1928 United States presidential election, General election, Results
It was the last election in which the Republicans won North Carolina until 1968, the last in which they won Kentucky and West Virginia until 1956, the last in which they won Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington until 1952, the last in which they won Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon until 1948, and the last in which they won Ohio, Wisconsin, and Wyoming until 1944.


1928 United States presidential election, General election, Geography of results
Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote


1928 United States presidential election, General election, Close states
Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (60 electoral votes):


1928 United States presidential election in Alabama
The 1928 United States presidential election in Alabama took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all contemporary forty-eight states. Voters chose twelve representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. This was the last election in which Alabama had twelve electoral votes: the Great Migration caused the state to lose congressional districts after the 1930 Census produced the first Congressional redistricting since 1911.


1928 United States presidential election in Alabama
Alabama voted narrowly for the Democratic nominee, Governor Alfred E. "Al" Smith of New York, over the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California. Smith's running mate was Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas, while Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas. The only other candidate on the ballot was Socialist Norman Thomas, who received a mere four hundred and sixty votes.


1928 United States presidential election in Alabama, Background
Since the 1890s, Alabama had become 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 and informal harassment had essentially eliminated opposition parties outside of presidential campaigns in a few northern hill counties. The only competitive statewide elections became Democratic Party primaries, and ever since 1900 the Democratic Party won over two-thirds of the limited number of votes cast even in presidential elections.


1928 United States presidential election in Alabama, Background
Between 1900 and 1924, the southern bloc had been able to veto presidential nominations by extralimital branches of the Democratic Party. This changed before the 1928 election, as most Democrats decided to sit out the convention due to their belief the party had no chance of winning the November election. Consequently, Al Smith, a four-term Governor of New York, was able to win the nomination on the first ballot.


1928 United States presidential election in Alabama, General election campaign
Four characteristics of Smith made him anything but an ideal candidate for Southern Democrats: he was a devout Catholic, opposed to Prohibition, linked with New York City's Tammany Hall political machine, and the son of Irish and Italian immigrants. Whilst it is generally thought that the South would have accepted a man possessing one of those characteristics, the combination proved a bitter dose for many of Alabama's loyal Democrats.


1928 United States presidential election in Alabama, General election campaign
It was also thought by some, including those close to the revived Ku Klux Klan, that Smith was too friendly with blacks and some Alabama whites unsubtly called Smith "nigger, nigger, nigger." Nonetheless, these people did not think Hoover any safer on the race issue, although they did prefer Hoover's view on Prohibition.


1928 United States presidential election in Alabama, General election campaign
The conflict between disapproval of Smith's faith and policies on one hand and extreme traditional hostility towards the Republican Party in almost all of Alabama (the only exceptions being the historically anti-secession counties of Winston and a few populist strongholds like Chilton) produced an exceptionally bitter campaign. Black Belt whites – who had controlled the state government since disenfranchisement of blacks and poor whites – also felt Smith's social views obnoxious, especially his opposition to the Ku Klux Klan.


1928 United States presidential election in Alabama, General election campaign
Consequently, many of Alabama's voters swore to vote for Hoover without declaring themselves Republicans, instead calling themselves "Hoovercrats" (a portmanteau of "Hoover" and "Democrat"). Defections were particularly pronounced in North Alabama, where a contiguous block of counties from Birmingham northeastwards to the Tennessee border uniformly gave majorities for Hoover. Hoover also won a number of counties in the far southern coastal regions, whose soils had always proved unsuitable for cotton plantations. On the other hand, the whites of the black belt, who were like Al Smith "wet" (opposed to prohibition of alcohol), did not bolt from the Democratic Party because of this alcohol issue and their strong view that the Democrats were the best safeguard for white supremacy.


1928 United States presidential election in Alabama, General election campaign
Overall, Smith held the state by just over seven thousand votes, although opponents of Smith believed that electoral fraud was widespread in the Black Belt. State judges Hugh Locke, Horace Wilkinson and Ira Champion argued that up to seventeen thousand ballots for Hoover had been rejected. No recount, however, was ever contemplated by authorities. This result constitutes the second-closest presidential election in Alabama since Reconstruction behind that of 1980, another Republican landslide this time affected by the personal vote in the South for Jimmy Carter.


1928 United States presidential election in Alabama, General election campaign
A strong correlation was revealed between percentage of blacks in the population and (white) voter loyalty to the Democratic Party: of the twenty-six counties won by Hoover, only five had population over thirty percent Negro, and most of these were urban area less attached to the traditions of black belt politics, whilst Chambers County was the home of Hoovercrat senator J. Thomas Heflin. At the other extreme, of the ten counties possessing populations under ten percent African American in 1930, only Marion County stayed loyal to Smith.


1928 United States presidential election in Arizona
The 1928 United States presidential election in Arizona took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. State voters chose three representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Arizona
Arizona was won by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover (R–California), running with U.S. Senator from Kansas Charles Curtis, with 57.57% of the popular vote, against Governor of New York Al Smith (D–New York), running with U.S. Senator from Arkansas Joseph Taylor Robinson, with 42.23% of the popular vote.


1928 United States presidential election in Arizona
Hoover would be the final Republican presidential candidate to win Arizona until Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952.


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas
The 1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas was held on November 6, 1928 as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. State voters chose nine electors, or representatives to the United States Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice-President.


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Background
Except for the Unionist Ozark counties of Newton and Searcy where Republicans controlled local government, Arkansas since the end of Reconstruction had been a classic one-party Democratic “Solid South” state. Disfranchisement of effectively all African Americans and most poor whites had meant that outside those two aberrant counties, the Republican Party was completely moribund and Democratic primaries the only competitive elections. As in other areas in and around the Ozarks, a strong Socialist Party movement did develop in the 1900s, but it nowhere was threatening to Democratic hegemony and intimidation largely eliminated its influence from the mid-1910s.


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Background
The 1920s did see a minor change in this, as increased voting by poor Ozark whites as a protest against Woodrow Wilson's internationalist foreign policy meant that Warren G. Harding was able to win almost forty percent of the statewide vote in 1920; however despite his national landslide Calvin Coolidge in 1924 could not do any more than win the two traditional Unionist GOP counties.


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Native Son Vice-Presidential Candidate
With all other prominent Democrats sitting the election out, the party nominated Alfred E. Smith, four-term Governor of New York as its nominee for 1928, with little opposition. Arkansas lies in the core of the Ozark “Bible Belt” and would have been expected to stand extremely vulnerable to anti-Catholic and pro-Prohibition voting – its public support for prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools showed the Natural State in the vanguard of fundamentalist Protestantism.


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Native Son Vice-Presidential Candidate
Elsewhere in the White South, extreme fear ensued because the region had no experience of the Southern and Eastern European Catholic immigrants who were Smith's local constituency. Southern fundamentalist Protestants believed that Smith would allow papal and priestly leadership in the United States, which Protestantism was a reaction against. The Southern Baptist Convention said that


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Native Son Vice-Presidential Candidate
We enter into a sacred covenant and solemn pledge that we will support for the office of President, or any other office, only such men as stand for our present order of prohibition.


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Native Son Vice-Presidential Candidate
In other Outer South states and in Alabama, powerful local Democrats refused to support Smith. However, in Arkansas, the two leading politicians in the state, Charles Hillman Brough and Joseph Taylor Robinson, had supported the New York Governor for more than a year before his nomination had become official. Robinson was the first major party Vice-Presidential nominee from a former Confederate state since Andrew Johnson in 1864, and was a moderate who had refrained from supporting either Smith or his rival William Gibbs McAdoo during the disastrous 1924 Democratic National Convention.


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Native Son Vice-Presidential Candidate
The fact that Robinson denounced Thomas Heflin’s claim that some American Senators (including Heflin himself) were being paid or bribed by the (anti-Catholic) Mexican Government and quarrelled with the Alabama Senator violently over whether religion could be a qualification for office further linked him to Smith even before becoming his running mate.


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Native Son Vice-Presidential Candidate
During July, the flagging Ku Klux Klan opposed Smith because of his stance against Prohibition, a reform Robinson supported without being dogmatic.


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Native Son Vice-Presidential Candidate
every native-born Protestant in Arkansas should oppose the election of any man who subscribes and is loyal to, or is a member of the Roman Catholic Church.


