The 1928 United States presidential election in New Mexico took place on November 6, 1928. All contemporary forty-eight states were part of the

1928 United States presidential election The 1928 United States presidential election was the 36th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1928. Republican Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover defeated the Democratic nominee, Governor Al Smith of New York. After ...

. State voters chose three electors to represent them in the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. New Mexico had in its early history as a state shown itself, like all of the West at the time, to be very much a swing state, having backed Woodrow Wilson twice in

1912 Events January * January 1 – The Republic of China (1912–49), Republic of China is established. * January 5 – The Prague Conference (6th All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) opens. * January 6 ...

and

1916 Events Below, the events of the First World War have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 1 – The British Royal Army Medical Corps carries out the first successful blood transfusion, using blood that had been stored and cooled. * ...

and then backed Warren G. Harding and

Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...

in their landslide

1920 Events January * January 1 ** Polish–Soviet War in 1920: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20. ** Kauniainen, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its own ma ...

and

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China hol ...

victories. During this era – and indeed since the 1870s – New Mexico was divided between largely Republican machine-run highland regions and its firmly

Southern Democrat Southern Democrats, historically sometimes known colloquially as Dixiecrats, are members of the U.S. Democratic Party who reside in the Southern United States. Southern Democrats were generally much more conservative than Northern Democrats with ...

Baptist " Little Texas" region in its east. However, the nomination of Catholic

Al Smith Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democratic Party's candidate for president in 1928. The son of an Irish-American mother and a C ...

on the first ballot after almost all other Democrats sat the election out challenged the ''status quo''. Fear ensued in the South, which had no experience of the Southern and Eastern European Catholic immigrants who were Smith's local constituency. Southern fundamentalist Protestants believed that Smith would allow

papal The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

and priestly leadership in the United States, which Protestantism was a reaction against. At the same time, there existed potential for a pro-Catholic swing in the traditional GOP

Spanish-American Spanish Americans ( es, españoles estadounidenses, ''hispanoestadounidenses'', or ''hispanonorteamericanos'') are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from Spain. They are the longest-established European American group in th ...

mountain counties of the North. Polls in July regarded New Mexico as "doubtful", although these had taken little account of the religious issues that were to dominate the election. New Mexico was won by

Secretary of Commerce The United States secretary of commerce (SecCom) is the head of the United States Department of Commerce. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to commerce. The secretary rep ...

Herbert Hoover over New York Governor

in an 18-point landslide. In traditionally fiercely Democratic "Little Texas", anti-Catholic prejudice was identical to that which turned Texas and Oklahoma to Hoover and Smith retained just one of the eleven counties that had voted for John W. Davis in 1924. In the mountain counties of traditional Republican strength, by contrast, Hoover's losses proved minor, as the Catholic Hispanic areas could not identify with the urban New Yorker Smith. At this time the

Republican Party Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party. Republican Party may also refer to: Africa *Republican Party (Liberia) * Republican Part ...

was widely associated in the minds of many Americans with the economic success of the mid-1920s, although the post- Civil War

Democratic Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

stronghold in the

Deep South The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states most dependent on plantations and slavery prior to the American Civil War. Following the war ...

was still evident by the time of this election.

Results

Results by county

References

{{United States elections New Mexico 1928 New Mexico elections

1928 Events January * January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly proving the existence of DNA. * January 1 – Eastern Bloc emigration and defection: Boris Bazhanov, J ...