Incumbent Democratic President Harry S. Truman won Oklahoma by a landslide 25.5 percentage points.[1] This made Oklahoma the fourth most Democratic state in the nation, and 21 percent more Democratic than the nation as a whole. This makes it the third best performance (after Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1932 and 1936 landslides) of any Democratic nominee in the state.[2]
Background
Up to this election, Oklahoma was a reliably Democratic state, with the party winning all but two of the first eleven presidential elections in the state. However, like other states in this Solid South, Oklahoma has since become a Republican bastion. In Dwight D. Eisenhower's landslide elections of 1952 and 1956, Adlai Stevenson II lost every antebellum free-soil or postbellum state, however Oklahoma remained more Democratic than the nation as a whole.[2] In 1960, John F. Kennedy lost most postbellum states, including Oklahoma, due to anti-Catholic sentiment.[3] In 1964, Lyndon Johnson became the last Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state,[4] with only Jimmy Carter in 1976 subsequently reaching even 45% of the vote, and no Democrat after 2000 reaching 35% of the vote or even winning a single county in the state.[5]
Results
1948 United States presidential election in Oklahoma[1]
The Progressive Party obtained the necessary 5,000 signatures to appear on the ballot in two days.[8]Gerald L. K. Smith filed a lawsuit in an attempt to remove the party from the ballot. The state election board rejected Wallace's electors stating that the Progressives were not a political party as the Oklahoma Secretary of State had not approved their non-communist affidavit prior to the filing deadline. The secretary of state was not allowed to accept these affidavits until May 2 while the filing deadline was April 30. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled five to two against the Progressives in Cooper v. Cartwright. The Progressives appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, but John Abt dropped the lawsuit due to the "difficulty of getting grounds for a federal suit".[9]
Truman won all but 10 counties in the state; of the 10, only Grant has voted Democratic since. This is the last occasion in which the contiguous counties of Texas, Beaver, Harper and Woods – which now form one of the most conservative regions in the nation – have voted Democratic, as well as the last time that Kay County has.[5] As a result, this is also the last time that a Democrat has swept every county in the Oklahoma Panhandle. This is also the most recent election in which Oklahoma voted for a different candidate than neighboring Kansas.
↑ Menendez, Albert J.; The Religious Factor in the 1960 Presidential Election: An Analysis of the Kennedy Victory over Anti-Catholic Prejudice; pp. 79, 117 ISBN0786460377
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Government 