The Pittsburgh Press (October 25, 1944)
Background of news –
The border states
By Bertram Benedict
A prediction constantly heard as the 1944 campaign approaches its peak of intensity is that the candidate who carries the “border states” will win the Presidency.
This much is true: In every presidential election during the 20th century, the winning candidate has carried at least half of the “border states.” As a group these are heterogeneous politically, and seldom line up as a unit in a presidential election.
Today, the border states are usually considered to be these seven, reading from east to west – Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Oklahoma (admitted to the Union in 1907). Together, they account for 67 of the 531 votes in the Electoral College.
Geographically, there is little reason for grouping these states together. West Virginia and Missouri extend north beyond the latitude of the Mason-Dixon Line, while Tennessee and Oklahoma are much farther south than is non-border Virginia.
Term applied before Civil War
These states do have a common feature in that the proportion of Negroes in their populations is smaller than in the South as a whole (from 6 to 8 percent in West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma; from 13 to 18 percent in Delaware, Maryland, Tennessee).
In the era preceding the Civil War, and during the Civil War, the term “border states” was applied to the tier of five slave states bordering on the free states: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia (the western part adjoining Pennsylvania and Ohio was detached during the war and became West Virginia), Kentucky, and Missouri.
All of these except Delaware sent a considerable number of soldiers to the Confederacy. Virginia seceded. The secessionist factions in Missouri and Kentucky set up separate state governments which were admitted to the Confederacy. Union troops helped to keep Maryland from seceding, while Delaware retained the institution of slavery until the 13th Amendment was adopted and voted against ratifying the amendment.
None of the border states was among the two carried by Alf M. Landon in 1936 or the 10 carried by Wendell Willkie in 1940.
Results since 1900
In the presidential elections since the turn of the century, border states have differed from the rest of the country as follows:
1900: Republican victory by a substantial margin, but Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri went Democratic.
1904 and 1908: Republican landslides, but Kentucky, Maryland and Tennessee went Democratic.
1912: With the third-party candidacy of Theodore Roosevelt splitting the Republican vote, it was a Democratic landslide. All the border states went Democratic, but only Kentucky and Tennessee by majorities instead of pluralities.
1916: Democratic victory by a narrow margin, but Delaware and West Virginia went Republican.
1920: Republican landslide, but Kentucky went Democratic.
1924: Republican landslide, but Oklahoma and Tennessee went Democratic.
1928: Republican landslide, and none of the border states was among the eight states carried by Alfred E. Smith.
1932: Democratic landslide, but Delaware was one of the six states for Herbert Hoover.
Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri have Republican Governors; Delaware and Oklahoma, each a Republican Senator. The GOP has most of Missouri House seats.