1924 Texas gubernatorial election

1924 Texas gubernatorial election
November 4, 1924 (1924-11-04)
Turnout60.0% 19.9 pp[1]
 
Nominee Miriam A. Ferguson George C. Butte
Party Democratic Republican
Popular vote 422,558 294,970
Percentage 58.89% 41.11%
County results
Ferguson:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90%      >90%
Butte:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%
     Unorganized county
     No Vote
Governor before election

Pat Morris Neff
Democratic

Elected Governor

Miriam A. Ferguson
Democratic

The 1924 Texas gubernatorial election was held on November 4, 1924, in order to elect the Governor of Texas. Democratic nominee and former First Lady of Texas Miriam A. Ferguson defeated Republican nominee George C. Butte. With her victory, she became the first female governor of Texas and the second to be governor of any U.S. state, after Nellie Tayloe Ross, although Ferguson was the first to be elected to the office.[2][3]

The election, and more specifically the Democratic primary, was the climax of the conflict within the state's Democratic party over the Klan issue.[4] Miriam A. Ferguson, wife of former impeached governor James E. Ferguson, defeated Klan-backed candidate Felix D. Robertson in the runoff after Lynch Davidson and Thomas Whitfield Davidson divided the anti-Klan/anti-Ferguson vote amongst themselves in the first primary.[5] Miriam "Ma" Ferguson's campaign was run almost entirely by "Pa" Ferguson as a vehicle to return to the governorship after he was barred from public office in 1917.[6][7] The choice between Ferguson and Robertson in the runoff presented an issue for anti-Klan drys and progressive Democrats, who opposed "Pa" Ferguson for his anti-prohibition stances, his conflict with the University of Texas, and corruption while in office. Most of the anti-Klan faction reluctantly supported "Ma" Ferguson who was viewed as the lesser of two evils.[8]

In the general election Klan forces and disgruntled Democrats backed Republican nominee George C. Butte, although he disavowed the Klan's support.[9] Butte posted unusually high returns for a Republican in Texas, which at the time was a solidly Democratic state. He received 41% of the vote, the highest for a Republican since 1869, and 294,970 raw votes, the highest for a Republican in the state ever up to that point.

Democratic primary

Candidates

Primary election

The Democratic primary election was held on July 26, 1924. No one candidate received greater than 50% of the vote, so a run-off was held.

Runoff election

As no candidate won a majority of votes, there was a runoff. The runoff was a proxy battle between pro-Klan political forces backing Klansman Felix Robertson and anti-Klan political forces backing Ma Ferguson.[12] During the runoff, Thomas D. Barton endorsed Ferguson.[11] The election was held August 23, 1924. Ferguson won the primary with 56.70% against Robertson.[15]

Results

CandidateFirst RoundRun-off
Votes%Votes%
Miriam A. Ferguson146,42420.82413,75156.70
Felix D. Robertson193,50827.52316,01943.30
Lynch Davidson141,20820.08
Thomas Whitfield Davidson125,01117.78
Thomas D. Barton29,2174.16
Vinson A. Collins24,8643.54
Joe Burkett21,7203.09
W. E. Pope17,1362.44
George W. Dixon4,0350.57
Total703,123100.00729,770100.00
Source: [16]

General election

The general election saw the Ku Klux Klan back Republican George C. Butte, seeing him as a more acceptable alternative to the anti-Klan Ferguson, despite the state Republican platform's stated "unalterable opposition to the Ku Klux Klan."[17][18] Additionally, Ferguson saw an unprecedented number of defections from the Democratic Party, notably state legislator and longtime party leader Thomas B. Love.[19] A coalition of anti-Ferguson Democrats and prohibitionists formed the Good Government Democratic League[18]

An atypically close race in then-staunchly Democratic Texas, Butte received 41.11% of the vote to Fergueson's 58.89% of the vote.[20] By contrast, Democratic presidential nominee John W. Davis received 73.70% of the statewide vote in his three-way race against Calvin Coolidge (19.78%) and Robert M. La Follette (6.52%) in the same year.[21] Ferguson was sworn in as the 29th Governor of Texas on January 20, 1925.[20]