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Native Son Vice-Presidential Candidate
However, Robinson’s support of religious liberty was able to ameliorate opposition from Protestant ministers – whom Robinson felt was working for the Republican Party – to a greater extent than other Southern states except for wholly Deep South Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, especially as Brough warned many people that Republican inroads would threaten white supremacy because white girls had worked with Negroes in Hoover’s Department of Commerce.


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Native Son Vice-Presidential Candidate
In counties along the Arkansas River, Smith may have also been helped by the perception that Hoover was ineffective at relieving the disastrous flooding of the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers a year and a half beforehand.


1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Native Son Vice-Presidential Candidate
These uniquely successful appeals ensured that overwhelmingly white counties in Arkansas remained at least relatively loyal to Smith, although Hoover did win eight counties that went for John W. Davis in 1924. On the whole, Arkansas’ voting was erratic outside of the black-belt counties where the white minority that did vote remained overwhelmingly loyal to Smith. Hoover was the first ever Republican victor in Carroll County, Hot Spring County and Polk County, whilst he was the first Republican since Ulysses S. Grant to carry Sebastian County and Washington County.


1928 United States presidential election in California
The 1928 United States presidential election in California took place on November 6, 1928 as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. State voters chose 13 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in California
California voted for the Republican nominee, former Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, in a landslide over the Democratic nominee, New York Governor Al Smith. This was also the first election in California where the winning candidate received over 1 million votes. This also remains the last time that a Republican got more than 60% of the vote in California.


1928 United States presidential election in Colorado
The 1928 United States presidential election in Colorado took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary forty-eight states. Voters chose six representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Colorado
Although Colorado had been strongly Democratic-leaning between 1896 and 1916, the nomination of Catholic New York Governor Smith was very poorly received in the eastern part of the state, part of the High Plains Methodist “Bible Belt”. The state had been all but ruled by the Ku Klux Klan for a number of years early in the decade, and the strong anti-Catholic sentiment remained outside the heavily Mexican-American south-central part of the state.


1928 United States presidential election in Colorado
Although Smith did make large gains in the Mexican-American counties, Hoover gained greatly over Calvin Coolidge in 1924 by up to 30 percent in the heavily populated Front Range counties and Colorado consequently became the seventh most Republican state in the nation, voting 14 percentage points more Republican than the nation at-large.


1928 United States presidential election in Colorado
Hoover’s is the best Republican presidential performance in Colorado’s history, and the second-best by any candidate behind William Jennings Bryan in 1896 when he was overwhelmingly supported by the state’s powerful silver mining industry.


1928 United States presidential election in Connecticut
The 1928 United States presidential election in Connecticut took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose seven representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Connecticut
Connecticut voted for the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California, over the Democratic nominee, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas, while Smith ran with Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas.


1928 United States presidential election in Delaware
The 1928 United States presidential election in Delaware took place on November 6, 1928. All contemporary 48 states were part of the 1928 United States presidential election. State voters chose three electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Delaware
Delaware was won by Republican Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California, who was running against Democratic Governor of New York Alfred E. Smith. Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas, while Smith's running mate was Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas.


1928 United States presidential election in Delaware
Hoover won with a majority of 65.03% of the vote to Smith's 34.60%, a margin of 30.43%. Socialist candidate Norman Thomas finished a distant third, with 0.31%. Hoover’s performance is easily the best by any presidential candidate in Delaware, surpassing its nearest rival from Barack Obama in 2008 by 3.12%.


1928 United States presidential election in Florida
The 1928 United States presidential election in Florida was held on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election held throughout all contemporary forty-eight states. Florida voters chose six electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Background
Ever since the disfranchisement of blacks at the beginning of the 1890s, Florida had been a one-party state ruled by the Democratic Party. The disfranchisement of blacks and poor whites by poll taxes in 1889 had left the Republican Party – between 1872 and 1888 dependent upon black votes – virtually extinct.


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Background
With the single exception of William Howard Taft's win in Calhoun County in 1908 the Democratic Party won every county in Florida in every presidential election from 1892 until 1916. Only twice – and never for more than one term – did any Republican serve in either house of the state legislature between 1896 and 1928.


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Background
Despite this Democratic dominance and the restrictions on the franchise of the poorer classes due to the poll tax, significant socialist movements were to develop and persist in Tampa and to a lesser extent over other parts of the state, especially against the powerful Ku Klux Klan. There was also a powerful Prohibitionist movement in older North Florida, which saw the Prohibition Party even win the governorship for one term under the notorious anti-Catholic minister Sidney J. Catts, who was later to be a major foe of Alfred Emmanuel Smith.


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Background
The 1920 presidential election saw Warren Harding, aided substantially by isolationist sentiment in the region, gain more support in the former Confederacy than any Republican since black disfranchisement, in the process winning three Florida counties. Calvin Coolidge in 1924 was to do no more than maintain these gains, but did show that the presidential GOP vote from transplanted Northerners was equal to or greater than the traditional Unionist GOP vote (which Florida entirely lacked) of Texas, Arkansas, Alabama or Georgia.


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Anti-Catholic and Prohibitionist fear
With all other prominent Democrats sitting the election out, the party nominated Alfred E. Smith, four-term Governor of New York as its nominee for 1928, with little opposition. There was nonetheless almost no pro-Smith sympathy in Florida, which as part of the "Solid South" had been a major force in his 1924 defeat. This defeat was related to four characteristics of Smith that made him anything but an ideal candidate for Southern Democrats: he was a devout Catholic, opposed to Prohibition, linked with New York City's Tammany Hall political machine, and the son of Irish and Italian immigrants.


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Anti-Catholic and Prohibitionist fear
His Wall Street connections also had Smith viewed by poorer Southern whites as a "Gold Democrat". Whilst it is generally thought that the South would have accepted a man possessing one of those characteristics, the combination proved a bitter dose for many of Florida's loyal Democrats. Many Florida Protestants believed Smith's election would endanger religious liberty and lead to the Pope controlling the White House.


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Anti-Catholic and Prohibitionist fear
We enter into a sacred covenant and solemn pledge that we will support for the office of President, or any other office, only such men as stand for our present order of prohibition.


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Anti-Catholic and Prohibitionist fear
Much of this anti-Smith political program was led by the Jacksonville Baptist Association, joined by the Indian River Missionary Baptist Association, Seminole Baptist Association, Peace River Baptist Association, Alachua Baptist Association, and the Florida Baptist Association in issuing similar resolutions at their 1928 annual meetings. The Methodist Episcopal Church took the same viewpoint, and it was Bishop James Cannon who stood behind militant "drys" to organize the "Anti- Smith Democrats" in Asheville, North Carolina, pledging to keep the country dry against Smith's support of modifying the Volstead Act.


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Anti-Catholic and Prohibitionist fear
The leader of the defense of Smith was Senator Duncan Upshaw Fletcher who argued that Smith was a "throroughgoing Democrat" and that the Republican Party was the party who had, in typical "Solid South" style, denounced the Southern people as rebels and traitors


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Anti-Catholic and Prohibitionist fear
Echoing this, several Florida judges said it would be better to have a Catholic with some religion in the White House than a Republican with none. Smith's strongest supporter, Chief Justice William H. Ellis, also argued that the GOP was hypocritical in its support for Prohibition, and that because religious tests for elective office were forbidden by the Constitution, Smith would be unable to fill these offices with only Catholics. For Ellis, the election of Smith was the only way the Democratic Party could maintain itself. The Suwanee Democrat indeed argued that Hoover's Quaker faith meant he could not be elected President because it believed that Hoover's religious would not permit him to fight for his country and commanded racial equality in a state whose electorate was all-white.


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Polls
During the months between the beginning of the campaign and the actual vote, a number of newspapers – including the Orlando Sentinel and the St. Petersburg Times – utilized voting machines to take a sample ballot. All these polls, in spite of the fact that the newspapers in question favored Smith, gave large majorities to Hoover, in the case of the Times by over two-to-one. Despite these polls, Smith campaigners took a long time to realize the danger that he would not carry the traditional "Solid South".


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Vote
After a heated campaign in which he had played little part, Herbert Hoover won Florida against Al Smith by 42,404 votes or by a margin of 16.71 percentage points. Vis-à-vis the 1924 election, swings of up to 100 percentage points occurred in the western Panhandle pineywoods, where opposition to Smith's Catholic religion reached the fanatical, and Hoover also gained from increased Republican voting by northern migrants in Miami, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Sarasota and Jacksonville, along with the growth of an urban middle class in those cities. The 1928 US presidential election would be the first time that Florida would become a crucial bellwether state in presidential elections: from 1928 and on, the winner of the presidential election has carried the state in every election except in 1960, in 1992, and in 2020.


