Crazy to think that Thurmond's strategy of throwing the election to the House in 1948 where Dixiecrats could play kingmaker came 10k voters in OH/CA away from working. 1/
I mean, it's probably one of the most consequential near-misses to our modern political timeline. Truman gets 303 E.V.s in 1948. He wins OH by 7,100 votes and CA by 17,900. If that flips no one gets a majority and it goes to the House. 2/
After the 1948 elections, the Democrats controlled 25 House delegations, 19 for Republicans, and 4 split. But 11 of the House delegations were controlled by Southern Democrats. 3/
Maybe Rs and Ds would have banded together to elect Truman, perhaps with Warren as the vice president. 4/
But the other possibility is that the Dixiecrats would have extracted concessions from the Democrats on Civil Rights. *Everything* changes in that universe. 5/
One of the reasons that Truman adopted the CR platform in '48 is that Rs had made strong showings with the African-American community in '46, raising the possibility that AA Dem attachment from '34-'44 was an FDR-specific phenomenon. 6/
So a major walkback on CR might have re-cemented AA attachment to Rs, and forestalled the Southern realignment. 7/
Either way, it would have been a display of power by the Dixiecrats, leaving a Democratic Party terrified in future elections. Just a massive "what if." 8/8
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