Shopkeeper Sophie
| 🏪 | |
| Era | The Fifties |
|---|---|
| Age | 52-59 |
| Home | Chicago, IL |
| Demographic | ethnic Catholic, small business, moderate |
| Lean | Swing voter |
| Race | white |
Sophie is an Italian-American widow in her fifties who runs a corner grocery in a Chicago ward, and she has voted Democratic all her life. She is a small proprietor whose loyalty to the Democratic Party is now open to negotiation.
Who they stand for
Catholic voters in the Northern cities had given Franklin Roosevelt something like two-thirds of their votes, and the corner grocer was as much a fixture of the ward as the precinct captain. Eisenhower cut into that Catholic vote in 1952 and further in 1956, and shopkeepers had their own reasons for shifting. They paid the local taxes, they lived with the organised crime that the Kefauver Senate hearings had put on the front page from Chicago in 1950, and they watched the A&P, Jewel, and Kroger supermarket chains draw their customers away to new shopping centres with parking. The Chicago Democratic machine still delivered votes, especially after Richard J. Daley took over City Hall in 1955, but Sophie's vote for President was no longer guaranteed as part of that delivery. She returned to the Democrats to vote for Kennedy in 1960, along with the rest of the Catholic vote. Parish Maureen is held to the Democrats by loyalty to the ward. Sophie is held by what is good for her till, so the same President can lose each of them for a different reason.
Playing to them
Sophie votes for the President who leaves her block as she found it and leaves the till a little fuller. Steady prices, low taxes on a small business, a police force that keeps the corner quiet, and a calm manner that never raises its voice all count in a President's favour with her. She has no patience for political crusades, so a President who makes the anti-Communist campaign the centre of his administration loses her support even while winning the support of Minute Women Vivian, War Widow Bridget, and Parish Maureen. Inflation is the fastest way to lose her support, because her business margins cannot absorb rising costs. Antitrust action against the supermarket chains wins her support, and also the support of Garment Row Saul, at the cost of Banker Prescott's and Junior Exec Chip's support. She is not against unions in principle, but a wave of strikes that empties her shelves turns her against whichever President let it happen, regardless of what Steel City Stan thinks of the union's cause.
Where they live
The five states where Shopkeeper Sophie makes up the largest share of the electorate in the fifties:
- Rhode Island
- Massachusetts
- New Jersey
- Connecticut
- New York