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The 1952 United States presidential election in South Carolina took place on November 4, 1952, as part of the 1952 United States presidential election. South Carolina voters chose 8[3] representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

For six decades up to 1950, South Carolina had been a one-party state dominated by the Democratic Party. The Republican Party had been moribund due to the disfranchisement of blacks and the complete absence of other support bases as South Carolina completely lacked upland or German refugee whites opposed to secession.[4] Between 1900 and 1948, no Republican presidential candidate ever obtained more than seven percent of the total presidential vote[5] — a vote which in 1924 reached as low as 6.6 percent of the total voting-age population.[6]

This absolute loyalty began to break down during World War II when Vice-Presidents Henry A. Wallace and Harry Truman began to realize that a legacy of discrimination against blacks was a threat to the United States' image abroad and its ability to win the Cold War against the radically egalitarian rhetoric of Communism.[7] In the 1948 presidential election, Truman was backed by only 24 percent of South Carolina's limited electorate — most of that from the relatively few upcountry poor whites able to meet rigorous voting requirements — and state Governor Strom Thurmond won 72 percent, carrying every county except Anderson and Spartanburg.

Results

1952 United States presidential election in South Carolina
Party Candidate Votes %
Democratic Adlai Stevenson 173,004 50.72%
“Nominated by Petition”
Republican
Dwight D. Eisenhower 168,082[a] 49.28%
Total votes 341,086 100%

Results by county

1952 United States presidential election in South Carolina by county[8]
County Adlai Stevenson II
Democratic
Dwight David Eisenhower
"Nominated by Petition"
Republican[a]
Margin Total votes cast
# % # % # %
Abbeville 2,776 74.11% 970 25.89% 1,806 48.21% 3,746
Aiken 4,346 50.37% 4,282 49.63% 64 0.74% 8,628
Allendale 440 36.94% 751 63.06% -311 -26.11% 1,191
Anderson 11,664 77.75% 3,338 22.25% 8,326 55.50% 15,002
Bamberg 750 34.77% 1,407 65.23% -657 -30.46% 2,157
Barnwell 1,598 70.86% 657 29.14% 941 41.73% 2,255
Beaufort 1,106 40.89% 1,599 59.11% -493 -18.23% 2,705
Berkeley 1,708 40.76% 2,482 59.24% -774 -18.47% 4,190
Calhoun 384 25.75% 1,107 74.25% -723 -48.49% 1,491
Charleston 9,959 33.15% 20,087 66.85% -10,128 -33.71% 30,046
Cherokee 5,545 78.39% 1,529 21.61% 4,016 56.77% 7,074
Chester 2,843 50.59% 2,777 49.41% 66 1.17% 5,620
Chesterfield 4,668 72.44% 1,776 27.56% 2,892 44.88% 6,444
Clarendon 953 31.49% 2,073 68.51% -1,120 -37.01% 3,026
Colleton 1,905 40.84% 2,760 59.16% -855 -18.33% 4,665
Darlington 5,718 62.28% 3,463 37.72% 2,255 24.56% 9,181
Dillon 1,578 51.72% 1,473 48.28% 105 3.44% 3,051
Dorchester 852 26.87% 2,319 73.13% -1,467 -46.26% 3,171
Edgefield 753 31.14% 1,665 68.86% -912 -37.72% 2,418
Fairfield 1,590 49.73% 1,607 50.27% -17 -0.53% 3,197
Florence 5,340 50.49% 5,236 49.51% 104 0.98% 10,576
Georgetown 1,370 36.93% 2,340 63.07% -970 -26.15% 3,710
Greenville 14,863 45.58% 17,743 54.42% -2,880 -8.83% 32,606
Greenwood 3,815 52.93% 3,392 47.07% 423 5.87% 7,207
Hampton 787 32.52% 1,633 67.48% -846 -34.96% 2,420
Horry 4,489 54.71% 3,716 45.29% 773 9.42% 8,205
Jasper 636 44.29% 800 55.71% -164 -11.42% 1,436
Kershaw 2,052 41.15% 2,935 58.85% -883 -17.71% 4,987
Lancaster 4,989 61.83% 3,080 38.17% 1,909 23.66% 8,069
Laurens 3,697 52.09% 3,400 47.91% 297 4.18% 7,097
Lee 927 35.71% 1,669 64.29% -742 -28.58% 2,596
Lexington 3,513 46.65% 4,018 53.35% -505 -6.71% 7,531
Marion 1,610 41.04% 2,313 58.96% -703 -17.92% 3,923
Marlboro 1,699 52.44% 1,541 47.56% 158 4.88% 3,240
McCormick 624 51.91% 577 48.00% 47 3.91% 1,202[b]
Newberry 3,418 45.31% 4,126 54.69% -708 -9.38% 7,544
Oconee 3,230 66.54% 1,624 33.46% 1,606 33.09% 4,854
Orangeburg 2,829 37.60% 4,695 62.40% -1,866 -24.80% 7,524
Pickens 2,865 48.06% 3,096 51.94% -231 -3.88% 5,961
Richland 8,890 35.83% 15,925 64.17% -7,035 -28.35% 24,815
Saluda 1,592 53.28% 1,396 46.72% 196 6.56% 2,988
Spartanburg 21,883 68.58% 10,028 31.42% 11,855 37.15% 31,911
Sumter 2,014 29.88% 4,726 70.12% -2,712 -40.24% 6,740
Union 5,921 73.87% 2,094 26.13% 3,827 47.75% 8,015
Williamsburg 1,320 33.88% 2,576 66.12% -1,256 -32.24% 3,896
York 7,495 58.66% 5,281 41.34% 2,214 17.33% 12,776
Totals 173,004 50.72% 168,082 49.28% 4,922 1.44% 341,086

