1932 United States presidential election in Arkansas

The 1932 United States presidential election in Arkansas was held on November 8, 1932, as part of the concurrent 1932 United States presidential election held throughout all forty-eight contemporary states. State voters chose nine electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice-president.

Except for the Unionist Ozark counties of Newton and Searcy where Republicans controlled local government, Arkansas since the end of Reconstruction had been a classic one-party Democratic “Solid South” state.See Disfranchisement of effectively all African-Americans and most poor whites had meant that outside those two aberrant counties, the Republican Party was completely moribund and Democratic primaries the only competitive elections.

The 1920s did see a minor change in this, as increased voting by poor Ozark whites as a protest against Woodrow Wilson's internationalist foreign policy meant that Warren G. Harding was able to win almost forty percent of the statewide vote in 1920; however despite his national landslide Calvin Coolidge in 1924 could not do any more than win the two traditional Unionist GOP counties. 1928 saw the rest of the Outer South and North Alabama bolt the anti-Prohibition Catholic Al Smith, but the presence of Arkansas Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson as running mate meant that within Arkansas only the most northwesterly counties with ordinarily substantial Republican votes would suffer the same fate.

The following years saw Arkansas plunge into the Great Depression, followed almost immediately by a major drought from the summer of 1930s until the winter of 1931/1932. This came on top of a long depression in agriculture, which was still the dominant player in Arkansas’ economy and was backed up by the “Great Migration” of the state's agricultural labor force to northeastern and midwestern cities.Whayne, DeBlack, Sabo and Arnold. Arkansas, pp. 313-316

With the Depression not improving, Arkansas gave extremely heavy support to Democrat Franklin Roosevelt in the 1932 election. Roosevelt won every county in the state, becoming the first Democrat to win Searcy County since before the Civil War and only the second to win adjacent Newton County. As of 2020, this remains the only time in history that a Democratic presidential nominee has swept every county in Arkansas, and one of only two times (along with Richard Nixon's 1972 landslide) that a candidate of any party has done so.

