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The1928 United States presidential election in Oregon took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the1928 United States presidential election. Voters chose five representatives, or electors, to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.
Outside a few presidential and gubernatorial elections like that of 1922 influenced by theKu Klux Klan,Oregon was a virtually one-party Republican state during the “System of 1896”,[1] where the only competition was via Republican primaries.[2] Apart fromWoodrow Wilson’s two elections, during the first of which the GOP was severely divided, no Democrat sinceWilliam Jennings Bryan in1900 had carried a single county in the state.
In1924 Oregon had nonetheless been the fifth-strongest of the fifteenWestern andPlains States for DemocratJohn W. Davis behindOzark mountaineer-dominated Nebraska, MormonUtah and southern-leaningNew Mexico andArizona. Moreover, although maverickWisconsin SenatorRobert 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. However, when La Follette died in 1925 his family endorsed New York CityCatholic DemocratAl Smith,[3] towards whose faith Oregon's largelyPuritan (in the northwest) or OzarkMethodist (in thesouth andeast), Anglo-Saxon[4] and fiercelyanti-Catholic populace was strongly hostile.[5] This had been seen in a notorious law outlawing private religious schools under Klan-supported GovernorWalter M. Pierce, whose decision was viewed unconstitutional by both theOregon Supreme Court in 1924 and federally inPierce v. Society of Sisters a year later.[6]
Despite this severe wariness,[7] Smith won the state's Democratic presidential primary against token opposition fromMissouri SenatorJames Reed[8] andMontana Senator Thomas Walsh, whilst formerSecretary of CommerceHerbert Hoover won the state's Republican primary unopposed with over six times as many voters.[9] From the beginning polls showed opposition to Smith's Catholicism and anti-Prohibition views as very strong in Oregon,[10] 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. As of 2020, this is the final presidential election in Oregon in which a Republican carried all of the state's counties.[11]
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,[12] 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.[13] Consequently, Republican nominee Hoover was able to gain 13.17 percent uponCalvin Coolidge’s 1924 performance in Oregon and become the fifth Republican in seven presidential elections to sweep all Oregon’s counties.
This would be the last occasion untilDonald Trump in2016 thatColumbia County voted for a Republican presidential candidate.[14][15]
| Presidential Candidate | Running Mate | Party | Electoral Vote (EV) | Popular Vote (PV) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Herbert Hoover ofCalifornia | Charles Curtis | Republican | 5[16] | 205,341 | 64.18% |
| Al Smith | Joseph T. Robinson | Democratic | 0 | 109,223 | 34.14% |
| Norman Thomas | James Maurer | Socialist Principles Independent | 0 | 2,720 | 0.85% |
| Verne L. Reynolds | Jeremiah Crowley | Socialist Labor | 0 | 1,564 | 0.49% |
| William Z. Foster | Benjamin Gitlow | Independent | 0 | 1,094 | 0.34% |
| County | Herbert Clark Hoover Republican | Alfred Emmanuel Smith Democratic | Norman Mattoon Thomas Socialist Principles Independent | Verne L. Reynolds Socialist Labor | William Z. Foster Independent | Margin | Total votes cast[17] | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Baker | 3,721 | 65.52% | 1,861 | 32.77% | 64 | 1.13% | 22 | 0.39% | 11 | 0.19% | 1,860 | 32.75% | 5,679 |
| Benton | 4,605 | 75.55% | 1,412 | 23.17% | 37 | 0.61% | 17 | 0.28% | 24 | 0.39% | 3,193 | 52.39% | 6,095 |
| Clackamas | 9,216 | 59.51% | 5,918 | 38.22% | 157 | 1.01% | 130 | 0.84% | 65 | 0.42% | 3,298 | 21.30% | 15,486 |
