United States presidential election, 1940

 

< 1936  1944 >
United States presidential election, 1940
5 November 1940
	Winner	Runner up
Nominee	Franklin D. Roosevelt	Wendell Willkie
Party	Democratic	Republican
Home State	New York	New York
Running mate	Henry A. Wallace	Charles L. McNary
Electoral Vote	449	82
States Carried	38	10
Popular Vote	27,313,945	22,347,744
Percentage	54.7%	44.8%
Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Roosevelt/Wallace, Blue denotes those won by Willkie/McNary. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
Before Election Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic		After Election Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic

The United States presidential election of 1940 was fought in the shadow of World War II as the United States was emerging from the Great Depression. Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), a Democrat, broke with tradition and ran for a third term, which became a major issue. The surprise Republican candidate was maverick businessman Wendell Willkie, a dark horse who crusaded against Roosevelt's failure to end the Depression and eagerness for war. Roosevelt, aware of strong isolationist sentiment in the U.S., promised there would be no foreign wars if he were reelected. Willkie conducted an energetic campaign and managed to revive Republican strength in areas of the Midwest and Northeast. However, Roosevelt won a comfortable victory by building strong support from labor unions, big-city political machines, ethnic voters, and the traditionally Democratic Solid South.

Nominations

Democratic Party Nomination

Democratic Candidates

Postmaster General and DNC Chairman James Farley of New York	Vice President John Nance Garner of Texas	Secretary of State Cordell Hull of Tennessee	President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of New York
Senator Millard E. Tydings of Maryland

Throughout the winter, spring, and summer of 1940 there was much speculation as to whether Roosevelt would break with long-standing tradition and run for an unprecedented third term. The "two-term" tradition, although not yet enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, had been established by President George Washington when he refused to run for a third term in 1796, and no President had ever been elected to a third term. Roosevelt, however, refused to give a definitive statement as to his willingness to be a candidate, and he even indicated to some ambitious Democrats, such as James Farley, that he would not be a candidate again and that they could seek the nomination. However, as Nazi Germany swept through Western Europe and menaced Britain in the summer of 1940 Roosevelt decided that only he had the necessary experience and skills to see the nation safely through the Nazi threat. He was aided by the party's bosses, who feared that no Democrat except FDR could defeat the charismatic Willkie, who had already been chosen as the Republican candidate. The balloting at the Democratic Convention went thus:

Presidential vote

President Franklin Roosevelt	946
James A. Farley	72
Vice President John Nance Garner	61
Millard Tydings	9
Secretary of State Cordell Hull	5

John Nance Garner, Roosevelt's Vice-President, was a Texas conservative who had turned against Roosevelt because of his liberal economic and social policies; as such Roosevelt decided to pick another running mate. He chose Henry A. Wallace, his Secretary of Agriculture, to be the vice-presidential nominee. Wallace, an outspoken liberal, was strenuously opposed by many delegates at the convention, particularly the more conservative Southern Democrats.

Wallace won by a vote of 626 to 325 for House Speaker William Bankhead and a smattering of others.

Republican Party Nomination

Republican Candidates

Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire	Governor Harlan J. Bushfield of South Dakota	Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Dewey of New York	Newspaper editor and owner Frank Gannett of New York
Former President Herbert Hoover of California	Governor Arthur James of Pennsylvania	House Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin of Massachusetts	Former Ambassador to Canada Hanford MacNider of Iowa
Senate Minority Leader Charles L. McNary of Oregon	Senator Robert Taft of Ohio	Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan	Businessman Wendell Willkie of New York

In the months leading up to the opening of the 1940 Republican National Convention, the three leading candidates for the GOP nomination were considered to be Senators Robert Taft of Ohio and Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, and District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey of New York. Taft was the leader of the GOP's conservative, isolationist wing, and his main strength was in his native Midwest and parts of the South. Vandenberg, the senior Republican in the Senate, was the "favorite son" candidate of the Michigan delegation and was considered a possible compromise candidate. Dewey, the District Attorney for Manhattan, had risen to national fame as the "Gangbuster" prosecutor who had sent numerous infamous mafia figures to prison, most notably "Lucky" Luciano, the organized-crime boss of New York City. All three men had campaigned vigorously during the primary season, but only 300 of the 1,000 convention delegates had been pledged to a candidate by the time the convention opened. This left an opening for a dark horse candidate to emerge.

