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1944 United States presidential election in Alabama

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1944 United States presidential election in Alabama

← 1940 November 7, 1944 1948 →
 
Nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt Thomas E. Dewey
Party Democratic Republican
Home state New York New York
Running mate Harry S. Truman John W. Bricker
Electoral vote 11 0
Popular vote 198,918 44,540
Percentage 81.28% 18.20%

County results

President before election

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic

Elected President

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic

The 1944 United States presidential election in Alabama took place on November 7, 1944, as part of the 1944 United States presidential election. Alabama voters chose eleven representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

In Alabama, voters voted for electors individually instead of as a slate, as in the other states.

Since the 1890s, Alabama had been effectively a one-party state ruled by the Democratic Party. Disenfranchisement of almost all African-Americans and a large proportion of poor whites via poll taxes, literacy tests[1] and informal harassment had essentially eliminated opposition parties outside of Unionist Winston County and a few nearby northern hill counties that had been Populist strongholds.[2] The only competitive statewide elections became Democratic Party primaries limited by law to white voters until the landmark court case of Smith v. Allwright, following which Alabama introduced the Boswell Amendment — ruled unconstitutional in Davis v. Schnell in 1949,[3] although substantial increases in black voter registration would not occur until after the late 1960s Voting Rights Act.

Unlike other Deep South states, soon after black disenfranchisement Alabama’s remaining white Republicans made rapid efforts to expel blacks from the state Republican Party,[4] and under Oscar D. Street, who ironically was appointed state party boss as part of the pro-Taft “black and tan” faction in 1912,[5] the state GOP would permanently turn “lily-white”, with the last black delegates at any Republican National Convention serving in 1920.[4] With two exceptions the Republicans were unable to gain from their hard lily-white policy. The first was when they exceeded forty percent in the 1920 House of Representatives races for the 4th, 7th and 10th congressional districts,[6] and the second was the 1928 presidential election when Senator James Thomas Heflin embarked on a nationwide speaking tour, partially funded by the Ku Klux Klan, against Roman Catholic Democratic nominee Al Smith and supported Republican Herbert Hoover,[7] who went on to lose the state by only seven thousand votes.

By 1940, there was significant opposition amongst Alabama’s planter and industrial elite to the New Deal, and there were already attempts to organise the “independent elector” movements that would proliferate after Harry S. Truman’s civil rights proposals,[8] whilst other “big mules” already supported voting Republican for President.[9] However, the hatred of the Republican label, in spite of six election cycles as a party exclusive of blacks,[10] prevented such a revolt amongst the actual electorate.[11]

Polls

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No campaigning was done by either incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt and new running mate Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman, nor by Republican nominees Governor Thomas E. DeweyNew York and Governor John W. Bricker. Polls were not taken until late October, when a Gallup poll showed Roosevelt as having 77 percent of the vote.[12] This increased slightly to 78 percent of the two-party vote on the day before the poll.[13]

Results

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Alabama was ultimately won in a landslide by FDR with 81.28 percent of the popular vote, against Dewey with 18.20 percent of the popular vote, a margin of 63.08 percent. Third-party candidates only managed to pick up 0.53 percent of the vote.[14]

1944 United States presidential election in Alabama
Party Candidate Votes %
Democratic Franklin D. Roosevelt (inc.) 198,918 81.28%
Republican Thomas E. Dewey 44,540 18.20%
Prohibition Claude A. Watson 1,095 0.45%
Socialist Norman Thomas 190 0.08%
Total votes 244,743 100.00%

