The Texas Regulars was a group based in Texas which was formed in 1944 to deny Franklin D. Roosevelt a majority of the Electoral College in the 1944 presidential election.
By the 1940s, Texas conservative Democrats were irritated with Roosevelt and his New Deal and they were also unhappy about the Supreme Court striking down the segregated primary in Smith v. Allwright. They planned to gain control of the nominating convention and select a slate of electors who would not vote for Roosevelt. Texas Regulars supporters included Congressman Martin Dies Jr., former Texas governor Dan Moody, and Senator W. Lee O'Daniel.
They won the first convention, but they then lost the second convention. This led them to form their own ticket which did not field a candidate. On election day, they finished third, with 135,439 votes (0.3% of the vote). They won a majority in only Washington County, Texas, falling short of their goal as Roosevelt won Texas and the election.
The Texas Regulars disbanded soon afterward, but many of them went on to support the Dixiecrat candidacy of Strom Thurmond in 1948.
Famous quotes containing the word texas:
“Worn down by the hoofs of millions of half-wild Texas cattle driven along it to the railheads in Kansas, the trail was a bare, brown, dusty strip hundreds of miles long, lined with the bleaching bones of longhorns and cow ponies. Here and there a broken-down chuck wagon or a small mound marking the grave of some cowhand buried by his partners “on the lone prairie” gave evidence to the hardships of the journey.”
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)