1928 United States presidential election in Florida, Vote
In contrast, the counties of the central and eastern Panhandle remained loyal to Smith, who still carried ten counties in this region, all over thirty-five percent nonvoting African-American, by three-to-one or larger majorities, because they saw party regularity as essential to preserving white supremacy against the Negro. However, unlike Alabama and Georgia, Florida lacked the strength to counter anti-Catholic voting – which was indeed stronger than in most other parts of the white South – with the result that Hoover gained his largest margin among the five Confederate states he carried.


1928 United States presidential election in Georgia
The 1928 United States presidential election in Georgia took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the wider United States Presidential election. Voters chose 14 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Georgia, Background
With the exception of a handful of historically Unionist North Georgia counties – chiefly Fannin but also to a lesser extent Pickens, Gilmer and Towns – Georgia since the 1880s had been a one-party state dominated by the Democratic Party. Disfranchisement of almost all African-Americans and most poor whites had made the Republican Party virtually nonexistent outside of local governments in those few hill counties, and the national Democratic Party served as the guardian of white supremacy against a Republican Party historically associated with memories of Reconstruction. The only competitive elections were Democratic primaries, which state laws restricted to whites on the grounds of the Democratic Party being legally a private club.


1928 United States presidential election in Georgia, Background
However, with all other prominent Democrats sitting the election out, the party nominated Alfred E. Smith, four-term Governor of New York as its nominee for 1928, with little opposition. Smith had been the favorite for the 1924 nomination, but had lost due to opposition to his Catholic faith and "wet" views on Prohibition: he wished to repeal or modify the Volstead Act.


1928 United States presidential election in Georgia, Background
Once Smith was nominated – despite his attempt to dispel fears by nominating "dry" Southern Democrat Joseph T. Robinson as his running mate – extreme fear ensued in the South, which had no experience of the Southern and Eastern European Catholic immigrants who were Smith's local constituency. Southern fundamentalist Protestants believed that Smith would allow papal and priestly leadership in the United States, which Protestantism was a reaction against.


1928 United States presidential election in Georgia, Background
In Georgia – alongside Texas the only state that had never to that point voted Republican even during Reconstruction – many Protestant ministers were strongly opposed to Smith. However, with the state’s large number of majority-black counties, there was great opposition to Hoover because of the strong Republican association with Reconstruction and black political power. As of 2021, this is the last election in which a Democratic candidate won Georgia without carrying Fulton County (home to Atlanta).


1928 United States presidential election in Georgia, Vote
The Smith/Robinson ticket carried the state of Georgia on election day, making the state, with Texas voting Republican for the first time, the only state to have never voted for a Republican presidential candidate. Nonetheless, Hoover did fare better than any other GOP presidential nominee in Georgia history, and his vote percentage would not be beaten until Barry Goldwater carried the state in 1964, by when the national Democratic Party had become firmly linked with black civil rights.


1928 United States presidential election in Georgia, Vote
As in the rest of the South, Hoover’s gains were largely confined to areas with few blacks, where he gained up to fifty percent in Forsyth and Wilkes Counties, and in other northern upcountry counties he gained over forty percent. Nevertheless, unlike most Black Belt areas where there was no pro-Hoover trend, in some heavily black counties like Long, Effingham and McDuffie where the white voting population was substantially German Lutheran and intensely hostile to Catholicism, Hoover did make large gains, meaning that Georgia was one of only two states where any counties with nonvoting black majorities deserted Smith. Hoover also made large gains from the newly developing urban middle class in Atlanta and Augusta, where his gains on Coolidge were comparable to the most anti-Catholic upcountry areas.


1928 United States presidential election in Idaho
The 1928 United States presidential election in Idaho took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. State voters chose four representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois
The 1928 United States presidential election in Illinois took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. State voters chose 29 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information
The primaries and general elections coincided with those for House as well as those for state offices.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information, Background
A strongly Democratic state during the Second Party System, Illinois became Republican-leaning after the American Civil War due to a combination of strong Free Soil Party heritage amongst its Yankee northern counties with the wartime conversion of some Virginian-settled rock-ribbed Democratic Southern Illinois counties to Unionist Republicanism à la Appalachia.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information, Background
Between the Civil War and World War I, partisanship in Illinois – like in the Border States – largely re-fought the war, with the result that although the Democratic Party gained at least 43 percent of the statewide vote via Southern and German Catholic support in every election up to 1900, they never gained an absolute majority and carried the state's electoral votes only in 1892.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information, Background
Due to the Democratic Party's growing Populist and prohibitionist leanings, a decline in Democratic support after 1900 in its German Central Illinois strongholds transformed Illinois into a powerfully Republican state at all levels.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information, Background
Even Woodrow Wilson in 1912 when the GOP was mortally divided carried the state by only a very narrow margin, and in 1920 hostility to the League of Nations and the perceived anti-German bias of both outgoing President Wilson and new Democratic nominee and former Ohio Governor James M. Cox – the latter of whom had banned German-language instruction in Ohio schools – meant Harding carried Illinois by over 42 percentage points and the state was his sixth strongest in a national landslide. Thirteen German Catholic or southern-settled counties went Republican for the first time.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information, Background
In 1924, Calvin Coolidge maintained Harding's dominance despite losing substantial German Catholic and Mississippi Valley industrial support to Progressive Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette, whose family would endorse Catholic New York City Democrat Al Smith after the patriarch died in 1925.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information, Turnout
The total vote in the state-run primary elections (Democratic and Republican) was 1,228,537.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries
Both major parties held non-binding state-run preferential primaries on April 12.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries, Democratic
The 1928 Illinois Democratic presidential primary was held on April 10, 1928 in the U.S. state of Illinois as one of the Democratic Party's state primaries ahead of the 1928 presidential election.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries, Democratic
The popular vote was a non-binding "beauty contest". Delegates were instead elected by direct votes by congressional district on delegate candidates.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries, Democratic
Al Smith easily won the primary, and was virtually unopposed for the Democratic nomination, with most other prominent Democrats standing out as they felt they had no hope of winning the general election.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries, Republican
The 1928 Illinois Republican presidential primary was held on April 10, 1928 in the U.S. state of Illinois as one of the Republican Party's state primaries ahead of the 1928 presidential election.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries, Republican
The preference vote was a "beauty contest". Delegates were instead selected by direct-vote in each congressional districts on delegate candidates.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries, Republican
The preference vote was won nearly unanimously by the only name on ballot, favorite son, Secretary of Commerce Frank Lowden.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
Despite some predictions of an upheaval during April Hoover was easily nominated as the Republican candidate. Smith was nominated as the Democratic candidate.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
After the nominations were finalized, some critics felt Smith might have a chance of carrying electoral-vote-rich Illinois due to opposition to Hoover in the Farm Belt; however by the end of June Hoover asserted that the farm vote was safe after Lowden's supporters decided to aid the GOP nominee.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
Hoover campaigned in Illinois after reports early in July suggested the popularity of Smith's “wet” stand in Chicago made his win in this traditionally Republican state doubtful. Smith did not visit the state during the summer, but relied on campaigning by members of the state Democratic ticket led by Thomas S. Donovan, mainly in Chicago but also in the Metro East region. During September, Donovan and the Democrats intensified their campaign in both liberal and anti-Prohibition Chicago and “dry” downstate Illinois.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
At the end of the summer, the state was confused and few trends were apparent in early polling, with Republicans in metropolitan Chicago quarreling bitterly. However, by the end of September it was clear that religion was the paramount issue in the campaign and that it was driving Chicago toward Smith and the rest of the state toward Hoover (Smith was the first Catholic nominated by a major party for president).


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
Despite earlier doubts, the earliest poll by Literary Digest showed Hoover carrying Illinois by a two-to-one majority; however, increased registration in Cook County made the early Literary Digest polls seem dubious, and Hoover was winning only by five-to-three in the next poll in the second week of October, and only by twelve percentage points in the third week – at a time when Hoover was leading in 42 of 48 states. As things turned out, this last poll proved accurate.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
Smith would give his final Chicago campaign speech on October 17.


