by Scott Sosebee
Texas, and the nation, just had an election, and no matter what “side” you stood on coming into the race I think we can agree on that the outcome was unexpected. Some might be tempted to say that it was transformational, but as a historian I will offer that such an assessment is premature. The proper response would be ,”We’ll see,” because for something to truly be transformational it has to be lasting. So, we’ll have to wait and see if this was an election that turned on conditions that were unique to time and place, i.e. could have only happened in 2026, or if the results presage a new electoral shift in Texas politics.
When one searches Texas history we can point to a number of transformational and consequential elections in the state’s past. The 1857 governor’s race, for example, became the first one only election Sam Houston ever lost, but it set the stage for his comeback win in 1859, which in turn, because of his opposition to secession, turned in to his leaving the Governor’s Mansion after he refused to take an oath to the Confederacy. The 1890 election brought James S. Hogg to the Governor’s Chair, and with it a Democratic response to Populism that helped to quell that agrarian rebellion. Certainly, another such election was the 1978 Governor’s race, when Bill Clements became the first Republican governor of Texas since Reconstruction, a harbinger of a future shift in Texas politics. I could go on, but one Texas election that had perhaps the most consequences nationally was the 1948 Senatorial race, a close and contested competition that led to the rise of a politician that would ultimately take up residence in the White House.
Texas has always been full of prominent politicians, larger-than-life personalities, and people who spent decades on the national stage, but perhaps no one fits all three descriptions as well as Lyndon Baines Johnson. As a member of the House of Representatives, a senator, vice-president, and ultimately president, Johnson used his wiles, passion, and sheer will to dominate every office and body in which he served. No matter what one thinks of his politics or methods, no one would ever say that he did not leave his mark on the state or the nation.
Every politician has to begin somewhere, and Lyndon Johnson’s ascent in national politics started when he won election to the United States Senate in 1948. In those days, Democrats dominated one-party state Texas since Republicans offered little to no opposition in the general election. Thus, the only elections that really mattered were the Democratic Party primaries. At the time Johnson was considered one of the most prominent members of the “liberal wing” of the Texas Democratic Party, predominantly due to his strong support of the New Deal and President Franklin Roosevelt during the 1930s and 1940s. Johnson had previously run for a senate seat in 1941, but lost that bid to W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel—an election that Johnson always believed the popular former governor had stolen, primarily by claiming ill-begotten votes in East Texas. So, when the seat came open again in 1948 Johnson immediately filed. He also swore that he would never be “out-hustled” in an election again.
Johnson was not the favorite in the race; that distinction went to his opponent, the popular former governor Coke Stevenson. Stevenson was an establishment figure in Texas politics, having served as speaker of the House of Representatives, lieutenant governor, and as governor through the years of World War II. He was the personification of the men who had governed Texas for years—rural, conservative, and traditional. As the race began, most observers and commentators believed that Johnson would put up a good fight, but Stevenson’s organization and backing from the establishment would eventually prevail.
What those who predicted a Stevenson victory did not consider was that Johnson was no ordinary Texas politician. Certainly, as a son of the Hill Country he understood how to appeal to ordinary Texans, but he was also dynamic, outgoing, and indefatigable in a way that few Texans had ever seen. He campaigned incessantly, traveling from town-to-town in a helicopter—a new machine that naturally attracted attention—and he spoke about progress, industrialization, and the future. In many ways the race was a watershed event for a new post-war Texas, a state that was ready to move away from its old, rural, agricultural roots and embrace a more vigorous, modern, urban economy and society.
The primary was scheduled for July, and in the first vote Stevenson won a comfortable plurality. However, since it was an eleven-man race, he had garnered only forty percent of the vote and Texas election law required a run-off if no one candidate captured fifty percent. Thus, Johnson and Stevenson would meet in a head-to-head choice in August.
Johnson once again waged a dogged campaign, but most pundits counted Johnson out, even going on record that he would lose by a larger majority than he did during the first vote. When the first votes began to trickle in it became obvious that something remarkable was happening; Lyndon Johnson, the anti-establishment, liberal faction candidate was running neck and neck with the popular Stevenson. It took more than a week to count the ballots, and both sides alleged fraud. Finally, the party’s executive committee announced that Johnson, largely on the strength of an overwhelming victory in Jim Wells County, had won the election by a scant eighty-seven votes.
The Stevenson camp immediately protested, charging that Johnson had committed massive voter fraud. Had he? Perhaps, but then Stevenson’s organization had also no doubt committed their share of vote scheming and stealing as well. Recent analysis of that election seems to conclude that if it had been conducted fairly Johnson would have won by a comfortable margin. Unfortunately, that was how candidates and those in other positions conducted Texas’ elections in that era.
Lyndon Johnson would go on to crush the token Republican opposition in November to become a United States Senator. After taking his seat in that body he would rise to leadership in record fashion and become the youngest Senate majority leader in American history. From there he would go on to be vice-president and, upon the assassination of John Kennedy, the President of the United States. If he had not won the 1948 election more than likely none of that would have come to pass. Lyndon Johnson, to the nation, would become known as the architect of the Great Society and, fairly or not, the face of the contentiousness of the Vietnam War. But in Texas, after 1948, we just knew him as “Landslide Lyndon.”
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee the Executive Director of the Association and can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.