United States presidential election in Florida, 1948

← 1944

November 2, 1948

1952 →

Turnout

33.5%


Nominee	Harry Truman	Thomas Dewey	Storm Thurmond
Party	Democratic	Republican	Dixiecrat
Home state	Missouri	New York	South Carolina
Running mate	Alben Barkley	Earl Warren	Fielding Wright
Electoral vote	8	0	0
Popular vote	281,988	194,280	89,755
Percentage	48.82%	33.63%	15.54%
Electoral vote	0

President before election

Harry Truman
Democratic

Elected President

Harry Truman
Democratic

The 1948 United States presidential election in Florida was held on November 2, 1948. Voters chose eight electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice President.

Excepting the 1928 election when fierce anti-Catholicism and Prohibitionism caused Herbert Hoover to defeat the wet Catholic Al Smith, Florida since the end of Reconstruction had been a classic Southern one-party state dominated by the Democratic Party. Disfranchisement of African-Americans and many poor whites had virtually eliminated the Republican Party – only nine Republicans had ever been elected to the state legislature since 1890 – and Democratic primaries were the sole competitive elections.

Under the influence of Senator Claude Pepper, Florida had abolished the poll tax in 1937, leading to steady increases in voter turnout during the following several elections; however, there was no marked increase in African-American voting and Democratic hegemony remained unchallenged: FDR did not lose a single county in the state during his four elections.

However, on February 2, 1948, incumbent President Harry S. Truman, fearing that the antidemocratic practices and racial discrimination of the South would severely denigrate the United States’ reputation in the Cold War, launched the first Civil Rights bill since the end of Reconstruction, along with an executive order for desegregation of the military. Mississippi Governor Fielding Wright had already sounded a call for revolt, which he took to the Southern Governors Conference at Wakulla Springs to say that calls for Civil Rights legislation by national Democrats would not be tolerated in Dixie.

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Wikipedia