1928 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election, Results
Hoover carried Illinois by a 14-point margin, which was nonetheless a major decline upon the two preceding elections and the first time Illinois had voted more Democratic than the nation at-large since Stephen A. Douglas in 1860. Smith did make major gains in heavily Catholic Chicago – despite reservations from the city's large Polish-American population about his Irish and Tammany background – but he failed to carry Cook County despite doubling Davis’ 1924 vote share. In the most heavily anti-Catholic areas – Scandinavian Rockford and Ozark Bible Belt-influenced Southern Illinois – the GOP vote held firm or rose and this was enough to ensure Smith had no chance of carrying the state.


1928 United States presidential election in Indiana
The 1928 United States presidential election in Indiana took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose 15 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Indiana, Background
Since the Civil War, partisan alliances in Indiana had been related to history of White settlement, with most of Southern Indiana and German-settled counties voting strongly Democratic, opposed to Yankee-settled Northern Indiana which voted Republican. Some breakdown of these traditional loyalties took place in the 1920s due to German opposition to Woodrow Wilson’s World War I policies, but these occurred to a lesser extent than in other Midwestern states because of the conservative dominance within Indiana’s Democratic Party.


1928 United States presidential election in Indiana, Background
1928, with most other Democrats standing out as they felt the part had no chance of winning due to the prosperous economy, saw New York Governor Al Smith nominated almost by default. Many traditionally Democratic Upland Southerners recoiled at the nomination of Smith because he was a devout Catholic, opposed to Prohibition, and associated with the corruption of the Tammany Hall political machine. Smith’s decision to run with Arkansas Senator Joseph T. Robinson, a “dry” and Protestant, did not alleviate fears of what he would do in the White House.


1928 United States presidential election in Indiana, Background
Ultimate Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California, lost the GOP primary in the Hoosier State but was untroubled to win the nomination nationally. The Democratic primary was held very late in the primary season and was won by Smith, who by then had already effective wrapped up the nomination, despite the state originally casting its vote for favorite son Evans Woollen.


1928 United States presidential election in Indiana, Background
In a state whose farmers' were suffering a financial crisis amidst national prosperity due to the loss of demand following the war, the Indiana Farm Bureau would not endorse either ticket. However, Indiana's Senator James E. Watson said that Hoover would carry the state despite these obvious problems.


1928 United States presidential election in Indiana, Vote
After becoming certain to be nominated, it was thought by The Wall Street Journal that Smith would have to carry Indiana to have any chance of winning the Presidency. However, as early as the beginning of July politicos said that prohibitionist and anti-Catholic forces in Indiana gave Smith no chance of carrying the state, despite Smith saying he would enforce the law if elected. At the end of August, pollsters were already suggesting that the latent opposition of the anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan – which had all but ruled Indiana earlier in the 1920s – and the prohibitionist Anti- Saloon League in rural areas of Indiana would of itself make it impossible for Smith to carry the state.


1928 United States presidential election in Indiana, Vote
Hoover visited Indiana late in August as part of the Lake County Fair, focusing on the agricultural crisis and, alongside Iowa Senator Smith W. Brookhart, blaming the Democrats and the Federal Reserve System for the extant farm crisis. Smith did not visit the state during the fall campaign, and polls throughout that season saw the state as safe for Hoover.


1928 United States presidential election in Indiana, Vote
Ultimately Hoover carried the state by 20.09 percentage points, which was at the time the best Republican result ever achieved in Indiana, although it was beaten in 1956, 1972, 1984 and 2004.


1928 United States presidential election in Iowa
The 1928 United States presidential election in Iowa took place on November 6, 1928. All contemporary 48 states were part of the 1928 United States presidential election. Voters chose 13 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Iowa
Iowa was won by Republican Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California (actually an Iowan by birth) who was running against Democratic Governor of New York Alfred E. Smith. Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas, while Smith's running mate was Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas. Hoover won Iowa by a margin of 24.20 percent.


1928 United States presidential election in Kansas
The 1928 United States presidential election in Kansas took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States Presidential Election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose ten representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Kansas
Kansas voted for the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California, over the Democratic nominee, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas, while Smith ran with Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas. Hoover won the by a margin of 44.96%.


1928 United States presidential election in Kansas
Smith only carried Ellis County, which had (and still has) a large percentage of Roman Catholic residents. Smith was the first Roman Catholic to earn the nomination of a major party for president.


1928 United States presidential election in Kansas
With 72.02% of the popular vote, Kansas would prove to be Hoover's strongest state in the 1928 presidential election in terms of popular vote percentage.


1928 United States presidential election in Kentucky
The 1928 United States presidential election in Kentucky took place on November 6, 1928 as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. Voters chose 13 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Kentucky, Background and vote
Ever since the Civil War, Kentucky had been shaped politically by divisions created by that war between secessionist, Democratic counties and Unionist, Republican ones, although the state as a whole leaned Democratic throughout this era and the GOP carried the state only in 1896 and 1924.


1928 United States presidential election in Kentucky, Background and vote
In 1928, as in all of the upland South, Kentucky's extremely stable Civil War partisan political pattern would become significantly disturbed due to the nomination, after all other prominent Democrats sat the election out due to the prevailing prosperity, of urban, anti-Prohibition Catholic Al Smith. Once Smith was nominated – despite his attempt to dispel fears by nominating "dry" Southern Democrat Joseph T. Robinson as his running mate – extreme fear ensued in the South, which had no experience of the Southern and Eastern European Catholic immigrants who were Smith's local constituency.


1928 United States presidential election in Kentucky, Background and vote
Southern fundamentalist Protestants believed that Smith would allow papal and priestly leadership in the United States, which Protestantism was a reaction against. In the east of the state where many communities were becoming sundown towns or counties it was believed that Smith was unacceptable also because the Catholic Church officially opposed social and political segregation of the races.


1928 United States presidential election in Kentucky, Background and vote
As with the former Confederate states, opposition to Smith in Kentucky was organised by the Protestant churches, led by James Cannon Jr. and Arthur J. Barton. A major state paper, The Western Recorder had been heavily opposing Smith for over a year before the campaign began. When the campaign did begin, Smith's religion was the overwhelming concern, and at the beginning of October it appeared as though Republican nominee Herbert Hoover was likely to carry the state.


1928 United States presidential election in Kentucky, Background and vote
Although later in October there were thoughts Smith would challenge the GOP nominee, in the end Hoover won the state by a margin of 18.88 percent against Al Smith gaining all thirteen of the state's electors as a result. Traditional Democratic loyalties were maintained best in the Jackson Purchase, where racial issues were of greatest importance and there was opposition from memories of the 1927 Mississippi flood to Hoover's record on flood relief.


1928 United States presidential election in Kentucky, Background and vote
Hoover became the first Republican nominee to exceed his national vote share in the Bluegrass State, with Kentucky voting 1.40 points more Republican than the nation at-large. He was the solitary Republican presidential candidate to carry Menifee County until George W. Bush in 2000, and also the first ever Republican victor in the following counties: Anderson, Barren, Boone, Bullitt, Daviess, Grant, Hardin, LaRue, Livingston, Mason, McCracken, McLean, Montgomery, Nicholas, Oldham, Powell, Robertson, Scott, Shelby and Spencer.


1928 United States presidential election in Louisiana
The 1928 United States presidential election in Louisiana took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the wider United States Presidential election. Voters chose ten representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Louisiana
Louisiana voted for the Democratic nominee, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, over the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California. Smith ran with Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas, while Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas.


1928 United States presidential election in Louisiana
Smith won Louisiana with 76.29 percent of the popular vote. It was Smith's third strongest state after South Carolina and Mississippi.


1928 United States presidential election in Maine
The 1928 United States presidential election in Maine took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary forty-eight states. Voters chose six representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Maine
Maine voted for the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California, over the Democratic nominee, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas, while Smith ran with Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas.


1928 United States presidential election in Maine
Hoover won Maine by a margin of 37.67%, making Maine his third-strongest state after Kansas and Michigan.


1928 United States presidential election in Maryland
The 1928 United States presidential election in Maryland took place on November 6, 1928 as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. Voters chose eight representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Maryland
Herbert Hoover would win Maryland by a margin of 14.73 percent against Al Smith. Hoover won all eight of the state's electoral votes as a result. Maryland would not vote Republican again until 1948.


1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
The 1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose 18 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
Massachusetts voted for the Democratic nominee, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, over the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California. Smith's running mate was Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas, while Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas.


1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
Smith carried the state with 50.24% of the vote to Hoover's 49.15%, a Democratic victory margin of 1.09%. Socialist candidate Norman Thomas came in a distant third, with 0.40%


1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
Massachusetts had long been a typical Yankee Republican bastion in the wake of the Civil War, voting Republican in every election from 1856, the first the Republican Party contested as such, through 1924, except in 1912, when former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt had run as a third party candidate against incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft, splitting the Republican vote and allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win Massachusetts with a plurality of only 35.53% of the vote.


