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| Elections in South Carolina |
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The 1938 South Carolina United States Senate election was held on November 8, 1938, to select the U.S. Senator from the state of South Carolina. Incumbent Democratic Senator Ellison D. Smith defeated Governor Olin D. Johnston in the Democratic primary. The general election was contested, but a victory by Smith was never in doubt.
Senator Ellison D. Smith was marked by President Franklin D. Roosevelt for defeat because he had vociferously opposed many policies of the New Deal. Governor Olin D. Johnston announced at the White House that he was going to challenge Smith in the Democratic primary and would be fully supportive of every Roosevelt policy. State Senator Edgar Allan Brown also threw his hat into the ring pledging that he would back Roosevelt and would be the most effective candidate in bringing home the bacon.
Johnston's complete backing of Roosevelt earned him the endorsements of several liberal organizations, such as the Labor Nonpartisan League (LNPL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), but these two organizations were frowned upon in South Carolina. They advanced racial integration, advocated labor militancy and were believed to have been controlled by Communists. Smith hammered Johnston for having these ties claiming that Johnston "endorsed the nigger, and went one hundred percent for anything belonging to the New Deal, right or wrong, because he does not have guts to disagree." [1] Smith then boasted of his endorsement by the racially exclusive American Federation of Labor (AFL) and stress that a vote for Johnston would embolster the CIO to force the employment of blacks in factories alongside whites. Though Johnston did not defend rights for African Americans, [2] he would largely ignore the issue of white supremacy, [3] believing that improving the public welfare was more important, [3] while Smith had campaigned for over thirty years on a two plank platform to "keep the Negro down and the price of cotton up" [4] and had further demonstrated he intended to continue the fight to preserve racial segregation when he walked out of the 1936 Democratic National Convention after learning that a black minister was going to deliver the invocation. [4] [5]
On August 11, Roosevelt's train stopped in Greenville to a crowd of 15,000 with the three candidates aboard. He had spoken the previous day in Georgia against the re-election of Senator Walter F. George and was expected to make an endorsement of Olin Johnston at Greenville. Roosevelt criticized Smith for his 1937 speech in the Senate that South Carolinians were willing to work for fifty cents a day. Yet before Roosevelt could finish his address, the train started to leave. Smith trumpeted up the fact that Roosevelt never explicitly endorsed Johnston and responded to Roosevelt's charge that his Senate speech was taken out of context. Johnston claimed that it was insinuated by Roosevelt whom he supported and he made it clear that he boarded the President's train in Georgia, whereas the other two candidates boarded just outside Greenville. Brown felt slighted by the President's brief remarks and withdrew from the race on August 27.
Smith was supported by two powerful figures in South Carolina politics: Senator James F. Byrnes and his friend Charleston mayor Burnet Maybank. Unlike Smith, Byrnes was a well known pro-Roosevelt New Dealer and was also renominated in the 1936 Democratic primary by a margin of over 87%. [6] Heeding advice from Byrnes, [7] Maybank declined to run for Smith's Senate seat and instead ran a successful campaign for Governor that year. [7] In spite of his strong support of almost all of Roosevelt's New Deal legislation, Byrnes opposed some of Roosevelt's labor legislation, [7] [8] which Johnston outspokenly supported, [7] [8] such as the recently passed Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. [7] [8] Byrnes and Maybank, however, did not like Smith and only endorsed him because they envisioned that he would retire in 1944 [7] and Maybank, having served a term as governor, would easily win his seat. [7] Byrnes and Maybank also envisioned that after Maybank was elected to Smith's Senate seat, they would then manage to build a strong political machine that would control the state's political scene. [7]
The primary election was held on August 30 and Smith won a commanding victory over Johnston. In order to win, Johnston needed to rack up huge margins in the Upstate, but the two candidates broke even. Smith overwhelmingly won in the rural areas because Johnston's constant emphasis of his labor roots made the agriculture voters feel that he did not care about their interests. [9] It was also believed that at this point in time, however, that the large majority of people of South Carolina had become fed up with Smith and that he would've lost the primary if not for Roosevelt's interference [10] or if he had done more to either please the state's influential textile mill owners [11] or address the issue of preserving racial segregation in the state. [11] In 1940, a survey found that there was no great admiration for Smith among the people in South Carolina and that his victory in the 1938 primary was symbolic because it showed that an unpopular person was elected because "the president picked him out as the victim." [11]
| Democratic Primary | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| Ellison D. Smith | 186,579 | 55.4 |
| Olin D. Johnston | 150,437 | 44.6 |
Despite a Republican candidate being nominated for the general election contest, there was never any possibility that Smith would be defeated. The Republican Party was nothing more than a patronage institution and at the time was widely despised by the South Carolinians for bringing destruction to the state during Reconstruction.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Ellison D. Smith (incumbent) | 45,351 | 98.89% | +0.75% | |
| Republican | J.D.E. Meyer | 508 | 1.11% | -0.75% | |
| No party | Write-Ins | 2 | 0.00% | N/A | |
| Majority | 44,843 | 97.78% | +1.49% | ||
| Turnout | 45,861 | ||||
| Democratic hold | |||||
James Francis Byrnes was an American judge and politician from South Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in U.S. Congress and on the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as in the executive branch, most prominently as the 49th U.S. Secretary of State under President Harry S. Truman. Byrnes was also the 104th governor of South Carolina, making him one of the very few politicians to have served in the highest levels of all three branches of the American federal government while also being active in state government.