| Clatsop | 4,087 | 63.33% | 2,208 | 34.21% | 31 | 0.48% | 37 | 0.57% | 91 | 1.41% | 1,879 | 29.11% | 6,454 |
| Columbia | 3,519 | 65.21% | 1,775 | 32.89% | 34 | 0.63% | 44 | 0.82% | 24 | 0.44% | 1,744 | 32.32% | 5,396 |
| Coos | 4,929 | 60.66% | 3,040 | 37.41% | 62 | 0.76% | 67 | 0.82% | 28 | 0.34% | 1,889 | 23.25% | 8,126 |
| Crook | 877 | 63.46% | 487 | 35.24% | 10 | 0.72% | 4 | 0.29% | 4 | 0.29% | 390 | 28.22% | 1,382 |
| Curry | 694 | 59.16% | 453 | 38.62% | 14 | 1.19% | 4 | 0.34% | 8 | 0.68% | 241 | 20.55% | 1,173 |
| Deschutes | 2,815 | 60.83% | 1,702 | 36.78% | 29 | 0.63% | 77 | 1.66% | 5 | 0.11% | 1,113 | 24.05% | 4,628 |
| Douglas | 5,609 | 70.52% | 2,191 | 27.55% | 51 | 0.64% | 55 | 0.69% | 48 | 0.60% | 3,418 | 42.97% | 7,954 |
| Gilliam | 880 | 62.50% | 515 | 36.58% | 6 | 0.43% | 2 | 0.14% | 5 | 0.36% | 365 | 25.92% | 1,408 |
| Grant | 1,411 | 74.03% | 469 | 24.61% | 13 | 0.68% | 10 | 0.52% | 3 | 0.16% | 942 | 49.42% | 1,906 |
| Harney | 952 | 60.60% | 600 | 38.19% | 8 | 0.51% | 6 | 0.38% | 5 | 0.32% | 352 | 22.41% | 1,571 |
| Hood River | 1,806 | 65.22% | 905 | 32.68% | 18 | 0.65% | 15 | 0.54% | 25 | 0.90% | 901 | 32.54% | 2,769 |
| Jackson | 8,053 | 75.43% | 2,463 | 23.07% | 88 | 0.82% | 41 | 0.38% | 31 | 0.29% | 5,590 | 52.36% | 10,676 |
| Jefferson | 481 | 59.31% | 308 | 37.98% | 6 | 0.74% | 8 | 0.99% | 8 | 0.99% | 173 | 21.33% | 811 |
| Josephine | 2,625 | 71.31% | 959 | 26.05% | 44 | 1.20% | 36 | 0.98% | 17 | 0.46% | 1,666 | 45.26% | 3,681 |
| Klamath | 4,453 | 61.28% | 2,721 | 37.44% | 32 | 0.44% | 31 | 0.43% | 30 | 0.41% | 1,732 | 23.83% | 7,267 |
| Lake | 1,014 | 63.61% | 549 | 34.44% | 10 | 0.63% | 9 | 0.56% | 12 | 0.75% | 465 | 29.17% | 1,594 |
| Lane | 13,647 | 74.96% | 4,213 | 23.14% | 179 | 0.98% | 93 | 0.51% | 73 | 0.40% | 9,434 | 51.82% | 18,205 |
| Lincoln | 2,100 | 57.33% | 1,464 | 39.97% | 46 | 1.26% | 32 | 0.87% | 21 | 0.57% | 636 | 17.36% | 3,663 |
| Linn | 5,877 | 67.62% | 2,645 | 30.43% | 72 | 0.83% | 45 | 0.52% | 52 | 0.60% | 3,232 | 37.19% | 8,691 |
| Malheur | 2,164 | 67.35% | 1,016 | 31.62% | 18 | 0.56% | 11 | 0.34% | 4 | 0.12% | 1,148 | 35.73% | 3,213 |
| Marion | 11,754 | 61.96% | 6,998 | 36.89% | 102 | 0.54% | 69 | 0.36% | 48 | 0.25% | 4,756 | 25.07% | 18,971 |
| Morrow | 1,093 | 64.87% | 543 | 32.23% | 23 | 1.36% | 14 | 0.83% | 12 | 0.71% | 550 | 32.64% | 1,685 |
| Multnomah | 75,731 | 61.64% | 45,177 | 36.77% | 1,219 | 0.99% | 447 | 0.36% | 285 | 0.23% | 30,554 | 24.87% | 122,859 |
| Polk | 3,244 | 64.44% | 1,724 | 34.25% | 30 | 0.60% | 20 | 0.40% | 16 | 0.32% | 1,520 | 30.19% | 5,034 |
| Sherman | 759 | 66.35% | 375 | 32.78% | 2 | 0.17% | 5 | 0.44% | 3 | 0.26% | 384 | 33.57% | 1,144 |
| Tillamook | 2,570 | 66.75% | 1,204 | 31.27% | 32 | 0.83% | 28 | 0.73% | 16 | 0.42% | 1,366 | 35.48% | 3,850 |
| Umatilla | 5,277 | 67.83% | 2,390 | 30.72% | 59 | 0.76% | 34 | 0.44% | 20 | 0.26% | 2,887 | 37.11% | 7,780 |
| Union | 3,219 | 59.13% | 2,154 | 39.57% | 26 | 0.48% | 30 | 0.55% | 15 | 0.28% | 1,065 | 19.56% | 5,444 |
| Wallowa | 1,326 | 56.86% | 935 | 40.09% | 39 | 1.67% | 19 | 0.81% | 13 | 0.56% | 391 | 16.77% | 2,332 |
| Wasco | 2,746 | 60.85% | 1,699 | 37.65% | 30 | 0.66% | 21 | 0.47% | 17 | 0.38% | 1,047 | 23.20% | 4,513 |
| Washington | 6,162 | 62.37% | 3,544 | 35.87% | 91 | 0.92% | 55 | 0.56% | 27 | 0.27% | 2,618 | 26.50% | 9,879 |
| Wheeler | 677 | 75.06% | 224 | 24.83% | 1 | 0.11% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 453 | 50.22% | 902 |
| Yamhill | 5,248 | 67.97% | 2,382 | 30.85% | 38 | 0.49% | 25 | 0.32% | 28 | 0.36% | 2,866 | 37.12% | 7,721 |
| Totals | 205,341 | 64.18% | 109,223 | 34.14% | 2,720 | 0.85% | 1,564 | 0.49% | 1,094 | 0.34% | 96,118 | 30.04% | 319,942 |
State and district results of the1928 United States presidential election | ||
|---|---|---|
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