Except for the 1928 election when fierce anti-Catholicism and Prohibitionism caused Herbert Hoover to defeat the wet Catholic Al Smith,[2] 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 were ever elected to the state legislature between 1890 and 1950 – while Democratic primaries were the sole competitive elections.
Under the influence of Senator Claude Pepper, Florida abolished the poll tax in 1937, leading to steady increases in voter turnout during the following several elections;[3] 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.[4]
However, the following two elections would see a rapid trend away from Democratic hegemony towards Republican dominance in newer, more liberal South Florida. The regions shifting rapidly towards the GOP in these two elections lacked a history of slave-based plantation farming,[5] and saw Eisenhower as more favourable to business than the Democratic Party.[6] They also had seen a very large inflow of elderly migrants from the Northern states who were attracted by Florida's hot climate. An example of this is Collier County in southwest Florida, home to the city of Naples, which went Republican for the first time since the county's founding in 1923 and has never voted Democratic since. Consequently, Eisenhower was able to carry Florida by a double-digit margin in 1952, in spite of losing badly in the "Hoovercrat" pineywoods and Black Belt of the Panhandle.[6]
The 1956 election saw, in general, little change from trends established during the previous two elections, with the most significant exception being a marked (though temporary) trend towards Eisenhower amongst the small but increasing number of Negro voters in the state.[7] Eisenhower, aided further by increased Northerner migration, won against his rematch opponent Adlai Stevenson II by 163,474 votes or 14.54%.[8] This was the first time since 1872 that a Republican carried Florida twice. This result nonetheless made Florida about 0.86% more Democratic than the nation at large.
^Although he was born in Texas and grew up in Kansas before his military career, at the time of the 1952 election Eisenhower was president of Columbia University and was, officially, a resident of New York. During his first term as president, he moved his private residence to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and officially changed his residency to Pennsylvania.
^These write-in votes are listed in America at the Polls, but not in Dave Leip's Atlas.
References
^"The Presidents". David Leip. Retrieved September 27, 2017. Eisenhower's home state for the 1956 Election was Pennsylvania
^Doherty, Herbert J. (junior); 'Florida and the Presidential Election of 1928'; The Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 2 (October 1947), pp. 174-186
^Poll Taxes: Hearings Before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on S. 1280, Seventy-Seventh Congress, Second Session, Parts 1-2, p. 289
^Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 164-165 ISBN0786422173
^See Doherty, Herbert J. (junior); 'Liberal and Conservative Politics in Florida'; The Journal of Politics, vol. 14, no. 3 (August 1952), pp. 403-417
^ abStrong, Donald S.; 'The Presidential Election in the South, 1952'; The Journal of Politics, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 343-389
^Roady, Elston E.; 'The Expansion of Negro Suffrage in Florida', The Journal of Negro Education, vol. 26, no. 3, ('The Negro Voter in the South) (Summer, 1957), pp. 297-306
