Coolidge's supporters ran on a platform of building up the US military as well as having a strong foreign policy. The Socialists campaigned on the back of President Upton Sinclair's domestic policy successes, such as creating an environment conducive for the unprecedented prosperity enjoyed by Americans since 1924. Blackford promised to ensure continued prosperity even if it meant using more diplomacy and less force against neighbors such as the Confederacy. As it had in 1924, the dilemma of having to choose between the two parties' platforms weighed down on thousands of voters, though ultimately the memory of the Great War, over a decade old, as well as the undeniable fact of a booming economy convinced the majority of them to vote for Hosea Blackford.
The 1928 election featured the end of Calvin Coolidge's Presidency as he retired despite high popularity polls. The Republican Party ran Herbert Hoover, who easily defeated the Democrats' Al Smith, governor of New York. Hoover won in a landslide, even making inroads into the Democratic stronghold of the Solid South.
The election was notable because Smith, a Catholic, became the first non-Protestant to win a major party's presidential nomination. Unfortunately, the result was a showcase of religious bigotry. The declining support for the Democratic Party among Southern voters has been blamed in part upon this fact.
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