As a former Confederate state, North Carolina had a history of Jim Crow laws, disfranchisement of its African-American population and dominance of the Democratic Party in state politics. However, unlike the Deep South, the Republican Party had sufficient historic Unionist white support from the mountains and northwestern Piedmont to gain one-third of the statewide vote total in most general elections,[3] where turnout was higher than elsewhere in the former Confederacy due substantially to the state’s early abolition of the poll tax in 1920.[4] Like Virginia, Tennessee and Oklahoma, the relative strength of Republican opposition meant that North Carolina did not have statewide white primaries, although certain counties did use the white primary.[5] A rapid move following disenfranchisement to a completely “lily-white” state GOP also helped maintain Republican support.[6]
In 1928, anti-Catholicism in the Outer Banks and growing middle-class urban Republicanism in Piedmont cities turned North Carolina to GOP nominee Herbert Hoover,[7] but this was sharply and severely reversed with the coming of the Great Depression. With the South having the highest unemployment in the nation and blaming its fate upon the North and Wall Street,[8] exceptionally heavy support was given to Democratic nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936 everywhere except in a few rock-ribbed Republican mountain bastions.[7] Nevertheless, there was virtually no change to the state’s social structure during the New Deal,[9] and the conservative “Shelby Dynasty” was strong enough to prevent any populist challenge so much as developing.[10] Additionally, the state was among the least isolationist and strongly supported aid to Britain during the early phase of World War II,[11] while the absence of a statewide white primary meant local response to the landmark court case of Smith v. Allwright was generally calm.[5] However, the precarious health of incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt produced strong Southern opposition to vice-President Henry A. Wallace, who was viewed as a dangerous liberal throughout the region.[12] Initially the South attempted to have former Supreme Court JusticeJames F. Byrnes replace Wallace, but Byrnes was unacceptable because of his lapsed Catholicism to the northern Catholic urban bosses, and also to the party’s union backers.[13] Consequently, Missouri SenatorHarry S. Truman became Roosevelt’s running mate.[14]
Polls were not taken in the state, but less than a week before the poll there were appeals to state Democrats to not support FDR for a fourth term.[15]
Results
1944 United States presidential election in North Carolina
This was nonetheless a decline of over fifteen percentage points upon Roosevelt’s 1940 performance, reflecting the significant isolationism in Appalachia,[19] alongside developing hostility towards Democratic liberalism on racial issues. As of the 2020 presidential election[update], this is the last election in which the following counties voted for a Democratic presidential candidate: Catawba, Davidson and Henderson.[20]
^Phillips, Kevin P. (November 23, 2014). The Emerging Republican Majority. Princeton University Press. pp. 210, 242. ISBN978-0-691-16324-6.
^Key, Valdimer Orlando (1949). Southern Politics in State and Nation. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 502.
^ abKlarman, Michael J. (2001). "The White Primary Rulings: A Case Study in the Consequences of Supreme Court Decision-Making". Florida State University Law Review. 29: 55–107.
^Heersink, Boris; Jenkins, Jeffery A. (2020). Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865–1968. Cambridge University Press. pp. 48–50, 239–243. ISBN9781316663950.
^ abPhillips. The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 212-215
^Ritchie, Donald A. (2007). Electing FDR: the New Deal campaign of 1932. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p. 143. ISBN978-0700616879.
^See Menendez, Albert J. (2005). The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004. McFarland. p. 68. ISBN0786422173.
^Weintraub, Stanley (2012). "Bungled Beginnings". Final victory: FDR's Extraordinary World War II Presidential Campaign. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press. pp. 23–28. ISBN9780306821134.
^Divine, Robert A. (1974). Foreign policy and U.S. presidential elections, 1940-1948. New York, New York: New Viewpoints. pp. 119–120. ISBN0531064956.
^Weintraub, Stanley (2012). "The Missouri Compromise". Final victory: FDR's Extraordinary World War II Presidential Campaign. pp. 37–48.
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