Our Campaigns Blog - Chronicler's Minutiae

North Carolina state primary of 1908
Posted June 16, 2020 at 12:00pm by Chronicler

I just found some information about the 1908 state primary in North Carolina. No one has published the results of or even mentioned this primary before. The state Democratic Party for the first time allowed county parties to hold a primary to instruct the delegates to the state convention for non-presidential nominations (governor, lt. governor, SOS, treasurer, etc.) plus US House. The counties could also directly nominate local candidates such as sheriff or county officials.

The 1908 primary was a free-for-all. Each county held the primary when it saw fit, although within a two-month window. One of the earlier counties to vote was Durham on 5/2, and one of the final counties to vote was Mecklenberg on 6/16 (the state Democratic convention was held on 6/28-29). Candidates had to pay a fee in each county to appear on the ballot there, which complicated things because it was not always easy to find out who to send the money to - and also meaning that a given candidate was not necessarily on the ballot in every county. Wake County charged $5 to each candidate, and Guilford charged $3. This money was intended to cover the cost of printing the ballots and the tally sheets.

The nature of the primary varied by county. The larger counties held what we today would call a primary, with voters showing up, casting a ballot, and going home. These votes were then tabulated on a county basis in preparation for the county convention which would select the delegates to the state convention. However, most counties held what we would today call a caucus, with voters arriving at a limited number of polling places at the same time and dividing on each of the various races to instruct the state delegates, who in some cases were chosen right there without holding a county convention.

County party officials decided beforehand which races would appear on the ballot. Some counties held a popular vote for every race (such as Wake and Guilford), including primaries for uncontested statewide races. Durham County only included contested races on its ballot. In several instances, when a contender for a given race lived in the county, that race was left off the ballot so the local contender could earn the whole vote of the county (Mecklenberg did not include the 5-way race for Commissioner of Agriculture for this reason).

The tally sheets were particularly important. Once the results in a county were finalized, party officials divided that number into the number of allotted state delegates, resulting in numbers like 8.623 delegate equivalents for a given candidate (they carried the division to the third decimal point for each candidate). The county conventions then appointed delegates to cast fractional votes at the state convention (such as 1/3 or 1/4 of a delegate vote).

Most counties only reported the delegate equivalents, regardless of how the primary event was held, and very few counties reported any results other than the 3-way race for governor. Obviously no statewide popular vote totals were calculated, as the numbers would be meaningless. For example, in the 5-way race for Commissioner of Labor, only three counties reported any popular votes; in one county (Wake), only two of the five appeared on the ballot, while three appeared on the ballot in Durham and all five in Guilford.

The primary did not perform as well as many hoped. Delegates were set on honoring their instructions at the state convention, which meant the race for governor was quickly deadlocked and not decided until the 60th ballot. At one point, it seemed likely that two separate Democratic tickets would be chosen, but one candidate (the eventual winner Wm W Kitchin) said he would rather drop out than divide the Democratic vote.

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