Results

Results by county +1932 United States presidential election in Arkansas by county (.xlsx file for €15 on request)County Franklin Delano RooseveltDemocratic Herbert Clark HooverRepublican Norman Mattoon ThomasSocialist William Hope HarveyLiberty William Z. FosterCommunist Margin Total votes cast # % # % # % # % # % # % Arkansas 2,867 84.45% 494 14.55% 19 0.56% 14 0.41% 1 0.03% 2,373 69.90% 3,395 Ashley 2,537 92.83% 188 6.88% 5 0.18% 3 0.11% 0 0.00% 2,349 85.95% 2,733 Baxter 1,039 82.85% 194 15.47% 13 1.04% 8 0.64% 0 0.00% 845 67.38% 1,254 Benton 3,775 72.62% 1,275 24.53% 34 0.65% 110 2.12% 4 0.08% 2,500 48.10% 5,198 Boone 2,644 78.11% 697 20.59% 12 0.35% 32 0.95% 0 0.00% 1,947 57.52% 3,385 Bradley 1,985 93.76% 125 5.90% 5 0.24% 1 0.05% 1 0.05% 1,860 87.86% 2,117 Calhoun 1,235 94.85% 59 4.53% 4 0.31% 4 0.31% 0 0.00% 1,176 90.32% 1,302 Carroll 2,150 73.10% 758 25.77% 5 0.17% 26 0.88% 2 0.07% 1,392 47.33% 2,941 Chicot 1,680 94.38% 98 5.51% 0 0.00% 1 0.06% 1 0.06% 1,582 88.88% 1,780 Clark 3,037 93.88% 183 5.66% 6 0.19% 9 0.28% 0 0.00% 2,854 88.22% 3,235 Clay 1,891 82.00% 397 17.22% 11 0.48% 5 0.22% 2 0.09% 1,494 64.79% 2,306 Cleburne 1,750 88.29% 204 10.29% 14 0.71% 12 0.61% 2 0.10% 1,546 78.00% 1,982 Cleveland 1,440 93.87% 92 6.00% 1 0.07% 1 0.07% 0 0.00% 1,348 87.87% 1,534 Columbia 2,420 96.22% 85 3.38% 5 0.20% 5 0.20% 0 0.00% 2,335 92.84% 2,515 Conway 2,530 89.24% 285 10.05% 9 0.32% 9 0.32% 2 0.07% 2,245 79.19% 2,835 Craighead 4,412 87.09% 606 11.96% 33 0.65% 12 0.24% 3 0.06% 3,806 75.13% 5,066 Crawford 2,962 77.46% 809 21.16% 31 0.81% 18 0.47% 4 0.10% 2,153 56.30% 3,824 Crittenden 2,411 98.25% 37 1.51% 5 0.20% 1 0.04% 0 0.00% 2,374 96.74% 2,454 Cross 2,066 95.47% 87 4.02% 6 0.28% 4 0.18% 1 0.05% 1,979 91.45% 2,164 Dallas 2,139 93.16% 150 6.53% 6 0.26% 1 0.04% 0 0.00% 1,989 86.63% 2,296 Desha 1,549 94.51% 81 4.94% 9 0.55% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,468 89.57% 1,639 Drew 1,760 89.39% 198 10.06% 6 0.30% 5 0.25% 0 0.00% 1,562 79.33% 1,969 Faulkner 2,749 84.77% 437 13.48% 9 0.28% 45 1.39% 3 0.09% 2,312 71.29% 3,243 Franklin 1,896 84.83% 275 12.30% 47 2.10% 14 0.63% 3 0.13% 1,621 72.53% 2,235 Fulton 1,235 83.84% 237 16.09% 1 0.07% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 998 67.75% 1,473 Garland 4,252 83.60% 833 16.38% 1 0.02% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 3,419 67.22% 5,086 Grant 1,626 96.50% 55 3.26% 1 0.06% 2 0.12% 1 0.06% 1,571 93.23% 1,685 Greene 3,277 91.43% 274 7.65% 28 0.78% 2 0.06% 3 0.08% 3,003 83.79% 3,584 Hempstead 2,840 89.90% 317 10.03% 2 0.06% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 2,523 79.87% 3,159 Hot Spring 2,542 90.59% 237 8.45% 14 0.50% 10 0.36% 3 0.11% 2,305 82.15% 2,806 Howard 1,703 91.02% 165 8.82% 3 0.16% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,538 82.20% 1,871 Independence 2,427 86.34% 371 13.20% 3 0.11% 10 0.36% 0 0.00% 2,056 73.14% 2,811 Izard 1,227 85.27% 200 13.90% 8 0.56% 3 0.21% 1 0.07% 1,027 71.37% 1,439 Jackson 2,521 92.58% 193 7.09% 5 0.18% 2 0.07% 2 0.07% 2,328 85.49% 2,723 Jefferson 5,248 92.23% 419 7.36% 13 0.23% 8 0.14% 2 0.04% 4,829 84.87% 5,690 Johnson 1,557 81.60% 284 14.88% 42 2.20% 22 1.15% 3 0.16% 1,273 66.72% 1,908 Lafayette 1,495 90.50% 151 9.14% 3 0.18% 3 