Results by individual elector

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General election results[15]
Party Pledged to Elector Votes
Democratic Party Franklin D. Roosevelt W. F. Covington, Jr. 198,918
Democratic Party Franklin D. Roosevelt John D. McQueen 198,917
Democratic Party Franklin D. Roosevelt Forrest Castleberry 198,908
Democratic Party Franklin D. Roosevelt Otis R. Burton 198,907
Democratic Party Franklin D. Roosevelt John E. Adams 198,904
Democratic Party Franklin D. Roosevelt Ben Bloodworth 198,894
Democratic Party Franklin D. Roosevelt Fournier J. Gale 198,888
Democratic Party Franklin D. Roosevelt Thomas H. Maxwell 198,880
Democratic Party Franklin D. Roosevelt Gessner T. McCorvey 198,871
Democratic Party Franklin D. Roosevelt Walter F. Miller 198,868
Democratic Party Franklin D. Roosevelt W. O. Pope 197,872
Republican Party Thomas E. Dewey William M. Russell 44,540
Republican Party Thomas E. Dewey C. R. Stone 44,540
Republican Party Thomas E. Dewey C. S. Prescott 44,513
Republican Party Thomas E. Dewey J. Dewey Rockett 44,509
Republican Party Thomas E. Dewey Jack E. Paterson 44,496
Republican Party Thomas E. Dewey E. L. Harvell 44,478
Republican Party Thomas E. Dewey Lyman Ward 44,467
Republican Party Thomas E. Dewey H. A. Jackson 44,447
Republican Party Thomas E. Dewey Pope M. Long 44,446
Republican Party Thomas E. Dewey R. M. Sims 44,433
Republican Party Thomas E. Dewey Aaron G. Weaver 44,306
Prohibition Party Claude A. Watson A. J. Dailey 1,095
Prohibition Party Claude A. Watson James C. Mauldin 1,082
Prohibition Party Claude A. Watson Emmett Williams 1,081
Prohibition Party Claude A. Watson A. W. Stone 1,071
Prohibition Party Claude A. Watson C. H. McAdory 1,069
Prohibition Party Claude A. Watson John C. Orr 1,068
Prohibition Party Claude A. Watson Glenn V. Tingley 1,064
Prohibition Party Claude A. Watson J. B. Lockhart 1,058
Prohibition Party Claude A. Watson Mary A. Bebout 1,054
Prohibition Party Claude A. Watson W. E. Braden 1,054
Prohibition Party Claude A. Watson Eunice Sisson 1,050
Socialist Party of America Norman Thomas Minnie C. Adams 190
Socialist Party of America Norman Thomas Robert S. Burgess, Jr. 182
Socialist Party of America Norman Thomas Frederic Roper 176
Socialist Party of America Norman Thomas D. R. Calloway 166
Socialist Party of America Norman Thomas F. M. Buttram 162
Total votes 244,743

