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1952 United States presidential election in Virginia

← 1948 November 4, 1952 1956 →

Nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower Adlai Stevenson Party Republican Democratic Home state New York Illinois Running mate Richard Nixon John Sparkman Electoral vote 12 0 Popular vote 349,037 268,677 Percentage 56.32% 43.36%

County Results Eisenhower   50-60%   60-70%   70-80% Stevenson   40-50%   50-60%   60-70%

President before election Harry S. Truman Democratic Elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican

Elections in Virginia
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v t e

The 1952 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on November 4, 1952. Voters chose twelve representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

For the previous five decades Virginia had almost completely disenfranchised its black and poor white populations through the use of a cumulative poll tax and literacy tests. So restricted was suffrage in this period that it has been calculated that a third of Virginia's electorate during the first half of the twentieth century comprised state employees and officeholders.

This limited electorate allowed Virginian politics to be controlled for four decades by the Byrd Organization, as progressive “antiorganization” factions were rendered impotent by the inability of almost all their potential electorate to vote. Historical fusion with the “Readjuster” Democrats, defection of substantial proportions of the Northeast-aligned white electorate of the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia over free silver, and an early move towards a “lily white” Jim Crow party meant Republicans retained a small but permanent number of legislative seats and local offices in the western part of the state. In 1928 a combination of growing middle-class Republicanism in the cities and anti-Catholicism against Al Smith in the Tidewater allowed the GOP to carry Virginia and elect three Congressmen, including one representing the local district of emerging machine leader Byrd. However, from 1932 with the state severely affected by the Depression, Republican strength declined below its low pre-1928 level, although Byrd himself became highly critical of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies as early as 1940.

Largely because of fear of losing several seats in the House to resurgent Republicans, Virginia's federal officeholders, although all firmly opposed to Harry S. Truman’s civil rights bills, did not endorse Strom Thurmond in 1948. However, Byrd became almost completely opposed to the Truman administration’s policies during the ensuing presidential term, and after initially preferred nominee Richard Russell Jr. called for repealing the Taft–Hartley Act, the Byrd Organization refused to endorse any Democratic nominee, explicitly rejecting eventual nominees Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II and Alabama Senator John Sparkman.

Campaign

Following the end of Reconstruction Virginia voted for every Democratic presidential nominee except for Al Smith in the 1928 election. U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd opposed President Harry S. Truman's support for civil rights and chose to remain neutral in presidential elections. This allowed his political machine to support Republican presidential candidates while voting for Democratic candidates down ballot.

Following this election Virginia would support every Republican presidential nominee from 1952-2008 except for the victory of Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 election. In 2008, the state voted for Democrat Barack Obama and has since remained a Democratic-leaning state, largely due to the huge growth of Northern Virginia and the D.C. suburbs. By 2020, Joe Biden became the first Democrat to post a double-digit victory since Roosevelt himself in 1944. Virginia was the only southern state that Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter failed to win in the 1976 election.

Despite polls being uncertain, Virginia would be comfortably won by Republican nominees, Columbia University President Dwight D. Eisenhower, running with California Senator Richard Nixon.

Polls

Results

Results by county or independent city

Counties and independent cities that flipped from Democratic to Republican

• Accomack
• Albemarle
• Alleghany
• Amelia
• Alexandria
• Bedford
• Bristol
• Buena Vista
• Charlottesville
• Clarke
• Clifton Forge
• Culpeper
• Cumberland
• Danville
• Fauquier
• Essex
• Frederick
• Fluvanna
• Giles
• Gloucester
• Fredericksburg
• Hanover
• Henrico
• Hampton
• James City
• Lancaster
• Loudoun
• King William
• Louisa
• Lynchburg
• Martinsville
• Middlesex
• New Kent
• Norfolk
• Northampton
• Nottoway
• Orange
• Petersburg
• Powhatan
• Prince Edward
• Princess Anne
• Rappahannock
• Richmond
• Suffolk
• Warren
• Waynesboro
• York

Counties and independent cities that flipped from Dixiecrat to Democratic

• Halifax

Analysis

Eisenhower won Virginia by a 12.97 point margin, making this the first time Virginia voted for a Republican since it was won by Herbert Hoover in 1928, and the best Republican performance in Virginia to this point. Virginia was Eisenhower's strongest state in the old Confederacy, marking a shift from Virginia being previously regarded as a safe blue state to more of a red state. Eisenhower ultimately won the national election with 55.18 percent of the vote, making Virginia two points more Republican than the nation at-large. This was the first occasion any Confederate State voted more Republican than the nation since Virginia itself in 1888 voted 0.30 points more Republican while its blacks remained enfranchised and large numbers of white Readjusters had joined the GOP.

The key to Eisenhower's win was gains from the large in-migration to Northern Virginia, where the many new voters were not tied to the Democratic Party as Virginia's older generation was, with the result that Eisenhower gained four-fifths of approximately two hundred thousand new voters since 1948. Like the rest of the former Confederacy, Eisenhower also gained from transfer of 1948 Thurmond votes and from increasing upper-class Republican voting in cites such as Richmond. Nevertheless, the basis of Republican strength remained the old Readjuster and pro-gold standard regions of the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia.

