Issue #163: Florida's Historic Democratic Presidential Primaries (Part 1)

In 1904, Florida held the first primary

On Tuesday, Florida Republicans will vote in their Presidential Primary - though its not much of a contest with Trump already securing the nomination. As for the Democrats, they have no primary. Like in 1996 with Clinton’s re-election, or 2012 with Obama’s re-election, no primary is being held. Unlike past years, where this decision didn’t generate any notable attention, this time the lack of a Democratic Primary has led to grumbling from the left end of the party.

I’ll discuss the decision around 2024 in tomorrow morning’s article, which will look at the Presidential Primary dynamics in the modern day. Today, however, I wanted to look at the history of Democratic Presidential Primaries in Florida - a tradition that actually goes back over 100 years.

The Early Delegate-Based Campaigns

Florida is credited with holding the first Presidential Primary in the nation, which was held in the spring of 1904. Back then, the primaries were very different. In the 1904 contest, it was not a direct battle between Presidential candidates. Instead, the primary was for delegates to the upcoming convention. Within Florida, a war of slates between those supporting William Randolph Hearst, who sought that year’s nomination, and a slate of uncommitted, was held. In contests held for statewide and Congressional district delegates, the uncommitted slate won 6 of 10 seats.

The uncommitted slate was largely understood to actually back Alton B. Parker, who would eventually secure the nomination. Parker was the candidate of the Conservative, business wing of the party. The uncommitted slate statewide narrowly lost the popular vote average, but sweeping both the 1st and 3rd districts secured the delegate lead.

In 1908, the delegate contests would be swept by those loyal to William Jennings Bryan, who would secure the nomination later that year. Coverage indicates most candidates backed Bryan, with races being battles of personalities and local officials. The handful of anti-Bryan candidates documented easily lost.

In 1912, Florida tried something new. In addition to holding the primaries for delegates, the state conducted a straw poll for who delegates should back. In this straw poll, Oscar Underwood, the Senate from Alabama, faced off with New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson. The party, which conducted the primary itself (this is before the state took over administration), released results that said Underwood won with 58% of the vote. County-level results I gathered what I could from newspaper archives.

This straw poll was held in the first primary in late May, the same day as delegate primaries took place. However, several delegate races went to runoffs and many Wilson leaders continued to push their candidates. Reports of slate cards claiming Wilson candidates as being Underwood supports came to light. It appears the runoffs were a big victory for the Underwood slate.

In 1916, there was no question of the delegations backing Wilson for another term. All delegates pledged to him in their elections.

In 1920, Florida held the distinction of holding the latest primary in the calendar: June 8th. This gave delegates only a few weeks to make it to the convention. All were elected and ran as “uninstructed” - with convention horse-trading expected to be the main event.

In 1924, another straw poll was held during the delegate elections. This contest saw Alabama Senator Oscar Underwood, of 1912 fame, facing off with William McAdoo. The result was a blowout for McAdoo - 66% to 34%. This result reflected Underwood’s sliding support in the South, something furthered along by his notable resistance to the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1928, there was no straw poll for President. The June Primary, again the last in the nation, came as Al Smith clearly was favored to take the nomination. The south was very resistant to the Catholic and “wet” Governor of NY. The delegates elected, all running as unrestricted, were all noted anti-Smith candidates.

In 1932, Florida brought back a straw poll. Held on June 7th, continuing the state’s trend of being last in the calendar, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the clear favorite. Roosevelt took 88% against Oklahoma Governor William Murray and veteran Leo J. Chassee.

In 1936, a straw poll was again held in Florida at the end of the calendar. Re-nomination was never in doubt for FDR. He took 89.7% of the vote.

In 1940, Florida held no straw poll, but the delegate fights were filled with intrigue. Delegates slates formed around the issue of an FDR third term; with some candidates running on an anti-third position and some outright backing VP John Nance Garner. Prominent Florida politicians involved themselves in the fight, with Senator Claude Pepper pushing hard for a pro-Roosevelt slate, and getting some flack for it.

