Editing Smith County, Texas (section)

==Politics==
Smith County was one of the first areas of Texas to break off from a [[Solid South]] voting pattern. The last Democrat to carry Smith County was incumbent President [[Harry S. Truman]] in 1948.<ref>The Political Graveyard; [http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/TX/SM-votes.html Smith County, Texas]</ref> The county's conservative white voters began splitting their tickets as early as the next election, when it swung from a 29-point win for Truman to a 17-point win for [[Dwight Eisenhower]]. In 1964, it rejected Democratic President and Texas native [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] in favor of [[Barry Goldwater]], albeit by fewer than 500 votes. It was one of three East Texas counties, along with [[Panola County, Texas|Panola]] and [[Gregg County, Texas|Gregg]], to vote for Goldwater. At that time, most Blacks and Latinos in the county were still disenfranchised due to the state's discriminatory use of certain barriers.<ref>[https://www.laits.utexas.edu/txp_media/html/vce/0503.html "5.3 Historical Barriers to Voting"], ''Texas Politics'', University of Texas website, 2018</ref> Underscoring how rapidly it swung Republican, the Democrats have only managed 40 percent of the county's vote four times since Truman, the last being [[Jimmy Carter]] in 1976. No Democrat has managed even 30 percent of the county's vote in the past seven elections, though [[Barack Obama]] and [[Joe Biden]] came close in 2008 and 2020, respectively.

{{PresHead|place=Smith County, Texas|source=<ref>{{cite web|url=http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS|title=Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections|first=David|last=Leip|website=uselectionatlas.org|access-date=April 4, 2018}}</ref>}}
<!-- PresRow should be {{PresRow|Year|Winning party|GOP vote #|Dem vote #|3rd party vote #|State}} -->
{{PresRow|2024|Republican|74,862|28,041|1,283|Texas}}
{{PresRow|2020|Republican|69,080|29,615|1,639|Texas}}
{{PresRow|2016|Republican|58,930|22,300|3,538|Texas}}
{{PresRow|2012|Republican|57,331|21,456|814|Texas}}
{{PresRow|2008|Republican|55,187|23,726|648|Texas}}
{{PresRow|2004|Republican|53,392|19,970|302|Texas}}
{{PresRow|2000|Republican|43,320|16,470|834|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1996|Republican|32,171|18,265|3,207|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1992|Republican|27,753|17,514|13,739|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1988|Republican|34,658|18,719|215|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1984|Republican|40,740|15,227|152|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1980|Republican|28,236|14,838|626|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1976|Republican|22,238|16,856|181|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1972|Republican|23,671|8,041|115|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1968|Republican|12,079|8,897|9,595|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1964|Republican|12,960|12,474|38|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1960|Republican|12,042|8,494|285|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1956|Republican|12,255|6,468|69|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1952|Republican|10,947|8,450|13|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1948|Democratic|3,181|6,473|1,655|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1944|Democratic|936|6,671|1,931|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1940|Democratic|1,557|9,410|8|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1936|Democratic|660|7,116|12|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1932|Democratic|750|7,424|27|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1928|Republican|3,493|2,343|0|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1924|Democratic|1,079|4,473|171|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1920|Democratic|707|2,965|1,001|Texas}}
{{PresRow|1916|Democratic|773|2,422|286|Texas}}
{{PresFoot|1912|Democratic|485|1,936|827|Texas}}

Smith County is represented in the Texas House of Representatives by [[Matt Schaefer]] (R) of Tyler and the Texas Senate by Senator [[Bryan Hughes (politician)|Bryan Hughes]] (R). Its U.S. Representative is [[Nathaniel Moran]] (R).