1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas

The 1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas was held on November 6, 1928. Arkansas voters chose nine electors, or representatives to the United States Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice-President.

Main article: 1928 United States presidential election

1928 United States presidential election in Arkansas

November 6, 1928

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

Background

Except for the Unionist Ozark counties of Newton and Searcy where Republicans controlled local government, Arkansas since the end of Reconstruction 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 strong Socialist 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 against Woodrow Wilson's internationalist foreign policy meant that Warren G. Harding was able to win almost forty percent of the statewide vote;[3] however despite his national landslide Calvin Coolidge in 1924 could not do any more than win the two traditional Unionist GOP counties.

Native Son Vice-Presidential Candidate

With all other prominent Democrats sitting the election out,[4] the party nominated Alfred E. Smith, four-term Governor of New York as its nominee for 1928, with little opposition. Arkansas lies in the core of the Ozark “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 of evolution in public schools showed the Natural State 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 allow papal and priestly leadership in the United States, which Protestantism was a reaction against.[6] The Southern 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]

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 and Joseph Taylor Robinson, had supported the New York Governor for more than a year before his nomination had become official.[8] Robinson was the first major party Vice-Presidential nominee from a former Confederate state since Andrew Johnson in 1864, and was a moderate who had refrained from supporting either Smith or his rival William Gibbs McAdoo during the disastrous 1924 Democratic National Convention.[9] The fact that Robinson denounced Thomas Heflin’s claim that some American Senators (including Heflin himself) were being paid or bribed by the (anti-Catholic) Mexican Government and quarrelled with the Alabama Senator violently over whether religion could be a qualification for office further linked him to Smith even before becoming his running mate.[9]

During July, the flagging Ku 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.[9]

However, Robinson’s support of religious liberty was able to ameliorate opposition from Protestant ministers – whom Robinson felt was working for the Republican Party[10] – 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’s Department of Commerce.[8]

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

These 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 for John 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.[12] Hoover was the first ever Republican victor in Carroll County, Hot Spring County and Polk County, whilst he was the first Republican since Ulysses S. Grant to carry Sebastian County and Washington County.[13]

Results

Electoral results

Presidential candidate	Party	Home state	Popular vote		Electoral vote	Running mate
			Count	Percentage		Vice-presidential candidate	Home state	Electoral vote
Alfred E. Smith	Democrat	New York	123,140	61.06%	9	Joseph Taylor Robinson	Arkansas	9
Herbert Hoover	Republican	California	77,789	38.57%	0	Charles Curtis	Kansas	0
Norman Thomas	Socialist	New York	435	0.22%	0	James H. Maurer	Pennsylvania	0
William Z. Foster	Independent	Illinois	322	0.16%	0	Benjamin Gitlow	New York	0
Total			219,269	100%	9			9
Needed to win					266			266

