For the previous four decades Virginia had almost completely
disenfranchised its black and poor white populations through the use of
a cumulative poll tax and literacy tests. So restricted was suffrage that it has been calculated that a third of Virginia's electorate during the first half of the twentieth century comprised state employees and officeholders. Historical
fusion with
the "Readjuster" Democrats, defection of substantial proportions of the
Northeast-aligned white electorate of the
Shenandoah Valley and
Southwest Virginia over
free silver, and an early move towards a
"lily white" Jim Crow party Nevertheless, in gubernatorial elections during this period the Republican vote was mostly in the nature of a protest, and in most elections between 1925 and 1949 turnout was higher in the Democratic primary than the general election.
Reconsolidation of Organization control The preceding gubernatorial election, for the only time in the Byrd machine's history, had seen it defeated in the primaries by the relatively liberal Price. However, continuing conservative control of the state legislature and the complete failure of
FDR's attempt to deny conservative Senators Byrd and
Carter Glass federal patronage, and that Virginia's electorate is known to have been overwhelmingly opposed to Roberts. whilst organization leader
Colgate Darden recaptured
the Second Congressional District from New Dealer
Norman R. Hamilton. By the 1940 Democratic State Convention, the liberals from three years back had been completely routed,and even such old New Dealers as
John W. Flannagan Jr. were supporting Byrd. == Democratic nomination ==