1928 United States presidential election in Oregon

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

1928 United States presidential election in Oregon

November 6, 1928
 
Nominee Herbert Hoover Al Smith
Party Republican Democratic
Home state California New York
Running mate Charles Curtis Joseph T. Robinson
Electoral vote 5 0
Popular vote 205,341 109,223
Percentage 64.18% 34.14%

County Results
Hoover
  50-60%
  60-70%
  70-80%


President before election

Calvin Coolidge
Republican

Elected President

Herbert Hoover
Republican

Background

Outside a few Presidential and gubernatorial elections like that of 1922 influenced by the Ku Klux Klan, Oregon was a virtually one-party Republican state during the “System of 1896”,[1] where the only competition was via Republican primaries.[2] Apart from Woodrow Wilson’s two elections, during the first of which the GOP was severely divided, no Democrat since William Jennings Bryan in 1900 had carried a single county in the state.

In 1924 Oregon had nonetheless been the fifth-strongest of the fifteen Western and Plains States for Democrat John W. Davis behind Ozark mountaineer-dominated Nebraska, Mormon Utah and southern-leaning New Mexico and Arizona. Moreover, although maverick Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. fared less well than in the other Pacific States, he still gained nearly one in four of Oregon's ballots as an independent. However, when La Follette died in 1925 his family endorsed New York City Catholic Democrat Al Smith,[3] towards whose faith Oregon's largely Puritan (in the northwest) or Ozark Methodist (in the south and east), Anglo-Saxon[4] and fiercely anti-Catholic populace was strongly hostile.[5] This had been seen in a notorious law outlawing private religious schools under Klan-supported Governor Walter M. Pierce, whose decision was viewed unconstitutional by both the Oregon Supreme Court in 1924 and federally in Pierce v. Society of Sisters a year later.[6]

Despite this severe wariness,[7] Smith did manage to win the state's Democratic presidential primary against token opposition from Missouri Senator James Reed[8] and Montana Senator Thomas Walsh, whilst Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover won the state's Republican primary unopposed with over six times as many voters.[9] From the beginning polls showed opposition to Smith's Catholicism and anti-Prohibition views as very strong in Oregon,[10] and neither major party would campaign in the state during the fall. October polls showed Hoover winning the state by a two-to-one margin and Smith gaining no more than a quarter of the La Follette vote.[11]

Vote

Whereas in more Catholic states of the northern “Frost Belt” like Wisconsin, North Dakota and Minnesota Smith was able to revive a moribund Democratic Party at a Presidential level,[12] Oregon's smaller but still significant La Follette electorate concentrated in the lower Willamette Valley and arch-isolationist Southern Oregon balked at voting for a Catholic.[13] Consequently, Republican nominee Hoover was able to gain 13.17 percent upon Calvin Coolidge’s 1924 performance in the Beaver State and become the fifth Republican in seven presidential elections to sweep all Oregon’s counties.

This would be the last occasion until Donald Trump in 2016 that Columbia County voted for a Republican Presidential candidate.[14][15]

Results

Presidential Candidate Running Mate Party Electoral Vote (EV) Popular Vote (PV)
Herbert Hoover of California Charles Curtis Republican 5[16] 205,341 64.18%
Al Smith Joseph T. Robinson Democratic 0 109,223 34.14%
Norman Thomas James Maurer Socialist Principles Independent 0 2,720 0.85%
Verne L. Reynolds Jeremiah Crowley Socialist Labor 0 1,564 0.49%
William Z. Foster Benjamin Gitlow Independent 0 1,094 0.34%

