Could a Democrat have won in 1928?

Was there anyone who could have defeated Hoover in the 1928 election or was Hoover unbeatable?

Depends how early your PoD is.

Your best bet is for Hughes to win in 1916, so that the postwar reacting is against the Republicans rather than the Democrats, who thus have a chance to stay competitive in the 1920s.
 
I don't see it. It's often thought that the Democrats would have done much better if they had nominated a Protestant, but according to Allan J. Lichtman, *Prejudice and the Old Politics: The Presidential Election of 1928*, "Compared to the combined votes of Davis and La Follette, the vote for Smith declined by approximately 11 percentage points among Protestants and increased by approximately 28 percentage points among Catholics. Catholics as well as Protestants voted their religion in 1928." http://books.google.com/books?id=KbGiJpDk6pwC&pg=PA42 Since there were many more Protestants than Catholics, these numbers are not really favorable for Smith, but they do show that nominating a Protestant would have costs as well as benefits--especially if Catholics were convinced the Democrats had rejected Smith because of his religion.

Indeed, one reason that Smith got the nomination so easily is that Democrats felt they were probably going to lose to Hoover anyway--so, a lot of southern and western Democorats said, let's give Smith a chance, and if he loses as he probably will, we can blame him...

(One indication that the Republicans were favored in 1928: the GOP's losses in House in the 1926 midterms were quite modest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_1926)
 
There wasn't really any reason to toss the Republicans out in 1928, but another splinter in the party amongst Old Right/Progressive lines could have certainly brought a Democrat win. Hoover, the great philanthropist, was ultimately a concession (despite his rugged individualist beliefs) after the doctrinaire Coolidge and corrupt Harding administrations, to the Progressives. If you have someone from the old Nelson Aldrich wing of the party nominated after a backroom meeting, you might get Dawes or Curtis or some other Midwestern Reformer type to run independently and take the Farmer vote with them.
 
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