This was also the first election after Colonial Heights was incorporated as an independent city. Eisenhower won Colonial Heights by a close margin of roughly three points. In the decades since, Colonial Heights has established itself as one of the most Republican-leaning independent cities in Virginia, and has yet to be won by a Democratic presidential candidate. Eisenhower's 1952 and 1956 victories in Colonial Heights of three points and four points remain the two lowest margins of victory for a Republican presidential candidate as of the 2020 election.

See also

• United States presidential elections in Virginia

References

1. "U.S. presidential election, 1952". Facts on File. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013. Retrieved October 24, 2013. Eisenhower, born in Texas, considered a resident of New York, and headquartered at the time in Paris, finally decided to run for the Republican nomination
2. ^ Kousser, J. Morgan (1974). The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910. Yale University Press. pp. 178–181. ISBN 0-300-01696-4.
3. Key, Valdimer Orlando (1949). Southern Politics in State and Nation. pp. 20–25.
4. ^ Heersink, Boris; Jenkins, Jeffrey A. (March 19, 2020). Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865-1968. Cambridge University Press. pp. 217–221. ISBN 978-1107158436.
5. Moger, Allen. "The Rift in Virginia Democracy in 1896". The Journal of Southern History. 4 (3): 295–317. doi:10.2307/2191291. JSTOR 2191291.
6. Phillips, Kevin P. (1969). The Emerging Republican Majority. Arlington House. pp. 193, 219. ISBN 0870000586.
7. Phillips. The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 195
8. Hawkes (junior), Robert T. (July 1974). "The Emergence of a Leader: Harry Flood Byrd, Governor of Virginia, 1926-1930". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 82 (3): 259–281.
9. Davidson, Chandler; Grofman, Bernard (1994). Quiet revolution in the South: the impact of the Voting rights act, 1965-1990. Princeton University Press. pp. 275–276. ISBN 0691032475.
10. Guthrie, Paul Daniel (1955). The Dixiecrat Movement of 1948 (Thesis). Bowling Green State University. pp. 179–181. Docket 144207.
11. ^ Sweeney, J.R. (1978). "Revolt in Virginia: Harry Byrd and the 1952 presidential election". Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 86 (2). Old Dominion University: 180–195.
12. ^ Grant Jr., Philip A. (Spring 1990). "Eisenhower and the 1952 Republican Invasion of the South: The Case of Virginia". Presidential Studies Quarterly. 20 (2) (Eisenhower Centennial Issue ed.): 285–293.
13. ^ Moreland, Steed & Baker 1991, p. 236.
14. Skelley, Geoffrey (July 13, 2017). "The New Dominion: Virginia's Ever-Changing Electoral Map". Sabato's Crystal Ball. Retrieved June 7, 2024.
15. Moreland, Steed & Baker 1991, p. 235-236.
16. Cornell, Douglas B. (September 17, 1952). "Ike Given 50–50 Chance To Break into Solid South". Lansing State Journal. Lansing, Michigan. pp. 7, 16.
17. Cornell, Douglas B. (October 24, 1952). "Journalists Bet 50–50 Ike Will Dent South". The Salt Lake Tribune. Salt Lake City. pp. 1–2.
18. Cornell, Douglas B. (October 24, 1952). "Most Southern States Continue to Back Demos Despite Sizeable Republican Inroads — GOP Has Even Chance to Carry Virginia, Texas, Florida". Lubbock Morning Avalanche. Lubbock, Texas. p. 11.
19. "US Poll Shows — Eisenhower Leading Stevenson in Electoral Votes, but Governor Has More States in His Column". The Greeneville Sun. Greeneville, Tennessee. Princeton Research Service. October 25, 1952. pp. 1, 8.
20. White, William S. (October 25, 1952). "Eisenhower Edge Seen in Virginia, With Allegiance to Byrd Big Factor". The New York Times (Special to the New York Times ed.). pp. 1, 64.
21. "NY Times Survey Indicates Close Election Tuesday". The Modesto Bee. Modesto, California. October 27, 1952. p. 8.
22. White, William S. (October 27, 1952). "Stevenson Likely To Win in Virginia: Second Survey Finds States' Rights Bloc and Powell's Activity Hurt G.O.P. — Farmers Are Angry; Negro Votes Switching; Incident Widely Used A Subway in Jersey". The New York Times (Special to the New York Times ed.). pp. 1, 13.
23. "Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 4, 1952" (PDF). Clerk of the House of Representatives. p. 45.
24. "VA US President Race, November 04, 1952". Our Campaigns.
25. ^ Strong, Donald S. (August 1955). "The Presidential Election in the South, 1952". The Journal of Politics. 17 (3). The University of Chicago Press: 343–389. doi:10.1017/S0022381600091064.

Works cited

• Moreland, Laurence; Steed, Robert; Baker, Tod, eds. (1991). The 1988 Presidential Election in the South: Continuity Amidst Change in Southern Party Politics. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0275931455.

v t e State and district results of the 1952 United States presidential election
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