where he was a legitimate third party?