1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
In 1920 and 1924, Republicans Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge (the latter of whom had been governor of the state) had carried Massachusetts by landslide margins, sweeping every county in the state, including back-to-back GOP victories in the traditionally Democratic-leaning city of Boston. In 1924, Democrat John W. Davis of border state West Virginia had won only 24.86% of the vote in Massachusetts.


1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts, Results
However, in 1928, the Democratic Party nominated Alfred E. Smith, a New York City-born Roman Catholic of Irish, Italian, and German immigrant heritage, who appealed greatly to the urban ethnic and Catholic immigrant populations that populated great American cities like New York and Boston. Smith was the first Catholic ever to be nominated for president on a major party presidential ticket, and while Smith's Catholicism greatly weakened his candidacy in many rural parts of the United States, especially in the South and the Pacific Northwest, Catholics across the United States identified with him greatly.


1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts, Results
Thus in 1928, a coalition of Irish Catholic and other ethnic immigrant voters primarily based in urban areas turned out massively in Smith's favor, making Massachusetts and neighboring Rhode Island the only states outside of the Solid South to vote Democratic. Smith won these two traditional Republican bastions even as Herbert Hoover won a third consecutive Republican landslide nationally.


1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts, Results
After 1912, 1928 was only the second time in history that Massachusetts had voted Democratic, and with 50.24% of the vote, Al Smith became the first Democratic presidential candidate ever to win a majority of the vote in Massachusetts.


1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts, Results
In every previous election, Massachusetts had always voted more Republican than the nation as a whole. However, in 1928, with Hoover winning a landslide nationally, Smith's victory made Massachusetts a whopping 18% more Democratic than the national average.


1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts, Results
While Smith won the state's electoral votes, Massachusetts was still closely divided between the newly emerging Democratic majority coalition, and its traditional New England Republican roots. Combined with the fact that the country was experiencing an economic boom and the social good feelings of the Roaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership, the result in Massachusetts was still very close, with 49% voting to keep the Republicans in power with Herbert Hoover.


1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts, Results
With Al Smith's base of support packed in heavily populated urban areas, he won the state despite carrying only 4 of the state's 14 counties. The most vital component to Smith's victory was the Democratic dominance in Suffolk County, home to the state's capital and largest city, Boston. Smith took over 60% of the vote in Suffolk County. Another crucial victory for Smith was in Hampden County, home to the city of Springfield. The remaining 2 counties that went to Smith were Bristol County, south of the Boston area, and rural Berkshire County in the far west of the state. Smith was the first Democrat to win these counties since James Knox Polk in 1844.


1928 United States presidential election in Massachusetts, Aftermath
Hoover became the first Republican elected president without carrying Massachusetts in the election. Smith's victory would transform Massachusetts almost instantly into a Democratic-leaning state, and 1928 was the first of 6 consecutive Democratic victories in the state, as no Republican would win the state again until Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. Smith's win in Boston's Suffolk County would be the start of a Democratic winning streak there that has never been broken since, as Boston became one of the most Democratic cities in the country, and a major obstacle to overcome for any Republican looking to compete in Massachusetts. The results of 1928 would foreshadow the future political direction of the state, culminating in 1960, when favorite son Senator John F. Kennedy would become the second Catholic to be nominated for president by the Democratic Party and would solidify Massachusetts as a Democratic stronghold in the modern era.


1928 United States presidential election in Michigan
The 1928 United States presidential election in Michigan took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. Voters chose 15 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Michigan
Michigan voted for Republican nominees Herbert Hoover of California and his running mate Charles Curtis in a landslide. The ticket received slightly over 70% of the popular vote compared to Democrats Al Smith of New York and Joseph T. Robinson's 28.92%.


1928 United States presidential election in Michigan
With 70.36% of the popular vote, Michigan would prove to be Hoover's second strongest victory in the nation after Kansas.


1928 United States presidential election in Michigan
As of the 2020 presidential election, this remains the last time a Republican presidential candidate carried Wayne County, home of Michigan's most populated city, Detroit.


1928 United States presidential election in Minnesota
The 1928 United States presidential election in Minnesota took place on November 6, 1928 as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. Voters chose 12 electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Minnesota
Minnesota was won by the Republican candidate, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover won the state over Democratic Party candidate, New York governor Al Smith by a margin of 164,526 votes, or 16.94%. Nationally, Hoover won the election, with 444 electoral votes and a landslide 17.41% lead over Smith in the popular vote.


1928 United States presidential election in Minnesota
This would be the final time a Republican would win Minnesota in a presidential election until Dwight D. Eisenhower won it in 1952, and the last election where the Republican candidate won the state of Minnesota without Richard Nixon on the ballot (1952, 1956, and 1972). This was also the last presidential election held in Minnesota before the elimination of the 10th congressional district, and hence the last presidential election in which Minnesota had 12 electoral votes. As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last election in which Carlton County and St. Louis County voted for a Republican presidential candidate.


1928 United States presidential election in Mississippi
The 1928 United States presidential election in Mississippi took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the wider United States Presidential election. Voters chose 10 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Mississippi
Mississippi voted for the Democratic nominee, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, over the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California. Smith ran with Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas, while Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas.


1928 United States presidential election in Mississippi
Smith won Mississippi by a margin of 82.10%. It was Smith's second strongest state after South Carolina.


1928 United States presidential election in Mississippi
This was the first election since 1888 that a Republican won any county in Mississippi, and the first time since 1892 where a county in the state would vote for a candidate who was not a Democrat. This would also be the last election where a Republican candidate won any counties (i.e. Pearl River, Stone County, George County) in Mississippi until the 1952 election.


1928 United States presidential election in Missouri
The 1928 United States presidential election in Missouri was held on November 6, 1928 as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. Voters chose 18 electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Missouri
Missouri voted for the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California, over the Democratic nominee, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York.


1928 United States presidential election in Montana
The 1928 United States presidential election in Montana took place on November 6, 1928 as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Montana
Montana strongly voted for the Republican nominee, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, over the Democratic nominee, New York Governor Al Smith. Hoover won Montana by a landslide margin of 17.89%. The Republicans at this time were associated with the booming economy of the 1920s while Smith was associated with the corruption of Tammany Hall.


1928 United States presidential election in Nebraska
The 1928 United States presidential election in Nebraska was held on November 6, 1928. Nebraska voters chose eight electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Nebraska
The Republican candidate Herbert Hoover won the state by 147,786 votes or 27.01 percentage points against Al Smith.


1928 United States presidential election in Nevada
The 1928 United States presidential election in Nevada took place on November 8, 1932, as part of the 1932 United States presidential election. State voters chose three representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Nevada
Nevada was won by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover (R–California), running with Senator Charles Curtis, with 56.54% of the popular vote, against Governor Al Smith (D–New York), running with Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson, with 43.46% of the popular vote.


1928 United States presidential election in New Hampshire
The 1928 United States presidential election in New Hampshire took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in New Hampshire
New Hampshire voted for the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California, over the Democratic nominee, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas, while Smith ran with Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas.


1928 United States presidential election in New Hampshire
Hoover won New Hampshire by a margin of 17.63%, almost exactly the same as his national figure, though a decline upon Calvin Coolidge’s 1924 margin.


1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
The 1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey took place on November 6, 1928. All contemporary 48 states were part of the 1928 United States presidential election. Voters chose 14 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
New Jersey was won by the Republican nominees, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California and his running mate Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas. Hoover and Curtis defeated the Democratic nominees, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York and his running mate Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas.


1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
Hoover carried New Jersey with 59.77 percent of the vote to Smith's 39.79 percent, a victory margin of 19.98 percentage points.


1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
Finishing in a distant third was the Socialist Party candidate Norman Thomas, with only 0.32 percent.


1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
New Jersey in this era was a staunchly Republican state, having not given a majority of the vote to a Democratic presidential candidate since 1892. (In 1912, Woodrow Wilson, then the sitting Governor of New Jersey, won the state's electoral votes, but with a plurality of only 41 percent in a 3-way race against a split Republican field, with former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt running as a third party candidate against incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft. Wilson lost the state to the GOP by a decisive 12-point margin in a head-to-head match-up in 1916.)


