However, unlike the Deep South, the Republican Party had sufficient historic Unionist white support from the mountains and northwestern Piedmont to gain one-third of the statewide vote total in most general elections,[3] where turnout was higher than elsewhere in the former Confederacy due substantially to the state’s early abolition of the poll tax in 1920.

[6] However, by the beginning of 1946 most white North Carolinians were disapproving of President Truman, primarily because he appointed the first black federal judge and made overtures – though symbolic – toward civil rights.

Combined with the persistent local Republican threat from mountain Unionist descendants, this meant that there was never any question of the state Democratic Party supporting South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond.

[7] North Carolina was won by incumbent President Harry S. Truman (D–Missouri), running with Senator Alben W. Barkley, with 58.02 percent of the popular vote, against Governor Thomas E. Dewey (R–New York), running with Governor Earl Warren, with 32.68 percent of the popular vote.

Because the Black Belt of the state, unlike the economically conservative Black Belts of the Deep South, was economically more liberal than the Piedmont region where the establishment Democratic faction led since 1929 by O. Max Gardner was based,[17] its entirely white electorate stayed exceedingly loyal to Truman.