1928 United States presidential election in Alabama

← 1924 November 6, 1928 1932 →

Nominee Al Smith Herbert Hoover Party Democratic Republican Home state New York California Running mate Joseph T. Robinson Charles Curtis Electoral vote 12 0 Popular vote 127,797 120,753 Percentage 51.33% 48.50%

County results Smith   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90%   90–100% Hoover   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%

President before election Calvin Coolidge Republican Elected President Herbert Hoover Republican

Elections in Alabama
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Ballot measures 1946 Amendment 4 ("Boswell Amendment") 1951 Amendment 5 1999 Amendment 1 2000 Amendment 2 2006 Amendment 774 2020 Amendment 1 2024 Amendment 1 (March) Amendment 1 (November)
Government
v t e

The1928 United States presidential election in Alabama took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the1928 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all contemporary forty-eight states. Voters chose twelve representatives, or electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president. This was the last election in which Alabama had twelve electoral votes: theGreat Migration caused the state to losecongressional districts after the1930 Census produced the first Congressional redistricting since 1911.

Alabama voted narrowly for theDemocratic nominee,GovernorAlfred E. "Al" Smith ofNew York, over theRepublican nominee, formerSecretary of CommerceHerbert Hoover ofCalifornia. Smith's running mate wasSenatorJoseph Taylor Robinson ofArkansas, while Hoover's running mate wasSenate Majority LeaderCharles Curtis ofKansas. The only other candidate on the ballot was Socialist Norman Thomas, who received a mere 460 votes.^[1]

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 ofpoor whites viapoll taxes, literacy tests^[2] and informal harassment had essentially eliminated opposition parties outside of presidential campaigns in a fewnorthern 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.

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.^[3] Consequently,Al Smith, a four-termGovernor of New York, was able to win the party's nomination on the first ballot of the1928 Democratic National Convention.

Four characteristics of Smith made him anything but an ideal candidate for Southern Democrats: he was a devout Catholic, opposed toProhibition, linked with New York City'sTammany Hall political machine, and the son of Irish and Italian immigrants. Although it is generally thought that the South would have accepted a man possessingone of those characteristics,^[4] the combination proved a bitter dose for many of Alabama's loyal Democrats. It was also thought by some, including those close to the revivedKu Klux Klan, that Smith was too friendly with blacks^[5] and some Alabama whites unsubtly called Smith "nigger, nigger, nigger."^[6] However, these people did not think Hoover any "safer" on the race issue, although they did prefer Hoover's view on Prohibition.^[7]

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 ofWinston and a few populist strongholds likeChilton) produced an exceptionally bitter campaign.^[8]Black Belt whites – who had controlled the state government since the disenfranchisement of blacks and poor whites – also felt Smith's social views obnoxious, especially his opposition to the Ku Klux Klan. Consequently, many of Alabama's voters swore to vote for Hoover without declaring themselves Republicans, instead calling themselves "Hoovercrats".^[8] Defections were particularly pronounced inNorth Alabama, where a contiguous block of counties fromBirmingham northeastwards to theTennessee border uniformly gave majorities for Hoover. Hoover also won several counties in the far southern coastal regions, whose soils had always proved unsuitable for cotton plantations.^[9] 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 forwhite supremacy.^[10]

Overall, Smith held the state by just over seven thousand votes, although opponents of Smith believed thatelectoral fraud was widespread in theBlack Belt. State judges Hugh Locke, Horace Wilkinson and Ira Champion argued that up to seventeen thousand ballots for Hoover had been rejected.^[13] No recount, however, was ever contemplated by authorities. This result constitutes the third-closest presidential election in Alabama's history after that of1980, another Republican landslide (this time affected by the personal vote in the South for PresidentJimmy Carter, a lifelongGeorgian), and that of1848, when Democratic nomineeLewis Cass won the state by 1.12 percentage points while narrowly losing the presidency to SouthernWhig nomineeZachary Taylor, who was living inLouisiana.

A strong correlation was revealed between the percentage of blacks in the population and (white) voter loyalty to the Democratic Party (with the r-value equaling 0.7268): of the twenty-six counties won by Hoover, only five had a population over thirty percent Negro, and most of these were urban areas less attached to the traditions of black belt politics, while Chambers County was the home of Hoovercrat senatorJ. Thomas Heflin.^[14] At the other extreme, of the ten counties possessing populations under ten percent African Americanin 1930,^[15][a] onlyMarion County stayed loyal to Smith and only by a very narrow margin.

• United States presidential elections in Alabama

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

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