Results by county

County Herbert Clark Hoover
Republican
Alfred Emmanuel Smith
Democratic
Norman Mattoon Thomas
Socialist Principles Independent
Verne L. Reynolds
Socialist Labor
William Z. Foster
Independent
Margin Total votes cast[17]
# % # % # % # % # % # %
Baker 3,721 65.52% 1,861 32.77% 64 1.13% 22 0.39% 11 0.19% 1,860 32.75% 5,679
Benton 4,605 75.55% 1,412 23.17% 37 0.61% 17 0.28% 24 0.39% 3,193 52.39% 6,095
Clackamas 9,216 59.51% 5,918 38.22% 157 1.01% 130 0.84% 65 0.42% 3,298 21.30% 15,486
Clatsop 4,087 63.33% 2,208 34.21% 31 0.48% 37 0.57% 91 1.41% 1,879 29.11% 6,454
Columbia 3,519 65.21% 1,775 32.89% 34 0.63% 44 0.82% 24 0.44% 1,744 32.32% 5,396
Coos 4,929 60.66% 3,040 37.41% 62 0.76% 67 0.82% 28 0.34% 1,889 23.25% 8,126
Crook 877 63.46% 487 35.24% 10 0.72% 4 0.29% 4 0.29% 390 28.22% 1,382
Curry 694 59.16% 453 38.62% 14 1.19% 4 0.34% 8 0.68% 241 20.55% 1,173
Deschutes 2,815 60.83% 1,702 36.78% 29 0.63% 77 1.66% 5 0.11% 1,113 24.05% 4,628
Douglas 5,609 70.52% 2,191 27.55% 51 0.64% 55 0.69% 48 0.60% 3,418 42.97% 7,954
Gilliam 880 62.50% 515 36.58% 6 0.43% 2 0.14% 5 0.36% 365 25.92% 1,408
Grant 1,411 74.03% 469 24.61% 13 0.68% 10 0.52% 3 0.16% 942 49.42% 1,906
Harney 952 60.60% 600 38.19% 8 0.51% 6 0.38% 5 0.32% 352 22.41% 1,571
Hood River 1,806 65.22% 905 32.68% 18 0.65% 15 0.54% 25 0.90% 901 32.54% 2,769
Jackson 8,053 75.43% 2,463 23.07% 88 0.82% 41 0.38% 31 0.29% 5,590 52.36% 10,676
Jefferson 481 59.31% 308 37.98% 6 0.74% 8 0.99% 8 0.99% 173 21.33% 811
Josephine 2,625 71.31% 959 26.05% 44 1.20% 36 0.98% 17 0.46% 1,666 45.26% 3,681
Klamath 4,453 61.28% 2,721 37.44% 32 0.44% 31 0.43% 30 0.41% 1,732 23.83% 7,267
Lake 1,014 63.61% 549 34.44% 10 0.63% 9 0.56% 12 0.75% 465 29.17% 1,594
Lane 13,647 74.96% 4,213 23.14% 179 0.98% 93 0.51% 73 0.40% 9,434 51.82% 18,205
Lincoln 2,100 57.33% 1,464 39.97% 46 1.26% 32 0.87% 21 0.57% 636 17.36% 3,663
Linn 5,877 67.62% 2,645 30.43% 72 0.83% 45 0.52% 52 0.60% 3,232 37.19% 8,691
Malheur 2,164 67.35% 1,016 31.62% 18 0.56% 11 0.34% 4 0.12% 1,148 35.73% 3,213
Marion 11,754 61.96% 6,998 36.89% 102 0.54% 69 0.36% 48 0.25% 4,756 25.07% 18,971
Morrow 1,093 64.87% 543 32.23% 23 1.36% 14 0.83% 12 0.71% 550 32.64% 1,685
Multnomah 75,731 61.64% 45,177 36.77% 1,219 0.99% 447 0.36% 285 0.23% 30,554 24.87% 122,859
Polk 3,244 64.44% 1,724 34.25% 30 0.60% 20 0.40% 16 0.32% 1,520 30.19% 5,034
Sherman 759 66.35% 375 32.78% 2 0.17% 5 0.44% 3 0.26% 384 33.57% 1,144
Tillamook 2,570 66.75% 1,204 31.27% 32 0.83% 28 0.73% 16 0.42% 1,366 35.48% 3,850
Umatilla 5,277 67.83% 2,390 30.72% 59 0.76% 34 0.44% 20 0.26% 2,887 37.11% 7,780
Union 3,219 59.13% 2,154 39.57% 26 0.48% 30 0.55% 15 0.28% 1,065 19.56% 5,444
Wallowa 1,326 56.86% 935 40.09% 39 1.67% 19 0.81% 13 0.56% 391 16.77% 2,332
Wasco 2,746 60.85% 1,699 37.65% 30 0.66% 21 0.47% 17 0.38% 1,047 23.20% 4,513
Washington 6,162 62.37% 3,544 35.87% 91 0.92% 55 0.56% 27 0.27% 2,618 26.50% 9,879
Wheeler 677 75.06% 224 24.83% 1 0.11% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 453 50.22% 902
Yamhill 5,248 67.97% 2,382 30.85% 38 0.49% 25 0.32% 28 0.36% 2,866 37.12% 7,721
Totals205,34164.18%109,22334.14%2,7200.85%1,5640.49%1,0940.34%96,11830.04%319,942

References

  1. Burnham, Walter Dean; ‘The System of 1896’, in Kleppner, Paul (editor), The Evolution of American Electoral Systems, pp. 176-179 ISBN 0313213798
  2. Murray, Keith; ‘Issues and Personalities of Pacific Northwest Politics, 1889-1950’, The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 3 (July 1950), pp. 213-233
  3. Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 59 ISBN 0786422173
  4. Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 482 ISBN 978-0-691-16324-6
  5. Allerfeldt, Kristofer; Race, Radicalism, Religion, and Restriction: Immigration in the Pacific Northwest, 1890-1924, pp. 59-62 ISBN 9786612340130
  6. Fox, Robert A. and Buchanan, Nina K. (editors); The Wiley Handbook of School Choice
  7. Lyon, william C.; ‘Smith Is Favoured in the Northwest’;
  8. ‘Smith Retains Lead Over Walsh in Oregon’; New York Times, 19 May, 1928, p. 3
  9. Wood, T.R. ‘Explaining the Smith Vote: Republican Swing to Governor May Not Outnumber Hoover Democrats’, Letter to The New York Times, May 23, 1928
  10. ‘Found Hoover Strong: Brooklyn Republican Reports Opposition to Smith in West’; New York Times, July 27, 1928, p. 2
  11. ‘Digest Poll Gives Hoover 44 States’; New York Times, October 19, 1928, p. 4
  12. Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 426
  13. Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 486
  14. Wheel, Robert. "The 2016 Streak Breakers". Center for Politics. Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Retrieved 13 November 2016.
  15. Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016
  16. "1928 Presidential General Election Results – Oregon". Dave Leip’s U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  17. Our Campaigns; OR US Presidential Election Race, November 06, 1928
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