Results by county

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1944 United States presidential election in Alabama by county[16][17]
County Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Democratic
Thomas Edmund Dewey
Republican
Claude A. Watson
Prohibition
Norman Mattoon Thomas
Socialist
Margin Total votes cast
# % # % # % # % # %
Autauga 1,242 91.06% 117 8.58% 5 0.37% 0 0.00% 1,125 82.48% 1,364
Baldwin 2,002 73.41% 695 25.49% 22 0.81% 8 0.29% 1,308 47.95% 2,727
Barbour 2,237 94.91% 67 2.84% 53 2.25% 0 0.00% 2,170 92.07% 2,357
Bibb 1,287 83.25% 244 15.78% 10 0.65% 2 0.13% 1,043 67.60% 1,546
Blount 2,134 67.85% 998 31.73% 10 0.32% 1 0.03% 1,135 36.12% 3,145
Bullock 1,056 97.78% 24 2.22% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,032 95.56% 1,080
Butler 1,915 95.75% 80 4.00% 5 0.25% 0 0.00% 1,835 91.75% 2,000
Calhoun 4,308 85.65% 694 13.80% 26 0.52% 2 0.04% 3,614 71.85% 5,030
Chambers 3,458 94.43% 194 5.30% 9 0.25% 0 0.00% 3,264 89.16% 3,662
Cherokee 1,774 80.64% 408 18.55% 17 0.77% 1 0.05% 1,366 62.09% 2,200
Chilton 1,984 58.77% 1,385 41.02% 6 0.18% 1 0.03% 599 17.74% 3,376
Choctaw 1,243 93.32% 86 6.46% 3 0.23% 0 0.00% 1,158 86.87% 1,332
Clarke 2,263 93.98% 142 5.90% 3 0.12% 0 0.00% 2,121 88.08% 2,408
Clay 1,535 67.03% 741 32.36% 13 0.57% 1 0.04% 794 34.67% 2,290
Cleburne 948 65.02% 504 34.57% 6 0.41% 0 0.00% 443 30.36% 1,458
Coffee 2,846 96.02% 115 3.88% 3 0.10% 0 0.00% 2,731 92.14% 2,964
Colbert 3,386 87.07% 496 12.75% 6 0.15% 2 0.05% 2,890 74.29% 3,889
Conecuh 1,498 91.34% 127 7.74% 9 0.55% 6 0.37% 1,371 83.60% 1,640
Coosa 1,079 72.86% 394 26.60% 5 0.34% 3 0.20% 685 46.25% 1,481
Covington 2,972 91.98% 256 7.92% 2 0.06% 1 0.03% 2,716 84.06% 3,231
Crenshaw 1,980 94.06% 118 5.61% 6 0.29% 0 0.00% 1,862 88.50% 2,105
Cullman 3,898 63.43% 2,202 35.83% 41 0.67% 4 0.07% 1,696 27.60% 6,145
Dale 2,094 85.57% 325 13.28% 8 0.33% 1 0.04% 1,769 72.86% 2,447
Dallas 2,883 94.74% 149 4.90% 5 0.16% 5 0.16% 2,735 89.88% 3,043
DeKalb 4,366 62.35% 2,627 37.52% 9 0.13% 0 0.00% 1,739 24.84% 7,002
Elmore 3,108 94.32% 184 5.58% 3 0.09% 0 0.00% 2,924 88.74% 3,295
Escambia 2,077 88.20% 266 11.30% 12 0.51% 0 0.00% 1,811 76.90% 2,355
Etowah 5,895 78.38% 1,525 20.28% 89 1.18% 12 0.16% 4,370 58.10% 7,521
Fayette 1,648 64.10% 913 35.51% 10 0.39% 0 0.00% 735 28.59% 2,571
Franklin 2,709 59.30% 1,853 40.56% 6 0.13% 0 0.00% 856 18.74% 4,568
Geneva 2,004 83.36% 385 16.01% 15 0.62% 0 0.00% 1,619 67.35% 2,404
Greene 676 93.63% 45 6.23% 1 0.14% 0 0.00% 631 87.40% 722
Hale 1,265 97.46% 33 2.54% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,232 94.92% 1,298
Henry 1,635 97.15% 46 2.73% 2 0.12% 0 0.00% 1,589 94.41% 1,683
Houston 3,349 91.80% 282 7.73% 16 0.44% 1 0.03% 3,067 84.07% 3,648
Jackson 2,967 74.18% 1,026 25.65% 6 0.15% 1 0.03% 1,941 48.53% 4,000
Jefferson 31,101 80.40% 7,409 19.15% 157 0.41% 17 0.04% 23,692 61.24% 38,684
Lamar 2,025 86.10% 310 13.18% 16 0.68% 1 0.04% 1,715 72.92% 2,352
Lauderdale 4,001 86.77% 590 12.80% 19 0.41% 1 0.02% 3,411 73.98% 4,611
Lawrence 1,893 76.86% 565 22.94% 5 0.20% 0 0.00% 1,328 53.92% 2,463
Lee 2,011 93.49% 134 6.23% 5 0.23% 1 0.05% 1,878 87.27% 2,151
Limestone 2,605 94.93% 129 4.70% 10 0.36% 0 0.00% 2,476 90.23% 2,744
Lowndes 802 97.92% 16 1.95% 1 0.12% 0 0.00% 786 95.97% 819
Macon 1,032 92.56% 82 7.35% 1 0.09% 0 0.00% 951 85.37% 1,115
Madison 4,951 91.33% 455 8.39% 11 0.20% 4 0.07% 4,496 82.94% 5,421
Marengo 1,746 94.69% 89 4.83% 7 0.38% 2 0.11% 1,657 89.86% 1,844
Marion 1,866 59.48% 1,260 40.17% 10 0.32% 0 0.00% 607 19.36% 3,137
Marshall 3,356 73.58% 1,200 26.31% 5 0.11% 0 0.00% 2,156 47.27% 4,561
Mobile 9,439 75.98% 2,867 23.08% 86 0.69% 25 0.20% 6,570 52.92% 12,423
Monroe 1,991 97.55% 46 2.25% 4 0.20% 0 0.00% 1,945 95.30% 2,041
Montgomery 9,143 95.62% 381 3.98% 32 0.33% 9 0.09% 8,748 91.57% 9,562
Morgan 4,124 85.24% 664 13.72% 49 1.01% 0 0.00% 3,461 71.57% 4,838
Perry 1,004 95.35% 47 4.46% 2 0.19% 0 0.00% 957 90.88% 1,053
Pickens 1,482 87.23% 209 12.30% 8 0.47% 0 0.00% 1,273 74.93% 1,699
Pike 2,328 93.87% 90 3.63% 31 1.25% 30 1.21% 2,238 90.28% 2,480
Randolph 1,785 71.06% 702 27.95% 25 1.00% 0 0.00% 1,083 43.11% 2,512
Russell 2,109 94.66% 115 5.16% 4 0.18% 0 0.00% 1,994 89.50% 2,228
Shelby 1,955 67.11% 945 32.44% 8 0.27% 2 0.07% 1,009 34.66% 2,913
St. Clair 1,819 61.66% 1,117 37.86% 13 0.44% 1 0.03% 702 23.80% 2,950
Sumter 1,075 95.05% 53 4.69% 3 0.27% 0 0.00% 1,022 90.36% 1,131
Talladega 3,102 81.50% 675 17.74% 25 0.66% 2 0.05% 2,428 63.84% 3,806
Tallapoosa 3,326 95.88% 136 3.92% 7 0.20% 0 0.00% 3,190 91.96% 3,469
Tuscaloosa 4,939 88.62% 584 10.48% 20 0.36% 4 0.07% 4,355 78.51% 5,573
Walker 4,619 66.87% 2,241 32.45% 32 0.46% 12 0.17% 2,379 34.46% 6,907
Washington 1,447 92.28% 115 7.33% 6 0.38% 0 0.00% 1,332 84.95% 1,568
Wilcox 1,209 97.42% 30 2.42% 2 0.16% 0 0.00% 1,179 95.00% 1,241
Winston 912 37.07% 1,538 62.52% 10 0.41% 0 0.00% -626 -25.45% 2,460
Totals 198,918 81.28% 44,540 18.20% 1,095 0.45% 190 0.08% 154,378 63.08% 244,743