0.18% 0 0.00% 1,344 81.36% 1,652 Lawrence 3,056 89.54% 293 8.58% 28 0.82% 35 1.03% 1 0.03% 2,763 80.96% 3,413 Lee 1,635 97.44% 39 2.32% 1 0.06% 3 0.18% 0 0.00% 1,596 95.11% 1,678 Lincoln 1,301 96.30% 49 3.63% 1 0.07% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,252 92.67% 1,351 Little River 1,399 91.80% 118 7.74% 4 0.26% 1 0.07% 2 0.13% 1,281 84.06% 1,524 Logan 2,493 78.54% 645 20.32% 23 0.72% 11 0.35% 2 0.06% 1,848 58.22% 3,174 Lonoke 2,951 94.04% 175 5.58% 7 0.22% 1 0.03% 4 0.13% 2,776 88.46% 3,138 Madison 2,803 55.01% 2,197 43.12% 39 0.77% 50 0.98% 6 0.12% 606 11.89% 5,095 Marion 1,282 80.18% 235 14.70% 40 2.50% 29 1.81% 13 0.81% 1,047 65.48% 1,599 Miller 3,876 91.57% 322 7.61% 20 0.47% 11 0.26% 4 0.09% 3,554 83.96% 4,233 Mississippi 5,776 93.12% 364 5.87% 46 0.74% 12 0.19% 5 0.08% 5,412 87.25% 6,203 Monroe 1,753 90.59% 170 8.79% 9 0.47% 0 0.00% 3 0.16% 1,583 81.81% 1,935 Montgomery 1,495 85.97% 211 12.13% 12 0.69% 21 1.21% 0 0.00% 1,284 73.84% 1,739 Nevada 2,358 91.97% 197 7.68% 4 0.16% 1 0.04% 4 0.16% 2,161 84.28% 2,564 Newton 941 62.32% 540 35.76% 26 1.72% 3 0.20% 0 0.00% 401 26.56% 1,510 Ouachita 3,118 87.66% 432 12.15% 3 0.08% 3 0.08% 1 0.03% 2,686 75.51% 3,557 Perry 1,347 91.38% 123 8.34% 3 0.20% 0 0.00% 1 0.07% 1,224 83.04% 1,474 Phillips 2,976 94.66% 142 4.52% 0 0.00% 26 0.83% 0 0.00% 2,834 90.14% 3,144 Pike 1,480 89.21% 176 10.61% 1 0.06% 2 0.12% 0 0.00% 1,304 78.60% 1,659 Poinsett 4,312 93.01% 252 5.44% 48 1.04% 6 0.13% 18 0.39% 4,060 87.58% 4,636 Polk 1,568 83.67% 223 11.90% 29 1.55% 54 2.88% 0 0.00% 1,345 71.77% 1,874 Pope 2,391 88.49% 280 10.36% 11 0.41% 18 0.67% 2 0.07% 2,111 78.13% 2,702 Prairie 1,743 91.21% 158 8.27% 5 0.26% 4 0.21% 1 0.05% 1,585 82.94% 1,911 Pulaski 14,049 85.46% 2,281 13.87% 71 0.43% 29 0.18% 10 0.06% 11,768 71.58% 16,440 Randolph 2,021 90.10% 206 9.18% 2 0.09% 12 0.53% 2 0.09% 1,815 80.92% 2,243 St. Francis 2,191 92.56% 130 5.49% 33 1.39% 12 0.51% 1 0.04% 2,061 87.07% 2,367 Saline 1,990 93.47% 107 5.03% 18 0.85% 9 0.42% 5 0.23% 1,883 88.45% 2,129 Scott 1,042 79.42% 174 13.26% 27 2.06% 65 4.95% 4 0.30% 868 66.16% 1,312 Searcy 947 52.38% 846 46.79% 11 0.61% 3 0.17% 1 0.06% 101 5.59% 1,808 Sebastian 4,937 78.87% 1,268 20.26% 24 0.38% 25 0.40% 6 0.10% 3,669 58.61% 6,260 Sevier 2,009 91.61% 162 7.39% 10 0.46% 12 0.55% 0 0.00% 1,847 84.22% 2,193 Sharp 1,334 89.89% 142 9.57% 8 0.54% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,192 80.32% 1,484 Stone 1,100 79.14% 261 18.78% 8 0.58% 20 1.44% 1 0.07% 839 60.36% 1,390 Union 5,429 94.61% 245 4.27% 53 0.92% 10 0.17% 1 0.02% 5,184 90.35% 5,738 Van Buren 1,456 77.04% 413 21.85% 14 0.74% 6 0.32% 1 0.05% 1,043 55.19% 1,890 Washington 4,971 75.36% 1,502 22.77% 64 0.97% 48 0.73% 11 0.17% 3,469 52.59% 6,596 White 3,251 87.75% 430 11.61% 19 0.51% 4 0.11% 1 0.03% 2,821 76.14% 3,705 Woodruff 1,864 92.19% 135 6.68% 18 0.89% 3 0.15% 2 0.10% 1,729 85.51% 2,022 Yell 2,010 87.77% 272 11.88% 7 0.31% 1 0.04% 0 0.00% 1,738 75.90% 2,290Totals189,52986.44%27,46512.53%1,1660.53%9520.43%1570.07%162,06473.91%219,269

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic Carroll Hot Spring Madison Montgomery Polk Newton Searcy Sebastian Washington

See also United States presidential elections in Arkansas

Notes

References