1928 United States presidential election in Louisiana explained

See main article: 1928 United States presidential election.

Election Name:1928 United States presidential elections in Louisiana
Country:Louisiana
Flag Year:1912
Type:presidential
Vote Type:Popular
Ongoing:no
Previous Election:1924 United States presidential election in Louisiana
Previous Year:1924
Next Election:1932 United States presidential election in Louisiana
Next Year:1932
Image1:Unsuccessful 1928.jpg
Nominee1:Al Smith
Party1:Democratic Party (United States)
Home State1:New York
Running Mate1:Joseph T. Robinson
Electoral Vote1:10
Popular Vote1:164,655
Percentage1:76.29%
Nominee2:Herbert Hoover
Party2:Republican Party (United States)
Home State2:California
Running Mate2:Charles Curtis
Electoral Vote2:0
Popular Vote2:51,160
Percentage2:23.70%
Map Size:350px
President
Before Election:Calvin Coolidge
Before Party:Republican Party (United States)
Posttitle:Elected President
After Election:Herbert Hoover
After Party:Republican Party (United States)

The 1928 United States presidential election in Louisiana took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the wider United States presidential election. Voters chose ten representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Ever since the passage of a new constitution in 1898, Louisiana had been a one-party state dominated by the Democratic Party. The Republican Party became moribund due to the disenfranchisement of Black voters and the complete absence of other support bases, as Louisiana lacked upland or German refugee whites opposed to secession.[1] Despite this single-party dominance, non-partisan tendencies remained strong among wealthy sugar planters in Acadiana and within the business elite of New Orleans.[2]

Following disfranchisement, the state’s politics became dominated by a coalition of the New Orleans-based Choctaw Club of Louisiana and Black Belt planters.[3] Opposition began to emerge with the Socialist Party in the lumbering parishes of the northern hills and Imperial Calcasieu in the late 1900s, and more seriously with the Progressive movement, chiefly in the southern sugar-growing parishes, in the 1910s. Conflicts with President Wilson’s Underwoood-Simmons Act[4] allowed Progressive Whitmell P. Martin to be elected to the Third Congressional District in 1914, and in 1920 the racially less hardline[5] Acadiana region turned to Republican candidate Warren G. Harding[6] over disagreements on foreign policy and the Nineteenth Amendment.[7] Continued opposition to the Choctaw Club would elect former Progressive John M. Parker as governor at the beginning of 1920; however, Parker did not deliver his promised reforms, and Choctaw control returned temporarily with the 1924 election of Henry L. Fuqua.[8]

Louisiana’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention largely backed Catholic New York Governor Al Smith, who was opposed in the remainder of the South for his religion and opposition to Prohibition.[9] At the same time, the state Republican Party — like those of Mississippi and South Carolina, entirely a vehicle for Federal patronage — was undergoing a "lily white" takeover from Walter Cohen’s black-and-tan faction, although blacks were not expelled from the party as occurred in Alabama, North Carolina, and Virginia.[10]

Unlike in the Upper South, Louisiana Democrats were controlled by fears that the Republican nominee, former Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, supported racial equality.[9] Although in the Protestant north and Florida Parishes there was opposition to Smith’s religion and views on Prohibition, this was overshadowed by the desire for loyalty to the one-party system as an instrument of white supremacy,[11] a viewpoint supported by newly-elected Governor Huey Long.[9] Moreover, identification with Smith’s Catholicism was strong in Acadiana, where commitment to white supremacy was less intense.[12]

Consequently Smith and Arkansas Senator Joseph T. Robinson won Louisiana with 76.29 percent of the popular vote, to 23.70 percent for Hoover and Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas. Only in two parishes — Livingston and Washington, both proximate to the deeply anti-Catholic Mississippi Pine Belt and Florida panhandle — did Hoover pass forty percent of the vote, while in many Acadian parishes Hoover underperformed Calvin Coolidge by over thirty points. Louisiana was Smith's third strongest state in the election, after South Carolina and neighboring Mississippi.[13]