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Perman, Michael (2001). Struggle for Mastery: Disfranchisement in the South, 1888–1908. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. p. Introduction. ISBN 9780807849095.
  2. ^ Webb, Samuel L. "From Independents to Populists to Progressive Republicans: The Case of Chilton County, Alabama, 1880-1920". The Journal of Southern History. 59 (4): 707–736.
  3. ^ Stanley, Harold Watkins (1987). Voter mobilization and the politics of race: the South and universal suffrage, 1952-1984. p. 100. ISBN 0275926737.
  4. ^ a b Heersink, Boris; Jenkins, Jeffery A. (2020). Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865-1968. pp. 251–253. ISBN 9781107158436.
  5. ^ Casdorph, Paul D. (1981). Republicans, Negroes, and Progressives in the South, 1912-1916. The University of Alabama Press. pp. 70, 94–95. ISBN 0817300481.
  6. ^ Phillips, Kevin P. (1969). The Emerging Republican Majority. p. 255. ISBN 0870000586.
  7. ^ Chiles, Robert (2018). The Revolution of ‘28: Al Smith, American Progressivism, and the Coming of the New Deal. Cornell University Press. p. 115. ISBN 9781501705502.
  8. ^ Feldman, Glenn (2013). The Irony of the Solid South: Democrats, Republicans, and Race, 1865–1944. University of Alabama Press. p. 150. ISBN 9780817317935.
  9. ^ Feldman, Glenn (2015). The Great Melding: War, the Dixiecrat Rebellion, and the Southern Model for America's New Conservatism. University of Alabama Press. p. 60. ISBN 9780817318666.
  10. ^ Heersink; Jenkins. Republican Party Politics and the American South, pp. 48–50
  11. ^ Feldman. The Irony of the Solid South, pp. 151-152
  12. ^ Gallup, George (October 27, 1944). "Poll Shows Dewey, F.D.R. in Close Race". The Journal Times. Racine, Wisconsin. p. 8.
  13. ^ "Final Poll Shows Roosevelt Is Choice". Star-Phoenix. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada: Canadian Institute of Public Opinion. pp. 1–2.
  14. ^ "1944 Presidential General Election Results – Alabama". Dave Leip’s U.S. Election Atlas.
  15. ^ Alabama Official and Statistical Register, 1947. Montgomery, Alabama: Walker Printing Company. pp. 455–465.
  16. ^ Scammon, Richard M. (compiler); America at the Polls: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics 1920-1964; pp. 31–32 ISBN 0405077114
  17. ^ "AL US President Race, November 07, 1944". Our Campaigns.