A large majority of candidates were committed to Roosevelt and the final results saw Roosevelt easily take the delegation. Roosevelt won 9 of 10 seats from the Congressional district races; with one winning as an anti-3rd term delegate. That race was in Congressional District 1, a very close contest.

Four delegates were elected statewide, though each person only got 1/2 a vote at convention. Three went for Roosevelt while one backed Garner. The final result was FDR holding 12.5 of 14 delegates.

In 1944, no straw poll was held, with delegates again a battle between Roosevelt and anti-Roosevelt sentiment. There was conservative opposition within the state to Roosevelt. However, most of the anti-administration sentiment funneled toward Senator Claude Pepper, who just managed to avoid a runoff in a crowded primary. In the delegate contests, FDR allies won 14 of the 18 seats.

In 1948, the delegate primaries were a bloodbath for President Truman. Florida, like the rest of the south, resented Truman’s civil rights moves. Only ONE candidate even ran as a pro-Truman delegate, and they did not win. Instead, the delegates ran on slates of either favoring the south bolting from the party if needed, opposing Truman but remaining loyal to the party, and those working to draft Eisenhower to run as a Democrat. The state would have 21 votes: 11.5 of those votes were won by pro-bolting folks while 8.5 were won by anti-Truman but party-loyal candidates. At convention, all would support Senator Richard Russell of Georgia for President. None would bolt the party when the final convention shown emerged, however.

In 1952, the straw poll returned. With Harry Truman not running for re-election, Florida held a straw poll for President between Georgia Senator Richard Russell and Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver. The race highlighted the urban-rural divide in the state, with Kefauver keeping close over the Jim Crow Senator by racking up big margins in urban counties.

Russell won far more counties, dominating rural and North Florida. However, Kefauver netted an insane 39,000 in the electoral powerhouse of Dade. This was in the Pork Chop Era of Florida, where the state legislature gave tremendous over-representation to the rural counties while suppressing the influence of the urban cities. You can read much more on that here.

In 1956, another primary straw poll was held in conjunction with delegate elections. The straw poll showed 1952 nominee Adlai Stevenson secure 51.5% to Estes Kefauver’s 48.5%; though it was regarded as a quiet straw poll with little contentious campaigning. Stevenson would go on to secure the nomination once again.

In 1960, there was zero drama around the delegation contests. Delegates pledged to the instruction of Senator George Smathers were elected as an unopposed slate. Here, like back in 1920, the goal was to have a united delegation that Smathers could wield as needed for horse trading.

In 1964, the drama of the 1948 split from Truman did not “formally” repeat itself with LBJ. Lyndon Johnson avoided any drama in the delegate contests in Florida when only a slate committed to him was put forward by party officials. The best way to judge opposition was to compare the total votes given to the Johnson slate (back then unopposed could be on the ballot) compared to other races. While over 1 million ballots were cast for the Governor runoff, only 390,000 votes were cast for the Johnson slate. The county-level differences in how many votes were cast for both contests showed many rural areas seeing less than 20% of Gov voters backing the slate, while it was closer to 50% in places like Broward.

In 1968, a three way contest of delegate slates took place. A slate committed to George Smathers, who was running as a favorite-son but was backing Hubert Humphrey, got 46% of the vote. A slate for Eugene McCarthy got 29% and an uncommitted slate got 25.2%. The Smathers slate won across most of Florida, with McCarthy winning in the Southeast and uncommitted strong in the west.

The 1968 contest was the last year before the McGovern-Frazier Commission, organized after the mess of the 1968 convention, took effect. The commission set up new rules for how to handle delegate allocation, including representation requirements and preventing systems where party leaders could dominate delegate selection processes. The result of the commission was a broad move toward binding Presidential Primaries. Delegate-specific would no longer be the main event in Florida. Instead, delegates would run, but be bound to the primary poll results.

The Binding Primary Era

The first of the binding primaries came to Florida in March of 1972. In Florida, the contest was clearly favored by George Wallace. The Alabama politicians, who’d run as a 3rd-Party segregationist in 1968, had re-entered the Democratic fold. While he did not run on as outward racist positions, he was still the clear candidate of Jim Crow. With the anti-Wallace crowd heavily divided, Wallace took the state with 42% of the vote.