Results by county

County	Alfred Emmanuel Smith Democratic		Herbert Clark Hoover Republican		Various candidates Other parties		Margin		Total votes cast[14]
	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%
Arkansas	1,491	58.59%	1,046	41.10%	8	0.31%	445	17.49%	2,545
Ashley	1,393	63.84%	786	36.02%	3	0.14%	607	27.82%	2,182
Baxter	665	56.31%	504	42.68%	12	1.02%	161	13.63%	1,181
Benton	6,281	65.39%	3,252	33.85%	73	0.76%	3,029	31.53%	9,606
Boone	1,708	52.30%	1,545	47.31%	13	0.40%	163	4.99%	3,266
Bradley	1,487	76.89%	447	23.11%	0	0.00%	1,040	53.77%	1,934
Calhoun	765	74.06%	262	25.36%	6	0.58%	503	48.69%	1,033
Carroll	1,540	46.50%	1,757	53.05%	15	0.45%	-217	-6.55%	3,312
Chicot	1,021	69.55%	445	30.31%	2	0.14%	576	39.24%	1,468
Clark	1,817	66.41%	913	33.37%	6	0.22%	904	33.04%	2,736
Clay	1,435	52.99%	1,254	46.31%	19	0.70%	181	6.68%	2,708
Cleburne	856	59.36%	574	39.81%	12	0.83%	282	19.56%	1,442
Cleveland	692	59.15%	477	40.77%	1	0.09%	215	18.38%	1,170
Columbia	1,753	73.90%	617	26.01%	2	0.08%	1,136	47.89%	2,372
Conway	1,514	69.48%	665	30.52%	0	0.00%	849	38.96%	2,179
Craighead	2,132	51.77%	1,958	47.55%	28	0.68%	174	4.23%	4,118
Crawford	1,743	52.79%	1,559	47.21%	0	0.00%	184	5.57%	3,302
Crittenden	1,635	84.32%	304	15.68%	0	0.00%	1,331	68.64%	1,939
Cross	1,282	79.63%	324	20.12%	4	0.25%	958	59.50%	1,610
Dallas	1,030	67.01%	503	32.73%	4	0.26%	527	34.29%	1,537
Desha	1,082	76.47%	331	23.39%	2	0.14%	751	53.07%	1,415
Drew	1,452	74.20%	500	25.55%	5	0.26%	952	48.65%	1,957
Faulkner	2,659	72.57%	992	27.07%	13	0.35%	1,667	45.50%	3,664
Franklin	1,329	62.72%	774	36.53%	16	0.76%	555	26.19%	2,119
Fulton	934	57.58%	686	42.29%	2	0.12%	248	15.29%	1,622
Garland	2,823	50.79%	2,720	48.94%	15	0.27%	103	1.85%	5,558
Grant	1,045	70.28%	439	29.52%	3	0.20%	606	40.75%	1,487
Greene	1,426	58.20%	1,011	41.27%	13	0.53%	415	16.94%	2,450
Hempstead	2,038	69.58%	886	30.25%	5	0.17%	1,152	39.33%	2,929
Hot Spring	999	46.90%	1,126	52.86%	5	0.23%	-127	-5.96%	2,130
Howard	1,055	57.74%	763	41.76%	9	0.49%	292	15.98%	1,827
Independence	1,511	56.63%	1,150	43.10%	7	0.26%	361	13.53%	2,668
Izard	902	56.30%	696	43.45%	4	0.25%	206	12.86%	1,602
Jackson	1,527	68.35%	698	31.24%	9	0.40%	829	37.11%	2,234
Jefferson	2,611	58.67%	1,830	41.12%	9	0.20%	781	17.55%	4,450
Johnson	1,292	62.30%	766	36.93%	16	0.77%	526	25.36%	2,074
Lafayette	991	69.45%	435	30.48%	1	0.07%	556	38.96%	1,427
Lawrence	1,204	60.72%	774	39.03%	5	0.25%	430	21.68%	1,983
Lee	1,046	87.53%	149	12.47%	0	0.00%	897	75.06%	1,195
Lincoln	869	85.11%	151	14.79%	1	0.10%	718	70.32%	1,021
Little River	916	66.62%	457	33.24%	2	0.15%	459	33.38%	1,375
Logan	1,967	57.31%	1,455	42.40%	10	0.29%	512	14.92%	3,432
Lonoke	1,857	73.23%	676	26.66%	3	0.12%	1,181	46.57%	2,536
Madison	1,717	38.16%	2,760	61.33%	23	0.51%	-1,043	-23.18%	4,500
Marion	731	62.27%	436	37.14%	7	0.60%	295	25.13%	1,174
Miller	1,752	60.16%	1,150	39.49%	10	0.34%	602	20.67%	2,912
Mississippi	4,451	76.75%	1,324	22.83%	24	0.41%	3,127	53.92%	5,799
Monroe	851	67.38%	411	32.54%	1	0.08%	440	34.84%	1,263
Montgomery	726	42.33%	976	56.91%	13	0.76%	-250	-14.58%	1,715
Nevada	1,242	56.66%	946	43.16%	4	0.18%	296	13.50%	2,192
Newton	533	28.63%	1,316	70.68%	13	0.70%	-783	-42.05%	1,862
Ouachita	1,582	60.08%	1,051	39.92%	0	0.00%	531	20.17%	2,633
Perry	636	57.25%	472	42.48%	3	0.27%	164	14.76%	1,111
Phillips	2,061	80.76%	487	19.08%	4	0.16%	1,574	61.68%	2,552
Pike	779	52.56%	697	47.03%	6	0.40%	82	5.53%	1,482
Poinsett	2,324	66.06%	1,182	33.60%	12	0.34%	1,142	32.46%	3,518
Polk	870	45.41%	1,022	53.34%	24	1.25%	-152	-7.93%	1,916
Pope	2,735	63.38%	1,557	36.08%	23	0.53%	1,178	27.30%	4,315
Prairie	1,000	61.69%	613	37.82%	8	0.49%	387	23.87%	1,621
Pulaski	9,215	65.24%	4,881	34.56%	29	0.21%	4,334	30.68%	14,125
Randolph	1,527	66.08%	776	33.58%	8	0.35%	751	32.50%	2,311
St. Francis	1,376	68.73%	617	30.82%	9	0.45%	759	37.91%	2,002
Saline	1,268	70.72%	520	29.00%	5	0.28%	748	41.72%	1,793
Scott	891	60.41%	573	38.85%	11	0.75%	318	21.56%	1,475
Searcy	606	29.62%	1,425	69.65%	15	0.73%	-819	-40.03%	2,046
Sebastian	3,187	47.65%	3,467	51.84%	34	0.51%	-280	-4.19%	6,688
Sevier	1,259	70.61%	524	29.39%	0	0.00%	735	41.22%	1,783
Sharp	808	61.68%	501	38.24%	1	0.08%	307	23.44%	1,310
Stone	628	54.90%	499	43.62%	17	1.49%	129	11.28%	1,144
Union	3,128	65.88%	1,612	33.95%	8	0.17%	1,516	31.93%	4,748
Van Buren	1,539	60.66%	994	39.18%	4	0.16%	545	21.48%	2,537
Washington	2,395	43.02%	3,132	56.26%	40	0.72%	-737	-13.24%	5,567
White	2,299	53.73%	1,957	45.73%	23	0.54%	342	7.99%	4,279
Woodruff	1,163	71.92%	452	27.95%	2	0.12%	711	43.97%	1,617
Yell	2,086	71.91%	802	27.65%	13	0.45%	1,284	44.26%	2,901
Totals	123,140	61.06%	77,789	38.57%	757	0.38%	45,351	22.49%	201,686