1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
As Herbert Hoover was winning a third consecutive nationwide Republican landslide amidst the economic boom and social good feelings of the Roaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership, New Jersey easily remained in the Republican column.


1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
However Smith for his part did make dramatic gains for the Democratic Party in New Jersey, laying the groundwork for ultimately turning the state Democratic just four years later in 1932. In 1920, Republican Warren G. Harding had carried the state over Democrat James M. Cox by a massive 68–28 margin. In 1924, southern Democrat John W. Davis had received only 27 percent of the vote in the state to Republican Calvin Coolidge's 62 percent. Even as Hoover won a third nationwide Republican landslide, New Jersey swung 15-20 points toward the Democrats over the previous 1920s GOP performances in the state, with Smith taking nearly 40 percent of the statewide vote.


1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
On the county level map, reflecting the decisiveness of his victory, Hoover won 20 of the state's 21 counties.


1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
Despite losing ground overall at the state level, Hoover made gains in the western parts of the state where the reaction to Catholicism was hostility. His strongest county win was in rural Salem County by the Delaware border, where he broke eighty percent of the vote, a dramatic improvement over the sixty percent vote shares won in that county by Republicans in 1920 and 1924.


1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
However Al Smith, a New York City native, and Roman Catholic of Irish, Italian and German immigrant heritage, appealed greatly to urban areas populated by ethnic immigrant communities, laying the groundwork for a new urban Democratic coalition. Urban parts of New Jersey, particularly in North Jersey which shared close ties with New York City, swung in Smith's favor. Essex County, home to Newark, swung Democratic, as did Middlesex County, Passaic County, Union County, Bergen County, and Mercer County.


1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
Nevertheless, by far the greatest Democratic swing occurred in heavily populated Hudson County, part of the New York City metro area, and populated by many urban ethnic Catholic immigrant communities. Despite losing every other county in the state, Al Smith won Hudson County with a commanding majority of more than sixty percent of the vote. This mirrored the results in the nearby 5 boroughs of New York City right across the Hudson River, all of which swung from voting Republican in 1920 and 1924 to voting decisively Democratic in 1928.


1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
While New Jersey remained Republican in 1928, its overall trend was Democratic, going from being 13% more Republican than the nation in 1920 to 10% more Republican the nation in 1924 to only 2.56% more Republican than the nation in 1928, foreshadowing New Jersey's political future as being a closely divided swing state with only a slight Republican lean for much of the 20th century until New Jersey ultimately became a solid Democratic state in the 1990s.


1928 United States presidential election in New Mexico
The 1928 United States presidential election in New Mexico took place on November 6, 1928. All contemporary forty-eight states were part of the 1928 United States presidential election. State voters chose three electors to represent them in the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in New Mexico, Background
New Mexico had in its early history as a state shown itself, like all of the West at the time, to be very much a swing state, having backed Woodrow Wilson twice in 1912 and 1916 and then backed Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge in their landslide 1920 and 1924 victories. During this era – and indeed since the 1870s – New Mexico was divided between largely Republican machine-run highland regions and its firmly Southern Democrat Baptist "Little Texas" region in its east.


1928 United States presidential election in New Mexico, Background
However, the nomination of Catholic Al Smith on the first ballot after almost all other Democrats sat the election out challenged the status quo. Fear ensued in the South, which had no experience of the Southern and Eastern European Catholic immigrants who were Smith's local constituency. Southern fundamentalist Protestants believed that Smith would allow papal and priestly leadership in the United States, which Protestantism was a reaction against. At the same time, there existed potential for a pro-Catholic swing in the traditional GOP Spanish-American mountain counties of the North.


1928 United States presidential election in New Mexico, Background
Polls in July regarded New Mexico as "doubtful", although these had taken little account of the religious issues that were to dominate the election.


1928 United States presidential election in New Mexico, Vote
New Mexico was won by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover over New York Governor Al Smith in a 18-point landslide. In traditionally fiercely Democratic "Little Texas", anti-Catholic prejudice was identical to that which turned Texas and Oklahoma to Hoover and Smith retained just one of the eleven counties that had voted for John W. Davis in 1924. In the mountain counties of traditional Republican strength, by contrast, Hoover losses proved minor, as the Catholic Hispanic areas could not identify with the urban New Yorker Smith.


1928 United States presidential election in New Mexico, Vote
At this time the Republican Party was widely associated in the minds of many Americans with the economic success of the mid-1920s, although the post-Civil War Democratic stronghold in the Deep South was still evident by the time of this election.


1928 United States presidential election in New York
The 1928 United States presidential election in New York took place on November 6, 1928. All contemporary 48 states were part of the 1928 United States presidential election. State voters chose 45 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in New York
New York was won by Republican Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California, who was running against Democratic Governor of New York Alfred E. Smith. Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas, while Smith's running mate was Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas.


1928 United States presidential election in New York
Hoover won with a plurality of 49.79 percent of the vote to Smith's 47.44 percent, a margin of 2.35 points. Socialist candidate Norman Thomas finished a distant third, with 2.44 percent.


1928 United States presidential election in New York
Although New York was Al Smith's home state and he had been elected governor there, the 1920s were a fiercely Republican decade in American politics, and New York during the Fourth Party System was a fiercely Republican state in presidential elections. In 1928, Herbert Hoover was winning the third consecutive nationwide Republican landslide, and the economic boom and social good feelings of the Roaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership proved too much for Smith to overcome both nationally and in his home state.


1928 United States presidential election in New York
However Smith's performance in New York was still impressive in the context of the 1920s, and highly significant in shaping the state's political development. In the elections preceding 1928, New York had been more Republican than the nation as a whole, even in the nationwide Republican landslides of 1920 and 1924. Smith's narrow 2-point defeat in the midst of the nationwide Republican landslide of 1928 made New York State fifteen percentage points more Democratic than the national average.


1928 United States presidential election in New York
Smith's 47.44 percent was also the highest vote share a Democratic presidential candidate had received in New York State since former New York Governor Grover Cleveland won the state in 1892.


1928 United States presidential election in New York
Smith dramatically improved upon how Democrats before him had done, and laid the groundwork for turning the state Democratic in 1932 and beyond. In 1920 and 1924, Republicans had swept every county in New York State and Democrats had received less than thirty percent of the vote.


1928 United States presidential election in New York
In 1928, Smith came within 2 points of winning the state by sweeping all five boroughs of heavily populated New York City, winning the state capital of Albany and Albany County along with neighboring Rensselaer County, and winning two counties in northern New York along the Saint Lawrence River, Clinton County and Franklin County.


1928 United States presidential election in New York
Key to Smith's strength in New York State was his sweep of the five massively populated boroughs of New York City. A New York City native, Smith took over 60% of the vote in Manhattan and the Bronx, and also won majorities in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Up to this point, 1928 was the strongest victory ever for a Democrat in NYC. Smith, a Roman Catholic of Irish, Italian, and German immigrant heritage, held special appeal to Catholic and ethnic immigrant communities that populated cities like New York and Boston. The first Catholic to be nominated on a major-party ticket, Smith's Catholicism would severely weaken his candidacy in many rural parts of the country, especially in the South, but would prove an asset in appealing to voters in New York.


1928 United States presidential election in New York
The urban, ethnic coalition that delivered New York City to Al Smith would prove to be a harbinger of long-term realignment of both the city and the state toward the Democratic Party. 1928 began a Democratic winning streak in New York City that has never been broken since, as New York would be solidified as one of the most Democratic cities in the United States, and a major obstacle to overcome for any Republican seeking to compete in New York State. 1928 also turned the state capital of Albany, which had previously been a Republican city, into a Democratic bastion in upstate New York.


1928 United States presidential election in New York
Hoover for his part was able to hold on to New York State's electoral votes in 1928 by sweeping much of traditionally staunchly Republican upstate New York and Long Island, where help from his successor Franklin D. Roosevelt could not swing dry, Protestant Yankee voters to Smith. In addition, the turnout and margins were not yet there in New York City to overcome Republican dominance in the rest of the state. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt would build on Smith's coalition to flip New York State into the Democratic column, winning the state with virtually the same county map as Smith, but with stronger margins and turnout.


