Old Dominion University ODU Digital Commons History Faculty Publications History 1978 Revolt in Virginia: Harry Byrd and the 1952 Presidential Election James R. Sweeney Old Dominion University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/history_fac_pubs Part of the American Politics Commons, Political History Commons, and the United States History Commons Repository Citation Sweeney, James R., "Revolt in Virginia: Harry Byrd and the 1952 Presidential Election" (1978). History Faculty Publications. 5. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/history_fac_pubs/5 Original Publication Citation Sweeney, J.R. (1978). Revolt in Virginia: Harry Byrd and the 1952 presidential election. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 86(2), 180-195. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. REVOLT IN VIRGINIA Harry Byrd and the 1952 Presidential Election by JAMES R. SWEENEY* PRIOR to 1952 Virginians had voted for a Republican president only once in the twentieth century. In 1928 Herbert Hoover defeated Al Smith by 24,463 votes. Extraordinary circumstances produced that result. Smith's Catholicism and his opposition to Prohibition made him unacceptable to many Virginians, including the politically powerful Methodist Bishop James Cannon, Jr. By 1952 an entirely different political situation had developed in the Democratic Party, but Virginia Democrats were confronted with the same problem as in 1928, namely, whether or not to support a presidential candidate for whom they had a distinct lack of enthusiasm.' Since the incep- tion of the New Deal, the dominant wing of the Virginia Democratic Party, headed by Senator Harry F.