1948 United States presidential election in Virginia

The 1948 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on November 2, 1948, throughout the 48 contiguous states. Voters chose 11 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

For the previous four 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.

Virginia’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. Nevertheless, the presence of viable Republican opposition in the southwest and Shenandoah Valley meant that Byrd refused to endorse either South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, who received the nomination of the States’ Rights Democratic Party, or Republican nominee New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, largely because of fear of losing several seats in the House to resurgent Republicans.

Campaign
Despite the failure of local federal officeholders to endorse him, Thurmond campaigned extensively in Virginia during October, arguing that Truman, Dewey and Progressive candidate Henry A. Wallace all had platforms that would destroy the existing “American way of life”. The Item argued that Byrd did support Thurmond and that his tour was helping the South Carolina Governor, although other polls did not imply this. Neither Dewey nor Truman campaigned in Virginia, and despite the fact that all federal representatives supported the incumbent President, local party officials of the Byrd Organization did little to work for Truman and running mate Alben W. Barkley.

Despite all polls expecting Dewey to carry the state, Truman would win quite comfortably, although the Democratic margin fell by more than seventeen points vis-à-vis the 1944 election.

11% of white voters supported Thurmond.



Analysis
Ultimately, Virginia was won by Truman with 47.89 percent of the vote to Dewey’s 41.04 percent and Thurmond’s 10.35 percent. This contradicted polls that expected Dewey to carry the state with around 47 percent of the vote to Truman’s 45 percent and 7 to 8 percent for Thurmond. This election nonetheless accelerated the major losses Franklin D. Roosevelt experienced in the Washington D.C. suburbs and the Shenandoah Valley at the previous election — losses which would pave the way for Virginia voting Republican in thirteen of the next fourteen presidential elections.

, this is the last election in which the Fifth Congressional District has supported a Democratic presidential candidate. It is also the last election when Hanover County, King William County, Lancaster County, Middlesex County and Orange County have supported a Democratic Presidential nominee. Chesterfield County and Lynchburg City would not vote Democratic again at a presidential level until 2020, Henrico County not until 2008, Albemarle County and Danville City not until 2004, Prince Edward County not until 1996 and Amelia County not until 1976.

This remains the last occasion Virginia voted to the left of Delaware, and was also the last time until 2012 that Virginia voted for a different candidate than Indiana.