The 1940 United States presidential election in Alabama took place on November 5, 1940, as part of the 1940 United States presidential election. Alabama voters chose 11 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. In Alabama, voters voted for electors individually instead of as a slate, as in the other states.
Since the 1890s, Alabama had been effectively a one-party state ruled by the Democratic Party. Disenfranchisement of almost all African-Americans and a large proportion of Poor Whites via poll taxes, literacy tests[1] and informal harassment had essentially eliminated opposition parties outside UnionistWinston County and a few nearby northern hill counties that had been Populist strongholds.[2] The only competitive statewide elections became Democratic Party primaries that were limited by law to white voters. Unlike most other Confederate states, however, soon after black disenfranchisement Alabama's remaining white Republicans made rapid efforts to expel blacks from the state Republican Party.[3] Indeed, under Oscar D. Street, who ironically was appointed state party boss as part of the pro-Taft"black and tan" faction in 1912,[4] the state GOP would permanently turn "lily-white", with the last black delegates from the state at any Republican National Convention serving in 1920.[3]
The 1920 election, aided by isolationism in Appalachia[5] and the whitening of the state GOP,[6] saw the Republicans even exceed forty percent in the House of Representatives races for the 4th, 7th and 10th congressional districts.[5] However, funding issues meant the Republicans would not emulate this achievement for several decades subsequently.[7] Nevertheless, a bitter "civil war" over how best to maintain white supremacy after the Democrats nominated urban, anti-Prohibition Catholic Al Smith saw so many Democrats defect to dry, Protestant Republican Herbert Hoover that he came within seven thousand votes of winning the state.[8]
However, the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression meant that this trend towards the GOP would be short-lived.[9] The Depression had extremely severe effects in the South, which had the highest unemployment rate in the nation, and many Southerners blamed this on the North and on Wall Street.[10] Consequently, the South gave Democratic nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt hefty support in 1932 – he became the only presidential candidate to sweep all of Alabama's counties[11] — and in 1936.
For 1940, opposition amongst Alabama's ruling elite to the New Deal meant that planter and business interests led by former Congressman George Huddleston attempted to organize the "independent elector" movements that would increase after Harry S. Truman's civil rights proposals.[12] Other "Big Mules" already supported Republican nominees, corporate lawyer Wendell Willkie and Senate Minority LeaderCharles L. McNary.[13] However, the hatred of the Republican label, in spite of five election cycles as a party exclusive of blacks,[14] meant that the state Democratic Party was far too strong to allow such a revolt.[15]
Campaign
No polls were carried out in the state until a Gallup poll in the middle of September, which had Roosevelt winning 85 percent of the two-party vote to.[16] Another poll from late October said that Willkie could gain around one hundred thousand votes or one-third of the expected statewide total.[17]
Alabama was won in a landslide by Roosevelt – now running with Secretary of AgricultureHenry A. Wallace of Iowa — with 85.22 percent of the popular vote against Willkie's 14.34 percent for a Democratic margin of 70.88 percent. Third-party candidates only managed to pick up 0.44 percent of the vote.[18] Roosevelt was undoubtedly helped, especially in Appalachian regions of the state, by support for aid to Britain in World War II, which he had emphasised in his campaign.[19] In many Appalachian rural counties, Roosevelt indeed improved upon his 1932 and 1936 performances for this reason.[20]
Communist party candidate Earl Browder personally campaigned in the state giving speeches in Bullock County, Choctaw County, Clarke County, Coffee County, Conecuh County, Greene County and Hale County. Browder campaigned as an isolationist candidate advocating the United States not get involved in the war in Europe. Browder referred to the war as an "imperialist" war and he took a decidedly "anti-British tone" while campaigning in the aforementioned Alabama counties. In each of his speeches, he condemned Winston Churchill and praised Joseph Stalin.[23][24] However, Browder said he was "irked by how cold" the crowds there were towards him. In the seven counties where Browder campaigned he ultimately received zero votes in the election (however, in the state as a whole he won just over 500 votes in comparison to Roosevelt's 250,726 votes and Willkie's 42,184 votes.)[23]
^ abHeersink, Boris; Jenkins, Jeffery A. (2020). Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865–1968. Cambridge University Press. pp. 251–253. ISBN9781107158436.
^ abPhillips, Kevin P. (1969). The Emerging Republican Majority. Arlington House. p. 255. ISBN0870000586.
^Heersink and Jenkins, Republican Party Politics and the American South, p. 19
^See "G.O.P. Funds Are Reported Short: Forces "Counted On" Disappoint Republican Political Managers". The Birmingham News. Birmingham, Alabama. August 19, 1922. p. 5.
^Feldman, Glenn (September 13, 2004). "Epilogue. Ugly Roots: Race, Emotion and the Rise of the Modern Republican Party in Alabama and the South". In Feldman, Glenn (ed.). Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South. University of Alabama Press. pp. 270–273. ISBN9780817351342.
^Lewinson, Paul (1965). Race, class and party; a history of Negro suffrage and white politics in the South. pp. 167–168.
^Thomas, G. Scott (1987). The pursuit of the White House: a handbook of presidential election statistics and history. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 390, 418. ISBN0313257957.
^Feldman, Glenn (2015). The Great Melding: War, the Dixiecrat Rebellion, and the Southern Model for America's New Conservatism. University of Alabama Press. p. 60. ISBN9780817318666.
^Heersink; Jenkins. Republican Party Politics and the American South, pp. 48–50
^Feldman. The Irony of the Solid South, pp. 151–152
^"Willkie Campaigns in Roosevelt Territory". The Des Moines Register. September 22, 1940. p. 10.
^Rothermel, J.F. (October 20, 1940). "Everyone Can Find His Choice on Alabama Ballot This Year: Most G.O.P. Electors Are Fromer Democrats While One Republican Is Now a Communist". The Sunday Star. Washington D.C. p. B-4.
