WI: Lyndon B. Johnson: the Republican from Texas

Tresckow

Tresckow

Alright this sounds crazy, but hear me out. Lyndon Johnson was born and raised in Gillespie County Texas, one of Texas’s lone Republican counties to have been voting solidly Republican in the past century. The only Democrats to have won Gillespie were FDR in 1932 and Johnson himself in 1964. In every other race, Gillespie voted Republican by lopsided margins (and voted for Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 and La Follette in 24).

Just an interesting scenario to think about.
 

Amadeus

Roosevelt said:
Alright this sounds crazy, but hear me out. Lyndon Johnson was born and raised in Gillespie County Texas, one of Texas’s lone Republican counties to have been voting solidly Republican in the past century. The only Democrats to have won Gillespie were FDR in 1932 and Johnson himself in 1964. In every other race, Gillespie voted Republican by lopsided margins (and voted for Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 and La Follette in 24).

Just an interesting scenario to think about.
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No way in hell this will happen. Until the 1960s, Texas at the state level was so heavily Democratic that winning the Democratic primary was tantamount to election. Even through the 1970s and 1980s, Texas mostly elected Democrats to Congress, the Statehouse, and the Governor's Mansion while it generally voted for Republicans in Presidential elections. It was not until the 1990s that Texas truly became a red state. For most of Johnson's lifetime, being a Democrat was the only path to power in Texas. Even in middle age, being a Democrat would have given him a significant advantage. That is not even getting into the fact that his liberal politics would not gel with the Texas Republican Party even at the height of the post-New Deal consensus.
 

peeter

Amadeus said:
No way in hell this will happen. Until the 1960s, Texas at the state level was so heavily Democratic that winning the Democratic primary was tantamount to election. Even through the 1970s and 1980s, Texas mostly elected Democrats to Congress, the Statehouse, and the Governor's Mansion while it generally voted for Republicans in Presidential elections. It was not until the 1990s that Texas truly became a red state. For most of Johnson's lifetime, being a Democrat was the only path to power in Texas. Even in middle age, being a Democrat would have given him a significant advantage. That is not even getting into the fact that his liberal politics would not gel with the Texas Republican Party even at the height of the post-New Deal consensus.
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Yep, republican LBJ doesn’t sniff the high levels of power he did in real life
 

thestickfigure

Also didn't the New Deal significantly affect his viewpoint as well? The Hill counties were traditionally Rep, but the New Deal was popular enough there (due to stuff like introducing electricity to the rural areas) that Roosevelt managed to win many of their counties.

And yeah, by the 50s, the TXGOP was well into it's "Lily Whitification".
 

naraic

Unless you have an early southern strategy a republican LBJ would be a minor figure who does nothing more than local politics which reduces the interest in this scenario significantly.
 
Tresckow

Tresckow

I figured that Republican Lyndon would be Landslide(d) Lyndon. Always struck me that Johnson grew up and died in one of Texas’s few historically R counties, though.
 

Anarch King of Dipsodes

thestickfigure said:
And yeah, by the 50s, the TXGOP was well into it's "Lily Whitification".
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That happened in the 1800s. Once the disfranchisement of blacks was in place, Southern Republicans competed within the white-supremacist system, which they supported. (Anything else would have been even more futile then their OTL activity.)
Capbeetle61 said:
Anybody with a (R) after their name couldn't have been elected dog-catcher in Texas before the 1960s.
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Not quite true.

US Representative George Noonan (R-TX), 1895-1897.

US Representative Robert Hawley (R-TX), 1897-1901.

US Representative Harry Wurzbach (R-TX), 1921-1932.

US Representative Bruce Alger (R-TX), 1955-1964.

(AIUI, Noonan and Hawley were elected with Populist support; in the Deep South the Populists allied with Republicans against the Democrat establishment.)

Amadeus said:
Even through the 1970s and 1980s, Texas mostly elected Democrats to Congress...
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The first time (since 1868) that Texas sent more Republicans than Democrats to the US House was 2004.
 

David T

Anarch King of Dipsodes said:
That happened in the 1800s. Once the disfranchisement of blacks was in place, Southern Republicans competed within the white-supremacist system, which they supported. (Anything else would have been even more futile then their OTL activity.)

Not quite true.

US Representative George Noonan (R-TX), 1895-1897.

US Representative Robert Hawley (R-TX), 1897-1901.

US Representative Harry Wurzbach (R-TX), 1921-1932.

US Representative Bruce Alger (R-TX), 1955-1964.

(AIUI, Noonan and Hawley were elected with Populist support; in the Deep South the Populists allied with Republicans against the Democrat establishment.)


The first time (since 1868) that Texas sent more Republicans than Democrats to the US House was 2004.
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You forgot Ben H. Guill! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_H._Guill

(Guil briefly represented the Panhandle district--then numbered the 18th--after winning a special election in May1950 with 23.16% (!) of the vote against a divided Democratic field. https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=373579 This might make his victory seem a fluke but he came fairly close to winning the one-on-one November election against Democrat Walter E. Rogers. https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=373580 The Panhandle was a bit more open to electing Republicans than most of rural Texas because it got farmers from Republican areas of Kansas and Oklahoma. Nevertheless, Rogers won re-election easily several times, and indeed was sometimes unopposed, even though Ike decisively carried the district in 1952 and 1956, as did Nixon in 1960. In 1962, however, Republican Jack Seale https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=71640 held him to under 60% and in 1964 Republican Bob Price held him to 55%. https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=147708 In 1966 Rogers retired and was succeeded by Price, who defeated Democrat Dee Miller. https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=177491 )
 
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Capbeetle61

Banned
Anarch King of Dipsodes said:
Not quite true.

US Representative George Noonan (R-TX), 1895-1897.

US Representative Robert Hawley (R-TX), 1897-1901.

US Representative Harry Wurzbach (R-TX), 1921-1932.

US Representative Bruce Alger (R-TX), 1955-1964.

(AIUI, Noonan and Hawley were elected with Populist support; in the Deep South the Populists allied with Republicans against the Democrat establishment.)
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All were exceptions rather than confirmations of the rule of the thumb.
 
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