For the previous five 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 in this period 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 From the 1940s the state's politics would be transformed by in-migration from
the Northeast to Washington suburbs, which
the preceding fall allowed the Republicans to win the state with a margin slightly exceeding their national one, and to elect three Congressmen. All this gave expectations of further GOP growth, especially considering the troubles the Organization had in
the previous gubernatorial primary. The victory in
a special election of loyal Byrd machine leader
William M. Tuck produced debate whether that election was merely a repeat of
1928, as argued by
The Daily Press in June or whether there was a major danger for the Democratic Party as suggested in April by
The Evening Sun. Virginia's Republicans, however, were always hopeful that the election would not repeat
that of 1929. After initially declining to run – with Nile Straughan of
Fredericksburg the expected nominee –
State Senator Theodore Roosevelt Dalton was unanimously nominated by the GOP on June 21. ==Campaign==