Analysis

From the time Eisenhower announced he would run on an independent slate nominated by the many dissident Democrats, he gained substantial support, most especially in the small black-majority rural counties where only whites voted.[9] However, polls always had Stevenson staying ahead of Eisenhower, and in the end he carried the state by a small majority of 5,000 votes. Stevenson's victory was largely due to his ability to maintain two- and three-to-one majorities in the poor white upcountry counties that had given substantial opposition to Thurmond,[10] along with a substantial majority of the 20,000 or so blacks who are believed to have voted.[11]

South Carolina was ultimately won by Stevenson and running mate Alabama Senator John Sparkman, with 50.72 percent of the popular vote, against Columbia University President Eisenhower (RNew York) and California Senator Richard Nixon, with 49.28 percent of the popular vote.[12][13] This was the first time Republicans won any county in the state since 1900. As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last election in which Aiken County voted for a Democratic presidential candidate. Fairfield County voted Republican for the first time since 1876.

Sweeping changes in electorate

Between the 1948 and 1952 presidential elections, South Carolina's electorate saw the most radical changes in any state since Reconstruction and "Redemption" had expanded and then contracted the electorates of all former Confederate states. The state became the last to fully adopt the secret ballot, whose absence had allowed intimidation of those who refused to vote Democratic in general elections,[14] and it also fully abolished the poll tax that had further restricted white turnout in presidential elections.[14] There was also some expansion of black voter registration, though as in all areas of the South east of the Mississippi River this was largely an urban phenomenon.

Continuing sentiment against national Democrats

Despite Truman announcing as early as May 1950 that he would not run again for President in 1952,[15] it had already become clear that South Carolina's rulers remained severely disenchanted with the national Democratic Party.[16] Originally it was planned that Eisenhower would run on an independent ticket with former state Governor James F. Byrnes,[16] who regained his Senate seat in the 1950 primary, with the ultimate goal of the entire South controlling national politics as an unpledged electoral slate.

Despite some criticism of his policies, Byrnes created an organization named "Independents for Eisenhower" which was aimed at allowing white Southerners to leave the Democratic Party without embracing the still-feared "Party of Lincoln".[17] These would join with a small number of remnant Republicans to form a fusion slate for Eisenhower — who by the time this plan was developed in September had already won the Republican nomination. In addition to Byrnes, Dixiecrat candidate Thurmond also endorsed Eisenhower,[18] foreshadowing his switch to the Republican Party to support the much more conservative Barry Goldwater a dozen years later.

Further sentiment against the national Democratic Party resulted from fears that the Supreme Court would — as it did in the legendary Brown v. Board of Education case a year and a half after the election — rule South Carolina's de jure segregated school system a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.[19]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Eisenhower vote was the fusion of 158,289 votes for "Nominated by Petition" electors and 9,793 for "Republican" electors
  2. ^ One write-in vote was recorded from McCormick County

References

  1. ^ "United States Presidential election of 1952 — Encyclopædia Britannica". Retrieved July 25, 2017.
  2. ^ "U.S. presidential election, 1952". Facts on File. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013. Retrieved October 24, 2013. Eisenhower, born in Texas, considered a resident of New York, and headquartered at the time in Paris, finally decided to run for the Republican nomination
  3. ^ "1952 Election for the Forty-Second Term (1953-57)". Retrieved July 25, 2017.
  4. ^ Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 208, 210 ISBN 9780691163246
  5. ^ Mickey, Robert (2015). Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972. p. 440. ISBN 0691149631.
  6. ^ Mickey. Paths Out of Dixie, p. 27
  7. ^ Fredericksen, Karl A. The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South. p. 52. ISBN 0807849103.
  8. ^ Scammon, Richard M. (compiler); America at the Polls: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics 1920-1964; p. 397 ISBN 0405077114
  9. ^ "Press Survey Indicates S.C. Will Vote Democratic in November". The Index-Journal. September 17, 1952. p. 16.
  10. ^ Strong, Donald S. (August 1955). "The Presidential Election in the South, 1952". The Journal of Politics. 17 (3). University of Chicago Press: 343–389.
  11. ^ Bedingfield, Beating Down the Fear, p. 164
  12. ^ "1952 Presidential General Election Results — South Carolina". Retrieved July 25, 2017.
  13. ^ "The American Presidency Project — Election of 1952". Retrieved July 25, 2017.
  14. ^ a b Mickey. Paths Out of Dixie, p. 233
  15. ^ Truman, Harry S (1953). President Harry S. Truman's Office Files, 1945-1953. p. 30. ISBN 1556551533.
  16. ^ a b Bedingfield, Sid (2014). Beating Down the Fear: The Civil Sphere and Political Change in South Carolina, 1940-1962 (Thesis). University of South Carolina Dissertations. p. 139. Docket 2793.
  17. ^ Bedingfield. Beating Down the Fear, p. 170
  18. ^ Mayer, Michael S. The Eisenhower Years. p. 767. ISBN 1438119089.
  19. ^ Kalk, Bruce H. The Origins of the Southern Strategy: Two-Party Competition in South Carolina, 1950-1972. pp. 18–20. ISBN 0739102427.