ABSTRACT
Cities entered the depression after they had already financed a multitude of new public improvement programs. Urban voters in northern cities voted Democratic because they benefited from the outpouring of programs enacted during the New Deal years. For the first time in the nation's history, in the 1930s the politicians representing urban voters began to wield influence in national politics. The odd coalition between urban voters in the North and the one-party Democratic South was forged as an alliance of convenience that began to break apart in the 1960s, when racial animosities drove a wedge between inner-city blacks, white working and suburban voters, and southern conservatives. Al Smith lost several southern and border states and won only 41 percent of the national vote, but his candidacy marked the beginning of the party's increasing reliance on the urban electorate. Both in 1920 and 1924, the 12 largest cities in the United States had, taken together, given a decisive majority the Republicans.
