1928 United States presidential election in New York

1928 United States presidential election in New York
Turnout	68.3% 12.0 pp
Hoover 50–60% 60–70% 70–80%	Smith 40–50% 50–60% 60–70%
	Results in New York City by assembly district. The colors are the same as above with the following additions: Hoover 40–50% Hoover 50–60% Smith 40–50% Smith 50–60% Smith 60–70% Smith 70–80% Smith 80–90%
President before election; Calvin Coolidge; Republican	Elected President ; Herbert Hoover; Republican

The 1928 United States presidential election in New York took place on November 6, 1928. All contemporary 48 states were part of the 1928 United States presidential election. State voters chose 45 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.

New York was won by Republican former Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California, who was running against Democratic Governor of New York Alfred E. Smith. Hoover's running mate was Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas, while Smith's running mate was Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas.

Hoover won with a plurality of 49.79 percent of the vote to Smith's 47.44 percent, a margin of 2.35 points. Socialist candidate Norman Thomas finished a distant third, with 2.44 percent. Although New York was Al Smith's home state and he had been elected governor there, the 1920s were a fiercely Republican decade in American politics, and New York during the Fourth Party System was a fiercely Republican state in presidential elections. In 1928, Herbert Hoover was winning the third consecutive nationwide Republican landslide, and the economic boom and social good feelings of the Roaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership proved too much for Smith to overcome both nationally and in his home state.

However, Smith's performance in New York was still impressive in the context of the 1920s, and highly significant in shaping the state's political development. In the elections preceding 1928, New York had been more Republican than the nation as a whole, even in the nationwide Republican landslides of 1920 and 1924. Smith's narrow 2-point defeat in the midst of the nationwide Republican landslide of 1928 made New York State 15% more Democratic than the national average. Smith's 47.44 percent was also the highest vote share a Democratic presidential candidate had received in New York State since former New York Governor Grover Cleveland won the state in 1892, as Woodrow Wilson only won the state with 41% in 1912 when the Republican vote was split.

Smith dramatically improved upon how Democrats before him had done and laid the groundwork for turning the state Democratic in 1932 and beyond. In 1920 and 1924, Republicans had swept every county in New York State and Democrats had received less than 30% of the vote. In 1928, Smith came within 2 points of winning the state by sweeping all five boroughs of heavily populated New York City, winning Albany County, home to the state capital of Albany, along with neighboring Rensselaer County, and winning two counties in northern New York along the Saint Lawrence River, Clinton County and Franklin County.

^ Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, part 2, p. 1072.

[1] Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, part 2, p. 1072.

[1]