Texas Regulars as Forerunners of Dixiecrats and Southern Suburban GOP Shift
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  Texas Regulars as Forerunners of Dixiecrats and Southern Suburban GOP Shift
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Author Topic: Texas Regulars as Forerunners of Dixiecrats and Southern Suburban GOP Shift  (Read 409 times)
H. Ross Peron
General Mung Beans
Junior Chimp
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« on: October 14, 2020, 03:01:58 PM »

The Texas Regulars were a slate of unpledged Presidential electors running on a conservative, anti-New Deal platform in the 1944 election. Their platform-especially opposition to the New Deal and attempts to reverse restrictions on black political participation-anticipated the Dixiecrat movement 4 years later. Interestingly, their support base reveals similar tendencies as well as the later shift of Southern suburbia to the Republican Party in the 1950s-70s.

They received above average levels of support in most urban counties especially Harris and Tarrant but also Travis and Dallas. The only exception was Bexar (San Antonio) which had a large Hispanic population.

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Adem 45
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« Reply #1 on: October 17, 2020, 12:46:27 AM »

The Texas Regulars' unpledged electors managed to win Washington county with 52% of the vote. Washington I think is one of those "German" counties in Texas, as the county seat of Brenham holds German heritage festivals. I wonder that that has something to do with it?

Washington actually went for Wilkie in 1940, after overwhelmingly backing Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936, and then it went Republican in every race from 1948 onwards, aside from 1964.

Interestingly it was one of Smith's best counties in Texas in 1928, giving him 90% of the vote despite Hoover making huge inroads in Texas (Catholic Germans?). Though it went for Davis in 1924 by nearly as much, and went for Ferguson's third party in 1920 for whatever reason, and prior to then went for Hughes in 1916. Seems kind of odd. Not quite sure what was going on there.
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Orser67
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« Reply #2 on: October 17, 2020, 09:16:54 AM »

Yes, the Regulars are perhaps the first example of a pattern that would continue in the following Democrats: Southern Democrats bolting the party in reaction to an interventionist economic policy and federal efforts to reduce/end segregation. In the case of the Texas Regulars, they were reacting to both the New Deal and the Supreme Court decision in Smith v. Allwright, which ended the de jure practice of all-white primaries.
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