Results

Texas gubernatorial election, 1924
Party Candidate Votes %
Democratic Miriam A. Ferguson 422,558 58.89
Republican George C. Butte 294,970 41.11
Total votes 717,528 100.00
Democratic hold

References

  1. ^ "Texas Almanac and State Industrial Guide 1925". Portal to Texas History. October 2010.
  2. ^ "Portraits of Texas Governors: The Politics of Personality". Texas State Library. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  3. ^ Coppedge, Clay (March 25, 2007). "'Ma' elected governor of Texas". Temple Daily Telegram.
  4. ^ "TSHA | The Evolution of the Democratic Party in Texas: A Historical Overview". tshaonline.org. Retrieved 2026-02-17. The state elections in 1924 quickly evolved into a fight over the Klan issue...electing Mrs. Ferguson did have one ameliorative affect on Texas politics, namely the elimination of the Klan as a political force.
  5. ^ Brown 1984 p.224
  6. ^ "Portraits of Texas Governors: The Politics of Personality | James E. Ferguson". Texas State Library. Retrieved 2026-02-17.
  7. ^ "The History Behind Texas' First Woman Governor". Texas Highways. Retrieved 2026-02-17.
  8. ^ "Texas in the 20th Century, Part 2". Texas Almanac. Retrieved 2026-02-17. Mrs. Ferguson easily won the runoff against Robertson when many Texans decided that "Fergusonism" was preferable to the Klan in the governor's office.
  9. ^ Watts, Marie W. (2024). "The sizzling gubernatorial election of 1924". The Banner Press Newspaper. Retrieved 2026-02-17.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Associated Press (July 25, 1924). "State Politics Hold Center Stage on Eve of Primary Election". Brownsville Herald. Vol. 32, no. 22. p. 1 – via Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers at the Library of Congress.
  11. ^ a b Associated Press (August 17, 1924). "Barton to Aid Mrs. Ferguson". Brownsville Herald. Vol. 32, no. 45. Retrieved 2023-11-03 – via Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers at the Library of Congress.
  12. ^ a b c Jolly, Amber; Banks, Ted (April 14, 2022). "Dallas Ku Klux Klan No. 66". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  13. ^ "Prisoner Shot to Death is Charge". Kentucky New Era. Vol. 56, no. 26. Hopkinsville, Kentucky. June 27, 1924. Retrieved 2023-11-03 – via Google Newspapers.
  14. ^ Kowalski, Amanda; Atkins, Lori (March 2020). "W. E. Pope Papers". Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
  15. ^ Stewart, Frank M. (1930). "Impeachment in Texas". American Political Science Review. 24 (3): 652–658. doi:10.2307/1946933. ISSN 0003-0554. JSTOR 1946933. S2CID 147274001.
  16. ^ "TX Governor - D Primary". ourcampaigns.com. January 13, 2010. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  17. ^ Curtis, Tracy (July 1, 1977). "The Many Crusades of Old Man Texas". D Magazine. Retrieved 2023-11-04.
  18. ^ a b Stewart, Frank M. "Texas". The Southwestern Political and Social Science Quarterly. 5 (4): 381–398. JSTOR 42880486.
  19. ^ Weeks, O. Douglas (September 1932). "The Texas Direct Primary System". The Southwestern Social Science Quarterly. 13 (2): 95–120. JSTOR 42864789.
  20. ^ a b "TX Governor". ourcampaigns.com. June 26, 2006. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  21. ^ "1924 Presidential General Election Results — Texas". Dave Leip’s U.S. Election Atlas. Owing to problems with the original collection of returns, these figures differ from those in Géoelections and Edgar Eugene Robinson's work. These totals exclude some counties (noted in the table) where the Texas Secretary of State did not compile data.

Further reading

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.