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1928 - Hoover vs. Smith

When President Calvin Coolidge announces that he won’t run for reelection, the GOP nomination goes to Secretary of Commerce Herbert C. Hoover.

Hubert Work, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, announces that Hoover’s campaign will restrict itself to raising a relatively modest $3 million, far less than the Harding or Coolidge campaigns. “This year, we have candidates who will not need so large a sum,” the idealistic-sounding Work explains. Before long, however, RNC treasurer Joseph R. Nutt revises the goal upward to $4 million and makes it known that no individual contribution will be deemed too large to accept. Ultimately, Nutt raises $4.8 million. Hoover’s well-heeled backers include the American Tariff League, a lobby that advocates protection for U.S. manufacturers, which spends $40,000 to help elect him but, it is later disclosed, fails to report its political expenditures.

The Democrats nominate Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, whose campaign manages to raise about $3 million in contributions and borrows an additional $1 million. Herbert Lehman, the chairman of the Democratic Party’s finance committee, strives to publicize legions of small donors, such as Mrs. Theresa Furey of the Bronx, a widow who contributes $50 worth of spare change she has accumulated. In truth, however, most of Smith’s campaign money comes from big donors, such as lawyer Francis P. Garvan, the longtime president of the Chemical Foundation of America, who gives $25,000. Smith feels the pressure to raise money in part because his campaign is spending so much on the still-new medium of radio, shelling out $650,000 to air campaign ads. (Hoover’s campaign, in comparison, spends $435,000 on the airwaves.)

In November, Hoover swamps Smith, taking the popular vote by 58.2 percent to 40.8 percent, and amassing 444 votes in the Electoral College to Smith’s 87.