1928 United States presidential election in Virginia

← 1924 November 6, 1928 1932 →

Nominee Herbert Hoover Al Smith Party Republican Democratic Home state California New York Running mate Charles Curtis Joseph T. Robinson Electoral vote 12 0 Popular vote 164,609 140,146 Percentage 53.91% 45.90%

County and independent city results Hoover   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90% Smith   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%

President before election Calvin Coolidge Republican Elected President Herbert Hoover Republican

Elections in Virginia
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v t e

The1928 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on November 6, 1928. Voters chose 12 representatives, or electors, to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.

Like all former Confederate States, early twentieth-century Virginia almost completelydisenfranchised its black and poor white populations through the use ofa cumulative poll tax and literacy tests.^[1] So severe was the disenfranchising effect of the new 1902 Constitution that it has been calculated that a third of the electorate during the first half of the twentieth century comprised state employees and officeholders.^[1]

This limited electorate meant Virginian politics was controlled bypolitical machines based inSouthside Virginia — the 1920s would see the building of theByrd Organization which would control the state's politics untilthe Voting Rights Act. Progressive “antiorganization” factions were rendered impotent by the inability of almost all their potential electorate to vote.^[2] Unlike the Deep South, historicalfusion withthe “Readjuster” Democrats,^[3] defection overfree silver of substantial proportions of theNortheast-aligned white electorate of theShenandoah Valley andSouthwest Virginia,^[4] and an early move towards a“lily white”Jim Crow party^[3] meant that in general elections the Republicans retained around one-third of the small statewide electorate,^[5] with the majority of GOP support located in the western part of the state. However — like in Tennessee during the same era — the parties avoided competition in many areas by an agreed division over local offices.^[2]

Virginia was less affected than Oklahoma, Tennessee or North Carolina by the upheavals ofWorld War I andthe Nineteenth Amendment, although there was an unsuccessful challenge to lily-white control of the state's Republican Party in 1921.^[3] During the1920 and1924 national Republican landslides, the party did not equal its performances during the first four “System of 1896” presidential elections. Additionally, in 1927 an effort to reduce the cumulative property of the state's poll tax from three years to two was defeated in committee.^[6]

At the beginning of the campaign, prohibitionist Reverend David Hepburn, Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League of Virginia, predicted a bolt by Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina due to the religion and Prohibition issues.^[7] Governor Byrd would ultimately endorse Smith in August,^[8] but the first poll taken in the second week of October had Hoover ahead of Smith by about seven percent.^[9] However, around the time of Smith's tour of the state in the middle of the month, when he alleged strong links between the state Republicans and the Ku Klux Klan, other pundits said Smith was sure of carrying Virginia.^[10]

At the end of October, the consensus was that Smith would carry the state,^[11] but Hoover ultimately gained 53.91 percent of Virginia's vote. This was only the second occasion when Virginia voted for a Republican president, the first being in1872 during theReconstruction era. As in all of the former Confederacy, Hoover gained most in the strongly white counties least concerned with black political power,^[12] although in theTidewater andVirginia Peninsula a number of majority-black counties swung unusually strongly against Smith –Charles City County, indeed, gave Hoover two-thirds of its ballots. Unlike Florida, Texas, or Alabama, Virginia's swing to the Republicans also saw the GOP gain threeHouse of Representatives seats, including the home district of Byrd.^[8]

With all other prominent Democrats sitting the election out,^[15] the party nominatedAlfred E. Smith, four-termGovernor 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 onProhibition: he wished to repeal or modify theVolstead Act.

In Virginia – which had little to no experience of the Catholic immigrants from southern and eastern Europe who were Smith's local constituency –Methodist Episcopal BishopJames Cannon Jr., a former ally of SenatorThomas S. Martin, immediately turned sharply against Smith.^[16] In 1925, a Catholic, John M. Purcell, who had served a long and loyal apprenticeship in the state party, was nominated by the Democratic Party forstate treasurer and won the general election by fewer than twenty-six thousand votes whileHarry F. Byrd was winning the governorship by almost seventy thousand.^[16]

Many prohibitionists in Virginia quickly felt that it would be preferable to vote for the dryRepublican nominee, formerUnited States Secretary of CommerceHerbert Hoover, over the wet Catholic Democrat Smith.^[17] SenatorClaude A. Swanson was the first major state politician to oppose Smith, announcing his opposition on June 22.^[18] However, most major newspapers, such as theStaunton News-Leader and Daily-News,Lynchburg News,Winchester Evening-Star andThe Free-Lance Star, would endorse Smith from early in the campaign.^[18]

Despite Smith's attempt to mollify the South by nominating dry Southern Democrat andArkansas SenatorJoseph Taylor Robinson as his running mate early in July, Cannon would step up his campaign against Smith during that month via a widely publicised speech inAsheville.^[19] At the beginning of the campaign, however, the Republican National Convention largely wrote off Virginia and campaigned elsewhere in the former Confederacy; however, formerNinth District CongressmanCampbell Bascom Slemp thought Hoover had a chance and worked strenuously to build support in the state.^[20]

According to one analysis of the Virginia 1928 presidential election:

The voting of 1928 was not so much pro-Hoover as it was anti-Smith. Smith was defeated for reasons that no platform could touch – his Roman Catholicism and immigrant, urban background.^[21]

• 1928 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in Virginia
• 1928 Virginia elections

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