1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas

← 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 9 0 Popular vote 123,140 77,789 Percentage 61.06% 38.57%

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

President before election Calvin Coolidge Republican Elected President Herbert Hoover Republican

The1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas was held on November 6, 1928, as part of the1928 United States presidential election. State voters chose nine electors, or representatives to theUnited States Electoral College, who voted forPresident andVice-president.

Except for theUnionistOzark counties ofNewton andSearcy where Republicans controlled local government,Arkansas since the end ofReconstruction had been a classic one-party Democratic “Solid South” state.^[1]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 strongSocialist 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.^[2]

The 1920s did see a minor change in this, as increased voting by poor Ozark whites as a protest againstWoodrow Wilson's internationalist foreign policy meant thatWarren G. Harding was able to win almost forty percent of the statewide vote in1920;^[3] however despite his national landslideCalvin Coolidge in1924 could not do any more than win the two traditional Unionist GOP counties.

With all other prominent Democrats sitting the election out,^[4] the party nominatedAlfred E. Smith, four-termGovernor of New York as its nominee for 1928, with little opposition. Arkansas lies in the core of theOzark “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 ofevolution in public schools showed Arkansas in the vanguard of fundamentalist Protestantism.^[5] 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 allowpapal and priestly leadership in the United States, which Protestantism was a reaction against.^[6] TheSouthern Baptist Convention said that

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.^[7]

During July, the flaggingKu Klux Klan opposed Smith because of his stance against Prohibition, a reform Robinson supported without being dogmatic.

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.^[8]

However, Robinson’s support of religious liberty was able to ameliorate opposition from Protestant ministers – whom Robinson felt was working for the Republican Party^[9] – 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’sDepartment of Commerce.^[10]

In counties along theArkansas River, Smith may have also been helped by the perception that Hoover was ineffective at relievingthe disastrous flooding of the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers a year and a half beforehand.^[11]

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 andJoseph Taylor Robinson, had supported the New York Governor for more than a year before his nomination had become official.^[10] Robinson was the first major party Vice-Presidential nominee from a former Confederate state sinceAndrew Johnson in 1864, and was a moderate who had refrained from supporting either Smith or his rivalWilliam Gibbs McAdoo during the disastrous1924 Democratic National Convention.^[8] The fact that Robinson denouncedThomas Heflin’s claim that some American Senators (including Heflin himself) were being paid or bribed by the (anti-Catholic) Mexican Government and quarrelled withthe Alabama Senator violently over whether religion could be a qualification for office further linked him to Smith even before becoming his running mate.^[8]

Senator Robinson's 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 forJohn 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.^[13] Hoover was the first ever Republican victor inCarroll County,Hot Spring County andPolk County, whilst he was the first Republican sinceUlysses S. Grant to carrySebastian County andWashington County.^[14]

• United States presidential elections in Arkansas

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• United States presidential elections in Arkansas

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