References

1. See Urwin, Cathy Kunzinger; Agenda for Reform: Winthrop Rockefeller as Governor of Arkansas, 1967-71, p. 32 ISBN 1557282005
2. Green, James R.; Apocalypse and the Millennium in the American Civil War Era: Radical Movements in the Southwest, 1895-1943, p. 316 ISBN 0807107735
3. Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 211, 287 ISBN 978-0-691-16324-6
4. Warren, Kenneth F.; Encyclopedia of U.S. campaigns, elections, and electoral behavior: A-M, Volume 1, p. 620 ISBN 1412954894
5. Gage, Justin Randolph; ‘Vote as You Pray: The 1928 Election in Washington County, Arkansas’; The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. 68, no. 4 (Winter, 2009), pp. 388-417
6. Whisenhunt, Donald W.; President Herbert Hoover, p. 69 ISBN 1600214762
7. Maxwell, Angie and Shields, Todd G. (editors); Unlocking V.O. Key Jr.: “Southern Politics” for the Twenty-First Century, pp. 17-18 ISBN 1557289611
8. Lisenby, William Foy; ‘Brough, Baptists, and Bombast: The Election of 1928’; The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 2 (Summer, 1973), pp. 120-131
9. Ledbetter, Cal (junior); ‘Joe T. Robinson and the Presidential Campaign of 1928’, The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 2 (Summer, 1986), pp. 95-125
10. Neal, Nevin E.; ‘The Smith-Robinson Arkansas Campaign of 1928’; The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring, 1960), pp. 3-11
11. Heersink, Boris; Peterson, Brenton D. and Jenkins, Jeffery A .; ‘Disasters and Elections: Estimating the Net Effect of Damage and Relief in Historical Perspective’; Political Analysis; volume 25, issue 2 (April 2017), pp. 260-268.
12. Key, V.O. junior; Southern Politics in State and Nation; pp. 318, 329 ISBN 087049435X
13. Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, pp. 149-153 ISBN 0786422173
14. Robinson, Edgar Eugene; The Presidential Vote 1896-1932, pp. 139-145 ISBN 9780804716963