Wallace won every county, but wins in area’s like Dade were thanks to the split opposition. County-level data also doesn’t easily show us the other coalitions at play. For example, this precinct map from Leon County (Tallahassee - the state capital) shows George McGovern winning the FSU college campus and Shirley Chisholm winning the city’s black population.

Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 campaign made her the first black candidate to seek the Democratic Party nomination. I wrote about her Florida primary campaign in my $5 Patreon Tier.

After Wallace won the state, questions emerged around his delegates. Wallace would be able to chose delegates, but many prominent politicians made it clear they would not be willing to commit themselves to him, and hence would likely not be voting at the convention. Diversity requirements around there needing to be a number of black delegates also became an issue; as there were few black Wallace backers. It was believed Wallace would likely have a delegation made up assorted supports and no big names. However, just one day later, Wallace was shot in an attempted assassination. While he survived, his wounds effectively ended his campaign. McGovern would go on to secure the nomination.

In 1976, George Wallace ran again for President and pinned his hopes on a Florida win. However, this time the anti-Wallace crowd had a more united opposition in a fellow southerner - Jimmy Carter. In the March primary, Carter narrowly outpaced George Wallace.

Washington Senator Scoop Jackson, strongest in the urban Tampa Bay and Southeast, came in a strong third. For Carter, his big 2nd place margins in Southeast Florida, as well as other urban wins were critical for staving off Wallace’s rural appeal. This result was a gut punch to any Wallace hope for victory.

I delve into the demographic’s of the Carter win there here.

The Last Time a DEM Incumbent was Challenge

As I pointed out at the top of my article, the 2024 primary is generating controversy because Joe Biden has won the primary unopposed. Now, as I’ll take about in tomorrow’s newsletter, that is normal for the modern era. However, it was not always the case, as past races have shown.

The last time an incumbent Democratic President was challenge for the Florida primary was 1980 when Jimmy Carter faced off against Ted Kennedy. That primary, which was rare in terms of such a serious primary threat to an incumbent, played out very differently than the random challengers that would emerge to Clinton in 1996 or Obama in 2012. The structure of state parties and ballot access at this point was very different from today. In fact, the first Kennedy v Carter fight in Florida was not in the March 1980 Primary, but rather the October 1979 caucuses.

In October of 1979, Florida democrats would vote in party-run caucuses for 877 delegates to their November state convention. The caucus elections saw delegates running for Carter or Kennedy camps, a proxy fight that generated national attention as the first big test for Carter.

At the November convention, a non-binding straw poll would be conducted, giving either candidate a news headline before the 1980 primaries commenced. The caucuses and straw poll were still very much a hollow effort. Only around 2% of registered Democrats participated in the caucuses, which were won by the Carter folks (exact figures are all over the place). The convention would see Carter easily take the straw poll, 76% to 24%. Reports are the county-delegations broke down 60 for Carter and 7 for Kennedy.

The real primary in Florida came in March of 1980. The primary came at a strong point for Carter. The Iranian hostage crisis, which began in November, led to Carter getting a surge in support from the voters as part of a “rally around the flag” effect. This was just a few weeks before Carter would begin to lose said support as the crisis dragged on and a major botched rescue effort too place. For the moment though, Carter easily took the state, only losing Broward County.

The Kennedy strength in the southeast reflected his strong support with Jewish voters, a group he viewed as critical to him having any chance in the primary. Kennedy had been counting on stronger support from those counties in the caucuses - with Dade going for Carter being seen a a coup for the President. Controversy and confusion over a UN vote over settlements and East Jerusalem was also seen as aiding Kennedy at the last second in the southeast.

Looking Ahead

The 1980 inter-party challenge was more serious for Carter than anything Obama or Clinton, or Biden would see, but it also represented a different era of party structures and processes. Check back in tomorrow morning for Part 2. I look at more modern contests and discuss the situation with 2024 in more detail.