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1948 United States presidential election in Tennessee

← 1944 November 2, 1948 1952 →

Nominee Harry S. Truman Thomas E. Dewey Strom Thurmond Party Democratic Republican Dixiecrat Home state Missouri New York South Carolina Running mate Alben W. Barkley Earl Warren Fielding L. Wright Electoral vote 11 0 1 Popular vote 270,402 202,914 73,815 Percentage 49.14% 36.87% 13.41%

County results Truman   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90% Dewey   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90% Thurmond   40–50%   80–90%

President before election Harry S. Truman Democratic Elected President Harry S. Truman Democratic

Elections in Tennessee
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The 1948 United States presidential election in Tennessee took place on November 2, 1948, as part of the 1948 United States presidential election. Tennessee voters chose 12 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

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 Western 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. Contrariwise, the rest of Middle and West Tennessee who had supported and driven the state's secession was equally fiercely Democratic as it associated the Republicans with Reconstruction. After the disfranchisement of the state's African-American population by a poll tax was largely complete in the 1890s, the Democratic Party was certain of winning statewide elections if united, although unlike the Deep South Republicans would almost always gain thirty to forty percent of the statewide vote from mountain and Highland Rim support.

Between 1896 and 1948, the Republicans would win statewide contests three times but only in the second did they receive down-ballot coattails by winning three congressional seats in addition to the rock-ribbed GOP First and Second Districts. In the early 1910s, prohibitionist “Independent Democrats” fled the party and formed a coalition, known as the “Fusionists,” with Republicans to elect Ben W. Hooper Governor, whilst in 1920 the national anti-Wilson and anti-League of Nations tide allowed the GOP to carry a few traditionally Democratic areas in Middle Tennessee and with them the state, and in 1928 anti-Catholicism against Democratic nominee Al Smith gave this powerfully fundamentalist state to Herbert Hoover.

After the beginning of the Great Depression, however, for the next third of a century Republicans would rarely contest statewide offices seriously, despite continuing dominance of East Tennessee and half a dozen Unionist counties in the middle and west of the state. State politics during the 1930s and 1940s was dominated by Edward Hull “Boss” Crump, whose Memphis political machine would consistently provide decisive votes in statewide Democratic primaries aided by cross-party voting by Republicans in eastern mountain counties. Although Tennessee's delegates at the 1948 Democratic National Convention were all opposed to incumbent President Harry S. Truman after his proposal for black civil rights titled To Secure These Rights, the presence of potentially formidable Republican opposition in East Tennessee and the Highland Rim meant that Crump could not even keep his own machine in line. Governor McCord and even Crump's long-time ally Senator Kenneth D. McKellar both broke with him over supporting States Rights Democratic nominees Strom Thurmond and Fielding L. Wright, with McCord losing the Democratic nomination to Crump foe Gordon Browning. In order to get their electors on the ballot the Dixiecrats had to form a separate state organisation in Somerville, although three of the Dixiecrat electors were simultaneously on the slate for Truman and Kentucky Senator Alben W. Barkley. 14% of white voters supported Thurmond.

Polls

Results

Results by county

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

• Carroll

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Dixiecrat

• Shelby
• Fayette

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

• McMinn
• Polk

Analysis

Truman carried Tennessee more comfortably than expected, defeating Republican nominees New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey and California Governor Earl Warren by 12.26 percentage points and Thurmond by 35.73 percentage points. Thurmond did however make significant inroads into traditional Democratic support in the Black Belt of West Tennessee, where he received over eighty percent in Fayette County, and also did well in prosperous urban precincts in Nashville.

Truman received eleven of Tennessee's twelve electoral votes, with the other cast in favor of Thurmond by Preston Parks of Somerville, TN, who was also on the Dixiecrat slate. As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last election in which Hamilton County voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.

See also

• United States presidential elections in Tennessee

Notes

1. ^ In this county where Dewey ran third behind Truman and Thurmond, margin given is Truman vote minus Thurmond vote and percentage margin Truman percentage minus Thurmond percentage.

References

1. "United States Presidential election of 1948 — Encyclopædia Britannica". Retrieved October 31, 2017.
2. "1948 Election for the Forty-First Term (1949-53)". Retrieved October 31, 2017.
3. Wright, John K. (October 1932). "Voting Habits in the United States: A Note on Two Maps". Geographical Review. 22 (4): 666–672. Bibcode:1932GeoRv..22..666W. doi:10.2307/208821. JSTOR 208821.
4. Key (Jr.), Valdimer Orlando; Southern Politics in State and Nation (New York, 1949), pp. 282-283
5. Lyons, William; Scheb (II), John M.; Stair, Billy (2001). Government and Politics in Tennessee. Univ. of Tennessee Press. pp. 183–184. ISBN 1572331410.
6. Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 208, 210 ISBN 9780691163246
7. Grantham, Dewey W. (Fall 1995). "Tennessee and Twentieth-Century American Politics'". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 54 (3): 210–229.
8. Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 287
9. Langsdon, Phillip (2000). Tennessee: A Political History. Franklin, Tennessee: Hillsboro Press. pp. 287–295.
10. Reichard, Gary W. (February 1970). "The Aberration of 1920: An Analysis of Harding's Victory in Tennessee". The Journal of Southern History. 36 (1): 33–49. doi:10.2307/2206601. JSTOR 2206601.
11. Larson, Edward J. (October 3, 2006). Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. Basic Books. ISBN 9780465075102.
12. ^ Majors, William R. (1986). Change and continuity: Tennessee politics since the Civil War. Mercer University Press. p. 72. ISBN 9780865542099.
13. ^ Guthrie, Paul Daniel (1955). The Dixiecrat Movement of 1948 (Thesis). Bowling Green State University. pp. 181–182. Docket 144207.
14. Langsdon, Phillip Royal (2000). Tennessee: A Political History. Franklin, Tennessee: Hillsboro Press. pp. 336–343. ISBN 9781577361251.
15. ^ Guthrie; The Dixiecrat Movement of 1948 (Thesis). pp. 211-212
16. Black & Black 1992, p. 147.
17. Gallup, George (October 15, 1948). "Only Four States Go to Dixiecrats". Chattanooga Daily Times. Chattanooga, Tennessee. p. 6-A.
18. Moss, Charles (October 24, 1948). "Tennessee". The Montgomery Advertiser. Montgomery, Alabama. p. 16.
19. Moss, Charles (October 25, 1948). "Tennessee". The Miami News. Miami, Florida. p. 8.
20. Tucker, Ray (November 1, 1948). "Truman Whistling in a White House Graveyard, Says Tucker, Predicting It'll Be a Dewey Sweep". Mount Vernon Argus. Mount Vernon, New York. p. 8.
21. Gallup, George (November 1, 1948). "Final Gallup Poll Shows Dewey Winning Election with Wide Electoral Vote Margin". Oakland Tribune. Oakland, California. pp. 1–2.
22. "1948 Presidential General Election Results – Tennessee". Retrieved October 31, 2017.
23. "The American Presidency Project — Election of 1948". Retrieved October 31, 2017.
24. "TN US President, November 02, 1948". Our Campaigns.
25. "TRUMAN'S MARGIN IS CUT BY ONE VOTE; An Elector in Tennessee Stays With Thurmond Although President Won State". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 19, 2024.
26. Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016

Works cited

• Black, Earl; Black, Merle (1992). The Vital South: How Presidents Are Elected. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674941306.

v t e State and district results of the 1948 United States presidential election
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• 1948 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in Tennessee
• 1948 Tennessee elections