For the previous six decades Virginia had almost completely disenfranchised its black and poor white populations through the use of a cumulative poll tax and literacy tests.[1] So restricted was suffrage in this period that it has been calculated that a third of Virginia's electorate during the first half of the twentieth century comprised state employees and officeholders.[1]
This limited electorate allowed Virginian politics to be controlled for four decades by the Byrd Organization, as progressive “antiorganization” factions were rendered impotent by the inability of almost all their potential electorate to vote.[2] Historical fusion with the “Readjuster” Democrats,[3] defection of substantial proportions of the Northeast-aligned white electorate of the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia over free silver,[4] and an early move towards a “lily white”Jim Crow party[3] meant Republicans retained a small but permanent number of legislative seats and local offices in the western part of the state.[5]
In 1928, the GOP did carry the state's presidential electoral votes due to anti-Catholicism against Al Smith, but it was 1952 before any real changes occurred, as in-migration from the traditionally Republican Northeast[6] meant that growing Washington, D.C., and Richmond suburbs would turn Republican not just in presidential elections but in Congressional ones as well,[7] although the Republicans would not make significant gains in the state legislature. Opposition to the black civil rights legislation of Harry S. Truman meant that the Byrd Organization did not support Adlai Stevenson II or John F. Kennedy.[8] Although the Organization viewed the national Republican party as no better on civil rights—it opposed the “massive resistance” orchestrated by Senator Byrd after Brown v. Board of Education—Byrd's silence helped Eisenhower and Nixon win the state three consecutive times between 1952 and 1960.
For 1964, it was evident that Virginia's electorate would be substantially increased by the Twenty-fourth Amendment, which banned the poll tax in federal elections and allowed major increases in voter registration during the preceding year.[9] Efforts by civil rights groups to register black voters would help black voter registration double vis-à-vis 1960.[10] At the same time, Republican nominee Arizona SenatorBarry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act and targeted the South as critical to winning the election against incumbent PresidentLyndon B. Johnson who signed that Act in August 1964, whilst most Byrd Democrats endorsed Johnson—this being the first time since 1936 the Organization had done so.[10]
Virginia would be won by Johnson with 53.54 percent of the vote, making this the first time since 1948 that Virginia backed a Democratic presidential candidate. Johnson won the national election in a landslide with 61.05 percent of the vote, which actually made Virginia Goldwater's tenth-best state nationally, 15.22 percentage points more Republican than the nation at large. The state would not vote for another Democratic candidate until Barack Obama won the state in 2008. Johnson's victory saw major changes in Virginia voting patterns compared to previous presidential elections. Despite the state shifting from Richard Nixon to Johnson, nine counties in the Southside region, which had been the stronghold of the Byrd Organization, would shift from Kennedy to Goldwater due to opposition to Johnson's civil rights proposals by an almost exclusively white electorate.[20] In Charlotte County, Johnson lost 29 points from John F. Kennedy’s 1960 vote percentage.[19] At the same time, the Shenandoah Valley, where pietistic Protestant sects supportive of civil rights were influential,[9] alongside the heavily unionized southwestern coalfields and Northeastern-aligned Northern Virginia, would see a strong swing towards Johnson, aided by growth in poor white voter registration from the Twenty-Fourth Amendment.[10] Despite this, a majority of white Virginians undoubtedly backed Goldwater,[21] and a doubling of a black presidential vote that almost unanimously supported Johnson was critical for his win.[10]
1 2 Kousser, J. Morgan. The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910. Yale University Press. pp.178–181. ISBN0-300-01696-4.
↑ Key, Valdimer Orlando (1949). Southern Politics in State and Nation. pp.20–25.
1 2 Heersink, Boris; Jenkins, Jeffrey A. Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865-1968. pp.217–221. ISBN1107158435.
↑ Atkinson, Frank B. (2006). The Dynamic Dominion: Realignment and the Rise of Two-party Competition in Virginia, 1945-1980. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN9780742552098.
1 2 Sweeney, James R. (1994). "A New Day in the Old Dominion". Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 102 (3): 307–348.
1 2 3 4 Davidson, Chandler; Grofman, Bernard (1994). Quiet revolution in the South: the impact of the Voting rights act, 1965-1990. pp.275–276. ISBN0691032475.
↑ Sullivan, Joseph W. (September 19, 1964). "The GOP in Dixie: Civil Rights Stand Gives Goldwater a Wide Lead In Most of the South Survey Finds Senator Ahead Everywhere but in Texas; Other Republicans Benefit But Margin Has Narrowed". The Wall Street Journal. p.1.
↑ Manly, Chely (October 29, 1964). "Johnson Gains in South but Dixie Is Still Strong for Barry: Goldwater Keeps Loyal Army of Backers". The Chicago Tribune. p.5.
↑ "How Survey by United Press International Sees Presidential Race: State-by-State Outlooks for Elections Outcomes". Fort Lauderdale News. Fort Lauderdale, Florida. November 1, 1964. pp.C1.
↑ "A State-by-State Report on How All Major Races Look". The Charlotte Observer. November 1, 1964. pp.18A.
↑ Kraslow, David (November 1, 1964). "How South Will Vote Remains Big Question: Goldwater "Fairly Safe" in Three States, Johnson in One, Rest Considered Toss-ups". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, California. p.17.
1 2 3 Menendez, Albert J. (2005). The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004. pp.326–331. ISBN0786422173.
↑ Black, Earl (2021). "Competing Responses to the New Southern Politics: Republican and Democratic Southern Strategies, 1964-76". In Reed, John Shelton; Black, Merle (eds.). Perspectives on the American South: An Annual Review of Society, Politics, and Culture. ISBN9781136764882.
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