Results

Results by parish

1928 United States presidential election in Louisiana by parish[14] ! rowspan="2"
Parish
Democratic

Republican

Margin
%%%data-sort-type="number"data-sort-type="number"%
Acadia3,63377.23%1,07122.77%2,56254.46%4,704
Allen1,30864.34%72535.66%58328.68%2,033
Ascension1,40276.28%43623.72%96652.56%1,838
Assumption94875.54%30724.46%64151.08%1,255
Avoyelles2,89687.36%41912.64%2,47774.72%3,315
Beauregard1,51376.38%46823.62%1,04552.75%1,981
Bienville1,30178.00%36722.00%93456.00%1,668
Bossier1,18784.07%22515.93%96268.13%1,412
Caddo6,93465.42%3,66534.58%3,26930.84%10,599
Calcasieu3,53263.85%1,99736.10%30.05%1,53527.75%5,532
Caldwell80273.58%28826.42%51447.16%1,090
Cameron39090.49%419.51%34980.97%431
Catahoula71067.55%34132.45%36935.11%1,051
Claiborne1,56086.24%24913.76%1,31172.47%1,809
Concordia59181.63%13318.37%45863.26%724
1,44573.57%51726.32%20.10%92847.25%1,964
4,57560.44%2,99539.56%1,58020.87%7,570
43677.03%13022.97%30654.06%566
62279.54%16020.46%46259.08%782
Evangeline1,87386.19%30013.81%1,57372.39%2,173
Franklin1,14169.87%49230.13%64939.74%1,633
Grant1,02366.95%50533.05%51833.90%1,528
Iberia2,56186.11%41313.89%2,14872.23%2,974
Iberville1,63085.43%27814.57%1,35270.86%1,908
Jackson907100.00%00.00%907100.00%907
Jefferson5,32687.77%74212.23%4,58475.54%6,068
1,70360.33%1,12039.67%58320.65%2,823
Lafayette3,19784.38%59215.62%2,60568.75%3,789
Lafourche1,99489.14%24310.86%1,75178.27%2,237
LaSalle88166.19%45033.81%43132.38%1,331
Lincoln1,04160.84%67039.16%37121.68%1,711
Livingston1,04751.78%97548.22%723.56%2,022
Madison31867.80%15132.20%16735.61%469
Morehouse84071.19%34028.81%50042.37%1,180
Natchitoches2,09979.96%52620.04%1,57359.92%2,625
Orleans55,91979.49%14,42420.51%41,49558.99%70,343
Ouachita2,73966.50%1,38033.50%1,35932.99%4,119
Plaquemines1,05691.51%988.49%95883.02%1,154
1,33092.88%1027.12%1,22885.75%1,432
Rapides4,47064.19%2,49435.81%1,97628.37%6,964
89173.09%31726.00%110.90%57447.09%1,219
Richland1,08381.74%24218.26%84163.47%1,325
Sabine1,41465.80%73534.20%67931.60%2,149
2,35996.84%773.16%2,28293.68%2,436
1,11691.18%1088.82%1,00882.35%1,224
60980.77%14519.23%46461.54%754
1,48692.07%1287.93%1,35884.14%1,614
97189.16%11810.84%85378.33%1,089
3,39482.54%71817.46%2,67665.08%4,112
1,89288.66%24211.34%1,65077.32%2,134
1,75474.35%60525.65%1,14948.71%2,359
1,81165.71%94534.29%86631.42%2,756
Tangipahoa2,83466.70%1,41533.30%1,41933.40%4,249
Tensas35078.48%9621.52%25456.95%446
Terrebonne1,64285.97%26814.03%1,37471.94%1,910
Union1,08571.90%42227.97%20.13%66343.94%1,509
Vermilion2,58085.12%45114.88%2,12970.24%3,031
Vernon2,19181.42%50018.58%1,69162.84%2,691
Washington2,02056.93%1,52843.07%49213.87%3,548
Webster1,43080.07%35619.93%1,07460.13%1,786
60888.63%7811.37%53077.26%686
67375.87%21424.13%45951.75%887
42182.39%9017.61%33164.77%511
Winn1,16168.54%53331.46%62837.07%1,694
Totals164,65576.29%51,16023.70%180.01%113,49552.58%215,833

See also

Notes and References

  1. Book: [[Kevin Phillips (political commentator)|Phillips]], Kevin P.. The Emerging Republican Majority. 208, 210. 9780691163246.
  2. Schott. Matthew J.. Progressives against Democracy: Electoral Reform in Louisiana, 1894-1921. Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. 20. 3. Summer 1979. 247–260.
  3. Book: Wall. Bennett H.. Rodriguez. John C.. Louisiana: A History. 274–275. 1118619293.
  4. Collin. Richard H.. Theodore Roosevelt's Visit to New Orleans and the Progressive Campaign of 1914. Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. 12. 1. Winter 1971. 5–19.
  5. Howard. Perry H.. 1954. Political Tendencies in Louisiana, 1812-1952; An Ecological Analysis of Voting Behavior. 112-113. A New Look at Reconstruction. LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 8115.
  6. Phillips. The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 268
  7. Wall and Rodriguez. Louisiana: A History, p. 277
  8. Book: Sindler, Allan P.. Huey Long's Louisiana: State Politics, 1920-1952. 1956. Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore. 40–41.
  9. Barbara C.. Wingo. The 1928 Presidential Election in Louisiana. Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. 18. 4. Autumn 1977. 405–435. Louisiana Historical Association.
  10. Book: Fairclough, Adam. Race and Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972. 2008. University of Georgia Press. Athens, Georgia. 0820331147. 11.
  11. Phillips. The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 212
  12. Phillips. The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 214, 268-269
  13. Web site: 1928 Presidential Election Statistics. Dave Leip’s U.S. Election Atlas.
  14. Web site: LA US President Race, November 06, 1928. Our Campaigns.