1928 United States presidential election in North Carolina
The 1928 United States presidential election in North Carolina was held on November 6, 1928. North Carolina voters chose twelve electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in North Carolina, Background
As a former Confederate state, North Carolina had a history of Jim Crow laws, disfranchisement of its African-American population and dominance of the Democratic Party in state politics. However, unlike the Deep South, the Republican Party had sufficient historic Unionist white support from the mountains and northwestern Piedmont to gain a stable one-third of the statewide vote total in most general elections, where turnout was higher than elsewhere in the former Confederacy due substantially to the state’s early abolition of the poll tax in 1920. Like Virginia, Tennessee and Oklahoma, the relative strength of Republican opposition meant that North Carolina did not have statewide white primaries, although certain counties did use the white primary.


1928 United States presidential election in North Carolina, Anti-Catholic and Prohibitionist fear
With all other prominent Democrats sitting the election out, the party nominated Alfred E. Smith, four-term Governor of New York as its nominee for 1928, with little opposition. The response in the South was one of anger, because Smith was a devout Catholic, opposed to Prohibition, linked with New York City's Tammany Hall political machine, and the son of Irish and Italian immigrants. Whilst it is generally thought that the South would have accepted a man possessing one of those characteristics, the combination proved a bitter dose for many of North Carolina's loyal Democrats. Bishop James M. Cannon summoned a meeting of church leaders in Asheville on July 18 to


1928 United States presidential election in North Carolina, Anti-Catholic and Prohibitionist fear
organize for the “defeat of the wet Tammany candidate for president”


1928 United States presidential election in North Carolina, Anti-Catholic and Prohibitionist fear
At this Asheville assembly Bishop Horace DuBose said that Smith’s candidacy posed


1928 United States presidential election in North Carolina, Anti-Catholic and Prohibitionist fear
the greatest moral crisis in the nation's history and perhaps in the history of mankind.


1928 United States presidential election in North Carolina, Anti-Catholic and Prohibitionist fear
The loyalties of the state Democratic Party – less factionalized than other southern parties because of the consistent Republican opposition – became further strained when long-serving Senator Furnifold M. Simmons refused to support the New York Governor. He argued firstly that Smith’s nomination would be extremely dangerous because it would produce a “vexatious” campaign unreasonably focused on religion and Prohibition, and secondly that Smith’s followers wanted to eliminate him. With the aid of Frank R. McNich and church leaders, Simmons created the “Anti-


1928 United States presidential election in North Carolina, Anti-Catholic and Prohibitionist fear
Smith Democrats”, who became opposed by other leading Democrats such as Josiah W. Bailey (who would unseat Simmons from his Senate seat) and Josephus Daniels. The state’s press was equally split over Smith, with The Charlotte Observer and Charlotte News especially unwilling to endorse him against Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover.


1928 United States presidential election in North Carolina, Vote
At the beginning of October, polls were suggesting that despite the divide in the state’s Democrats, Smith would carry the state, and he visited Raleigh in mid-October. This prediction of a Smith victory despite Protestant opposition to his Catholicism and his anti-Prohibition views seemed confirmed in the days before the poll. However, with late counting, it became apparent that Smith had lost the state alongside Virginia, Florida and Texas.


1928 United States presidential election in North Carolina, Vote
Hoover’s victory was due to a combination of anti-Catholicism – at its strongest in the fishing communities of the Outer Banks, where he carried several counties that had gone to John W. Davis in 1924 by four- or five-to-one margins – with increasing middle-class Republican voting in such cities as Charlotte, Durham and Greensboro. Although the state’s Black Belt remained extremely loyal to Smith, this was not enough to come close to holding the state against traditional Appalachian Republicanism alongside urban and Outer Banks trends against him. Overall, Hoover won North Carolina by 9.88 percent, which made it his second-best state in the former Confederacy after Florida, and the only occasion between 1876 and 1964 North Carolina would vote Republican.


1928 United States presidential election in North Carolina, Vote
As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last election in which Orange County voted for a Republican presidential candidate.


1928 United States presidential election in North Dakota
The 1928 United States presidential election in North Dakota took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose five representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in North Dakota, Background
Ever since statehood, North Dakota had been overwhelmingly Republican at state level and in many presidential elections, although progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson was able to carry the state in both his campaigns, in the second due to his anti-war platform. In the following two elections, the state’s voting would be shaped by its extreme isolationism in the aftermath of President Wilson’s pushing of the nation into World War I and his “League of Nations” proposal, to which the Russian-Germans who dominated North Dakota’s populace were vehemently opposed.


1928 United States presidential election in North Dakota, Background
To North Dakota’s predominantly German-American populace, Wilson’s entry into the war and his support for the Treaty of Versailles was a betrayal, and farmers were also faced with a postwar agricultural depression as prices fell with reduced demand in Europe. Consequently, North Dakota went for the isolationist Warren G. Harding over the pro-League Democrat Cox by four-to-one. In 1924, Robert La Follette under the Nonpartisan League banner attracted North Dakota’s isolationist electorate so strongly that he went within two percentage points of carrying the state. When La Follette died in 1925, his family did not endorse a Republican, but rather New York City Catholic Democrat Al Smith.


1928 United States presidential election in North Dakota, Background
Despite much antagonism with the Catholic Church amongst the German and Scandinavian Lutherans in North Dakota, Smith would capitalise extremely well upon La Folette’s endorsement, due to the state being the most Catholic in the Midwest and a concurrent statewide repeal of Prohibition with the election. further adding to support for the “wet” Smith. The local press in mid-September believed Smith would carry North Dakota. and he later received further endorsement from the Nonpartisan League despite opposition from Senators Lynn J. Frazier and Gerald P. Nye. Smith visited the state during his midwestern tour in late September and early October, but during October the lessened unpopularity with farmers of Republican nominee Herbert Hoover’s led pundits to imagine the GOP would retain the state.


1928 United States presidential election in North Dakota, Vote
In the days leading up to the actual poll, forecasts suggested Hoover would retain North Dakota for the GOP, and he did this by a margin of 10.33 percent. Despite losing the state, Smith made a massive advance upon James M. Cox’ and John W. Davis’ performances earlier in the decade. Whereas North Dakota had been Cox’ and Davis’ second-weakest state in 1920 and 1924, it voted 7.07 points more Democratic than the nation at-large in 1928.


1928 United States presidential election in North Dakota, Vote
In some counties that were largely Lutheran, Smith still made tremendous gains because of his opposition to Prohibition, which was powerfully opposed by liturgical German Lutherans. This allowed Smith to become the first Democrat to carry McIntosh County – which had been the nation’s most Republican county in 1920 and where no Democrat had previously gained over 22 percent of the vote – Logan County, Mercer County, Morton County and Sioux County.


1928 United States presidential election in Ohio
The 1928 United States presidential election in Ohio was held on November 6, 1928 as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. State voters chose 24 electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Ohio
Between 1856 and 1908, Ohio had voted consistently, though generally narrowly, for Republican candidates, because the  heavily Yankee northeast and Ohio Company counties of the southeast slightly outvoted the anti-Civil War Appalachian south and German-American counties of the northwest. Woodrow Wilson, who grew up in Appalachia whose culture exert a major influence on Buckeye State politics, would carry the state in both of his winning presidential campaigns in 1912 and 1916. However, reaction against Democratic nominee James M. Cox, who had opposed the teaching of German in schools when the state's Governor, meant Ohio went Republican by a 20% margin in the landslide of 1920, and five counties went Republican for the first time ever.


1928 United States presidential election in Ohio
In 1924, John W. Davis, although a native of adjacent and culturally allied West Virginia, had negligible support in the Yankee- and German-settled areas of northern and central Ohio. Thus, Davis received barely half the proportion that Cox had, as he was further handicapped by his indecisiveness towards the powerful Ku Klux Klan, and by the complete lack of support from local Democrats in the interests of state offices. Progressive Robert La Follette would receive over 17% of Ohio's vote, close to his national average but his best state east of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.


1928 United States presidential election in Ohio
For 1928, the Democrats nominated almost by default Al Smith, an urban New York Catholic. Although he was endorsed by La Follette after his 1925 death, Smith was handicapped in urban Ohio by the state's cities' large "hillbilly" population from Appalachian regions of the South, who refused rigidly to vote for a Catholic. Similar sentiments were felt amongst traditionally Democratic German Protestants in the central part of the state.


1928 United States presidential election in Ohio, Vote
By the week of the election, Hoover was overwhelmingly favored to carry the state, and ultimately Ohio was won decisively by Republican Party candidate, Herbert Hoover, with 64.89% of the popular vote. This is the best popular vote percentage ever recorded by any presidential candidate in Ohio since statehood in 1803. The Democratic Party candidate, Al Smith, garnered only 34.45% of the popular vote.


