1944 United States Senate election in Alabama

none March 2026 September 2023 1944 United States Senate election in Alabama Alabama 1912 Presidential no 1938 United States Senate election in Alabama 1938 1950 United States Senate election in Alabama 1950 November 7, 1944 150x150px File:Lister Hill 1938 (cropped).jpg J. Lister Hill Democratic Party (US) 202,604 81.78% 3x4.svg John A. Posey Republican Party (US) 41,983 16.95% 1944 United States Senate election in Alabama results map by county.svg 250px County resultsHill: #7996e2 50–60% #6674de 60–70% #584cde 70–80% #3933e5 80–90% #0d056c 90–100%Posey: #D75D5D 60–70% U.S. Senator J. Lister Hill Democratic Party (US) J. Lister Hill Democratic Party (US) The United States Senate election in Alabama of 1944 was held on November 7, 1944. Incumbent Senator J. Lister Hill was re-elected to a second term in office, defeating Republican John A. Posey. Background In 1938, Lister Hill defeated former Senator Thomas Heflin to win the Senate seat vacated by Hugo Black. Like Black, Hill was a supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal programs, while Heflin had been supported by the "Big Mule" coalition of Birmingham industrialist and Black Belt planters. In opposition to the New Deal, the Big Mules backed a faction of the Democratic Party headed by Birmingham state senator and corporate lawyer James A. Simpson, who had strong antiunion and anti-New Deal sentiments and family connections to the Woodward Iron Company. Many supporters of Roosevelt and the New Deal in the state, led by Horace C. Wilkinson, Black and former Governor Bibb Graves, had strong ties to the Ku Klux Klan, but Hill was not among them.Lister Hill's political career recaptured in wife's letters, diary https://www.al.com/wire/2010/11/lister_hills_political_career.html 16 April 2025 al.com The Associated Press 14 November 2010 en Democratic primary Candidates J. Lister Hill, incumbent Senator since 1938 James Simpson, State Senator from BirminghamHamilton Virginia Van der Veer Hill, J. Lister https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/lister-hill/ Encyclopedia of Alabama 16 April 2025 March 13, 2007 [Hill] handily turned back challengers in four Democratic primaries (at the time equivalent to election), defeating James Simpson in 1944, Lawrence McNeil in 1950, and John Crommelin in 1956 and 1962. Campaign The 1944 Democratic primary between incumbent Lister Hill and challenger James Simpson was sharply divided on class and racial issues, with Hill generally considered a relatively liberal Southerner for the time. Simpson's campaign was backed by major industrial interests, while Hill had the support of the Congress of Industrial Organizations political action committee and attacked Simpson as a "high-priced corporation lawyer" and "a vest pocket edition of Wall Street".Feldman Glenn Southern Disillusionment with the Democratic Party: Cultural Conformity and "The Great Melding" of Racial and Economic Conservatism in Alabama during World War II Journal of American Studies August 2009 43 2 199230 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2210414 16 April 2025 During the campaign, Simpson attacked Hill, utilizing racial divisions "solidly interwound with the most hallowed dogmas of the free market."Getman-Pickering Aaron The Great Melding: War, the Dixiecrat Rebellion, and the Southern Model for America's New Conservatism Vulcan Historical Review 2016 20 20608 https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1154&context=vulcan 16 April 2025 Lister Hill’s Senate run in 1944 against James Simpson is oft-cited as evidence of Alabama’s liberalism in the 1940’s. Feldman finds it the opposite; what should have been an easy victory for Hill turned into a prolonged and ugly campaign. Simpson used race “solidly interwound with the most hallowed dogmas of the free market,” to curry favor, and Hill, who had not planned to return to Alabama to campaign, was forced to race bait to win re-election., reviewing Feldman Glenn The Great Melding: War, the Dixiecrat Rebellion, and the Southern Model for America's New Conservatism 2015 University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Al. 9780817318666 In March, the conservative and pro-business Alabama magazine featured photographs of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt fraternizing with blacks, an implicit suggestion of the consequences of Hill's liberalism. According to historian Glenn Feldman, the result was a prolonged and ugly campaign. Hill, who had not planned to return to Alabama for the campaign, was forced to return to the state and engage in race baiting to win the election. After 1944, Hill voted consistently against civil rights legislation in the Senate, though he remained loyal to the cause of organized labor. Both candidates made a statewide radio address on May 1, the eve of the election.Edwards Bill Look Back ... to primary election day, 1944 https://www.annistonstar.com/news/history/look-back-to-primary-election-day-1944/article_497c7a94-6bca-11e9-8ae6-976a571656ba.html 16 April 2025 The Anniston Star 1 May 2019 en Results 1944 U.S. Senate election in Alabama, Democratic primaryOwen Marie B. Alabama Official and Statistical Register, 1947 1947 Walker Printing Company Montgomery, Alabama 427-429 https://archive.org/details/alabama-official-statistical-register-1947 5 August 2025 Democratic Party (US) J. Lister Hill (Incumbent) 126,372 55.54% Democratic Party (US) James Simpson 101,176 44.46% 227,548 100.00% General election Candidates J. Lister Hill, incumbent Senator since 1938 (Democratic) Hollis B. Parrish (Prohibition) John A. Posey (Republican) Results 1944 U.S. Senate election in AlabamaClerk of the U.S. House of Representatives 1945-01-11 Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 7, 1944 http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electioninfo/1944election.pdf U.S. Government Printing Office Democratic Party (US) J. Lister Hill (Incumbent) 202,604 81.78% Republican Party (US) John A. Posey 41,983 16.95% Prohibition Party Hollis B. Parrish 3,162 1.28% 247,749 Democratic Party (US) References 1944 Alabama United States Senate