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The 1938 United States Senate elections occurred in the middle of Franklin D. Roosevelt's second term. The 32 seats of Class 3 were contested in regular elections, and special elections were held to fill vacancies. The Republicans gained eight seats from the Democrats, though this occurred after multiple Democratic gains since the 1932 election, leading to the Democrats retaining a commanding lead over the Republicans with more than two-thirds of the legislative chamber.
Ellison DuRant “Cotton Ed” Smith was a Democratic Party politician from the U.S. state of South Carolina widely known for his virulently racist and segregationist views and his advocacy of white supremacy. He represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1909 until 1944.
Olin DeWitt Talmadge Johnston was an American politician from the US state of South Carolina. He served as the 98th governor of South Carolina, from 1935 to 1939 and again from 1943 to 1945. He represented the state in the United States Senate from 1945 until his death from pneumonia in Columbia, South Carolina in 1965. He has become infamously remembered for denying clemency to George Stinney, a 14 year-old African American boy who was wrongfully sentenced to death in 1944 after a trial that lasted for one single day, a conviction overturned 70 years later.
Coleman Livingston Blease was an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as the 89th governor of South Carolina from 1911 to 1915, and as a United States senator from 1925 to 1931. Blease was the political heir of Benjamin Tillman. He led a political revolution in South Carolina by building a political base of white textile mill workers from the state's upcountry region. He was notorious for playing on the prejudices of Poor Whites to gain their votes and was an unrepentant white supremacist.
Burnet Rhett Maybank was a three-term US senator, the 99th governor of South Carolina, and mayor of Charleston, South Carolina. He was the first governor from Charleston since the American Civil War (1861-1865) and one of twenty people in United States history to have been elected mayor, governor, and United States senator. During his tenure in the Senate, Maybank was a powerful ally of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His unexpected death on September 1, 1954, from a heart attack, led to Strom Thurmond being elected senator.
The 1962 South Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 1962 to select the governor of the state of South Carolina. Donald S. Russell won the Democratic primary and ran unopposed in the general election becoming the 107th governor of South Carolina. It is the last uncontested South Carolina gubernatorial election.
The 1954 South Carolina United States Senate election was held on November 2, 1954 to select the next U.S. senator from the state of South Carolina. Senator Burnet R. Maybank did not face a primary challenge in the summer and was therefore renominated as the Democratic Party's nominee for the election in the fall. However, his death on September 1 left the Democratic Party without a nominee and the executive committee decided to nominate state Senator Edgar A. Brown as their candidate for the election. Many South Carolinians were outraged by the party's decision to forgo a primary election and former Governor Strom Thurmond entered the race as a write-in candidate. He easily won the election and became the first U.S. senator to be elected by a write-in vote in an election where other candidates had ballot access. A Senate election where the victor won by a write-in campaign would not happen again until 2010.
Edgar Allan Brown was a long time Democratic legislator of South Carolina from Barnwell County who served South Carolina from 1922-1972. He was a principal member of the so-called "Barnwell Ring".
The 1966 South Carolina United States Senate special election was held on November 8, 1966 to select the U.S. Senator from the state of South Carolina. The election resulted from the death of Senator Olin D. Johnston in 1965. Then Governor Donald S. Russell entered in a prearranged agreement with Lieutenant Governor Robert Evander McNair in which Russell would resign his post so that he could be appointed Senator. However, former Governor Fritz Hollings won the Democratic primary election and went on to beat Republican state senator Marshall Parker in the general election to win his right to fill the remaining two years of the unexpired term.
The 1966 South Carolina United States Senate election was held on November 8, 1966 to select the U.S. Senator from the state of South Carolina simultaneously with the special election to fill out the remainder of Olin D. Johnston's term.
The 1950 South Carolina United States Senate election was held on November 7, 1950, to select the U.S. Senator from the state of South Carolina. Incumbent Democratic Senator Olin D. Johnston defeated Strom Thurmond in a bitterly contested Democratic primary on July 11 and was unopposed in the general election.
The 1944 South Carolina United States Senate election was held on November 7, 1944 to select the U.S. Senator from the state of South Carolina.
The 1936 South Carolina United States Senate election was held on November 2, 1936 to select the U.S. Senator from the state of South Carolina. Incumbent Democratic Senator James F. Byrnes won the Democratic primary and defeated two Republican candidates in the general election to win another six-year term.
The 1942 South Carolina United States Senate election was held on November 3, 1942 to select the U.S. Senator from the state of South Carolina. Incumbent Senator Burnet R. Maybank defeated Eugene S. Blease in the Democratic primary and was unopposed in the general election to win a six-year term.
The 1938 United States Senate election in Connecticut was held on November 8, 1938.
