The 1948 United States presidential election in Texas was held on November 2, 1948. Texas voters chose 23 electors to represent the state in the Electoral College, which chose the president and vice president.
As a former Confederate state, Texas had a history of Jim Crow laws, disenfranchisement of its African-American and Mexican-American populations, and single-party Democratic rule outside a few Unionist German-American counties (chiefly Gillespie and Kendall) of Central Texas. However, President Harry S. Truman was attempting to launch a civil rights bill, involving desegregation of the military, which led to severe opposition from Southern Democrats, who aimed to have South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond listed as Democratic presidential nominee and Mississippi Governor Fielding Wright as the vice-presidential nominee. Thurmond, whose ticket was formally called the States' Rights Democratic Party and more popularly known as the Dixiecrats, was leading Truman in early polls even in the major metropolitan counties of Dallas and Harris, which suggested he would claim the state. Texas' large number of electoral votes made it a coveted prize in Thurmond's quest to take the election into the House of Representatives.
At the time of this poll it remained uncertain as to whether Truman or Thurmond would be the official Democratic nominee in Texas. Unlike Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina or Virginia, Texas did not have a major threat from the Republican Party to block local Democratic support for Thurmond, but it had only a third the proportion of blacks found in Mississippi or South Carolina.Key. Southern Politics, p. 254 More critically, Texas' party hierarchy was dominated by Truman loyalists, most critically Governor Beauford Jester, and by mid-September it was clear that Truman would be the official Democratic nominee in Texas.
Truman campaigned in Texas during late September, ignoring civil rights and focusing entirely upon Dewey. The President's criticism of Dewey was largely focused on improving the transmission of hydroelectric power from dams at lower rates than Dewey had planned.
Thurmond won 10% of white voters.
Polls SourceRankingAs ofChattanooga Daily TimesOctober 15, 1948The Montgomery AdvertiserOctober 24, 1948The Miami NewsOctober 25, 1948Mount Vernon ArgusNovember 1, 1948Oakland TribuneNovember 1, 1948
Results 1948 United States presidential election in TexasPartyCandidateVotesPercentageElectoral votes Democratic Harry S. Truman (incumbent) 824,235 65.96% 23 Republican Thomas E. Dewey 303,467 24.29% 0 States' Rights Democratic Strom Thurmond 113,776 9.11% 0 Progressive Henry A. Wallace 3,920 0.31% 0 Prohibition Claude Watson 3,115 0.25% 0 Socialist Norman Thomas 919 0.07% 0 Other Write-ins 145 0.01% 0 Total 1,249,577 100.0% 23 Voter turnout (Voting age) 26%Key; Southern Politics, p. 502
Results by county