1928 United States presidential election in Oklahoma
The 1928 United States presidential election in Oklahoma took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose ten representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Oklahoma
Oklahoma voted for the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California, over the Democratic nominee, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas, while Smith ran with Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas.


1928 United States presidential election in Oklahoma
Hoover won the state by a margin of 28.28 percentage points. His large margin of victory was due to extremely powerful anti-Catholic sentiment against Smith in a state almost entirely part of the Southern “Bible Belt”. In some previously Democratic counties in southwestern Oklahoma, Hoover gained vote shares more than thirty percent higher than Calvin Coolidge had in 1924, despite the fact that Smith had visited the state in September and given a major speech on the issue of religious tolerance.


1928 United States presidential election in Oklahoma
This was the first election since statehood when Oklahoma had voted more Republican than the nation at large, and the only one until 1960. Hoover carried all but eleven of Oklahoma’s 77 counties, with only Choctaw Country in the southeast remaining loyal to Smith – and even there Democratic margins were smaller than usual for the era. He was the only Republican until Richard Nixon’s 1972 landslide to carry the following counties: Carter, Cotton, Harmon, Jackson, Jefferson, Murray and Tillman. Hoover was also the first Republican presidential candidate to win the following counties: Beckham, Cleveland, Grady, Hughes, McClain and Pontotoc.


1928 United States presidential election in Oregon
The 1928 United States presidential election in Oregon took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. Voters chose five representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Oregon, Background
Outside a few Presidential and gubernatorial elections like that of 1922 influenced by the Ku Klux Klan, Oregon was a virtually one-party Republican state during the “System of 1896”, where the only competition was via Republican primaries. Apart from Woodrow Wilson’s two elections, during the first of which the GOP was severely divided, no Democrat since William Jennings Bryan in 1900 had carried a single county in the state.


1928 United States presidential election in Oregon, Background
In 1924 Oregon had nonetheless been the fifth-strongest of the fifteen Western and Plains States for Democrat John W. Davis behind Ozark mountaineer-dominated Nebraska, Mormon Utah and southern-leaning New Mexico and Arizona. Moreover, although maverick Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. fared less well than in the other Pacific States, he still gained nearly one in four of Oregon's ballots as an independent.


1928 United States presidential election in Oregon, Background
However, when La Follette died in 1925 his family endorsed New York City Catholic Democrat Al Smith, towards whose faith Oregon's largely Puritan (in the northwest) or Ozark Methodist (in the south and east), Anglo-Saxon and fiercely anti-Catholic populace was strongly hostile. This had been seen in a notorious law outlawing private religious schools under Klan-supported Governor Walter M. Pierce, whose decision was viewed unconstitutional by both the Oregon Supreme Court in 1924 and federally in Pierce v. Society of Sisters a year later.


1928 United States presidential election in Oregon, Background
Despite this severe wariness, Smith did manage to win the state's Democratic presidential primary against token opposition from Missouri Senator James Reed and Montana Senator Thomas Walsh, whilst Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover won the state's Republican primary unopposed with over six times as many voters. From the beginning polls showed opposition to Smith's Catholicism and anti-Prohibition views as very strong in Oregon, and neither major party would campaign in the state during the fall. October polls showed Hoover winning the state by a two-to-one margin and Smith gaining no more than a quarter of the La Follette vote.


1928 United States presidential election in Oregon, Vote
Whereas in more Catholic states of the northern “Frost Belt” like Wisconsin, North Dakota and Minnesota Smith was able to revive a moribund Democratic Party at a Presidential level, Oregon's smaller but still significant La Follette electorate concentrated in the lower Willamette Valley and arch-isolationist Southern Oregon balked at voting for a Catholic. Consequently, Republican nominee Hoover was able to gain 13.17 percent upon Calvin Coolidge’s 1924 performance in the Beaver State and become the fifth Republican in seven presidential elections to sweep all Oregon’s counties.


1928 United States presidential election in Oregon, Vote
This would be the last occasion until Donald Trump in 2016 that Columbia County voted for a Republican Presidential candidate.


1928 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania
The 1928 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania took place on November 6, 1928 as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. Voters chose 38 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania overwhelmingly voted for the Republican nominee, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, over the Democratic nominee, New York Governor Al Smith. Hoover won Pennsylvania by a landslide margin of 31.35%. The Republicans at this time were associated with the booming economy of the 1920s while Smith was associated with the corruption of Tammany Hall.


1928 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania
Despite losing the state, Smith flipped 3 majority-Catholic counties that voted for Calvin Coolidge in 1924 and had been consistently Republican during the "System of 1896" into the Democratic column: Elk, Lackawanna, and Luzerne. This came with losing the 4 counties – all dominated by profoundly anti-Catholic Appalachian Protestants – that voted for John W. Davis to Hoover: Columbia, Fulton, Greene, and Monroe.


1928 United States presidential election in Rhode Island
The 1928 United States presidential election in Rhode Island took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose five representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Rhode Island
Rhode Island voted for the Democratic nominee, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, over the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California. Smith's running mate was Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas, while Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas.


1928 United States presidential election in Rhode Island
Smith won Rhode Island by a very narrow margin of 0.61%, making him the first Democratic presidential candidate since Woodrow Wilson in 1912 to carry the state, as well as the first to win an absolute majority of the vote since Franklin Pierce in 1852 (Wilson won the state in 1912, but only with a 39.04% plurality due to Republican vote splitting between President William Howard Taft and his immediate predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, who challenged him with a third party).


1928 United States presidential election in Rhode Island
Although Hoover won more counties than Smith, key to Smith's victory were his appeal to "ethnic white" Roman Catholic voters in Providence County and Bristol County. Rhode Island was the only state save adjacent Massachusetts (another state with a large Catholic population) outside the Democratic "Solid South" that voted for Smith in 1928.


1928 United States presidential election in Rhode Island
As Hoover became president in a nationwide electoral landslide, he became the first Republican elected president who did not carry Rhode Island. Given the scale of Hoover's win, Rhode Island was 18 percentage points more Democratic than the United States at large.


1928 United States presidential election in Rhode Island
Beginning in 1928, Rhode Island would transition from a strongly Yankee Republican state into a Democratic-leaning state. Since then, Republicans have only carried the state four times, all in Republican landslide years: 1952, 1956, 1972, and 1984.


1928 United States presidential election in Rhode Island
Rhode Island would not vote for another Republican presidential candidate until Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952.


1928 United States presidential election in South Carolina
The 1928 United States presidential election in South Carolina took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States Presidential Election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose 9 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in South Carolina
South Carolina voted for the Democratic nominee, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, over the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California. Smith ran with Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas, while Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas.


1928 United States presidential election in South Dakota
The 1928 United States presidential election in South Dakota took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose five representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in South Dakota
Ever since statehood South Dakota had been solidly Republican apart from when supporting Populist-backed William Jennings Bryan by an exceedingly narrow 0.22% margin in 1896. However, the state had been one of the strongest for insurgent Robert M. La Follette senior in 1924, and after La Follette died six months following that election his family would endorse New York City Catholic Democrat Al Smith rather than any Republican.


1928 United States presidential election in South Dakota
In the more Catholic states of North Dakota and Wisconsin, this endorsement would have a major effect in reviving a largely moribund Democratic Party at a presidential level, although it was not adequate to give Smith those states’ electoral votes. In less Catholic and more Ozark-settled and Methodist South Dakota, anti-Catholicism was a powerful force in most areas and as a result Smith’s gain on Davis’ vote was much less, with the exception of a few powerfully pro-La Follette German Lutheran counties whose voters were lured by Smith’s opposition to Prohibition. Smith was the first ever Democrat to win McPherson County, but South Dakota still voted for Republican nominee Herbert Hoover by a margin of 20.98%, which made it 3.56% more Republican than the nation at-large in a major landslide.


1928 United States presidential election in Tennessee
The 1928 United States presidential election in Tennessee took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election. Tennessee voters chose 12 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1928 United States presidential election in Tennessee, Background
For over a century after the Civil War, Tennessee was divided according to political loyalties established in that war. Unionist regions covering almost all of East Tennessee, Kentucky Pennyroyal-allied Macon County, and the five West Tennessee Highland Rim counties of Carroll, Henderson, McNairy, Hardin and Wayne voted Republican – generally by landslide margins – as they saw the Democratic Party as the "war party" who had forced them into a war they did not wish to fight.