A Wall Street-based industrialist named Wendell Willkie, who had never before run for public office, emerged as the unlikely nominee. Willkie, a former Democrat who had been a pro-Roosevelt delegate at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, was considered an improbable choice. Willkie had first come to public attention as an articulate critic of Roosevelt's attempt to break up electrical power monopolies. Willkie was the CEO of the Commonwealth and Southern power company, and he opposed the federal government's attempts to compete with private enterprise, claiming that the government had unfair advantages over private companies. Willkie did not dismiss all of Roosevelt's social welfare programs, and in fact he supported those which he believed could not be done any better by the free enterprise system. Willkie's persuasive arguments impressed many Republicans, who believed that he would be an attractive candidate. He had strong backing from media magnates, such as Ogden Reid of the New York Herald Tribune, Roy Howard of the Scripps-Howard chain and John and Gardner Cowles, publishers of the Minneapolis Star and the Minneapolis Tribune, as well as the Des Moines Register and Look magazine. These men used their media empires to build a powerful grassroots organization for Willkie. Even so, Willkie remained a long-shot candidate; the May 8 Gallup Poll showed Dewey at 67% support among Republicans, followed by Vandenberg and Taft, with Willkie at only 3%.

Willkie was aided by the fact that each of the other major GOP candidates had weaknesses which could be exploited. Taft's fierce isolationism and controversial positions against the popular New Deal social welfare programs led many Republicans to believe that he could not be elected, particularly as France fell to the Nazis in May 1940 and Britain appeared in danger of invasion. Dewey's relative youth - he was only 38 in 1940 - and lack of any foreign-policy experience caused his candidacy to weaken as the Nazi military emerged as a fearsome threat. In 1940 Vandenberg was also an isolationist (he would later change his foreign-policy views during World War II), and his lackadaisical, easygoing campaign never caught the voter's attention. Willkie, in contrast, emerged as a "fresh face"; he was well-spoken, witty, dramatic, and most importantly, he publicly supported the British and French war effort and denounced the Nazis when many leading Republicans were urging the nation to avoid the conflict and leave the British to their fate.

The Nazi Army's rapid blitz into France in April 1940 shook American public opinion, even as Taft was telling a Kansas audience that America must concentrate on domestic issues to prevent Roosevelt from using the international crisis to extend socialism at home. In upstate New York Republican Congressman Hamilton Fish III, an isolationist who was accused of being a Nazi sympathizer, warned that Roosevelt had become Churchill's willing accomplice in leading America into war against Germany to preserve the British Empire and protect Soviet Communism. Nevertheless, sympathy for the embattled British was mounting daily. By mid-June, little over one week before the Republican Convention opened, the Gallup poll reported that Willkie had moved into second place with 17%, and that Dewey was slipping. Fueled by his favorable media attention, Willkie's pro-British statements won over many of the delegates. As the delegates were arriving in Philadelphia, Gallup reported that Willkie had surged to 29%, Dewey had slipped 5 more points to 47%, and Taft, Vandenberg and former President Herbert Hoover trailed at 8%, 8%, and 6% respectively.

Hundreds of thousands, perhaps as many as one million, telegrams urging support for Willkie poured in, many from "Willkie Clubs" that had sprung up across the country. Millions more signed petitions circulating everywhere. At the 1940 Republican National Convention itself, keynote speaker Harold Stassen, the Governor of Minnesota, announced his support for Willkie and became his official floor manager. Hundreds of vocal Willkie supporters packed the upper galleries of the convention hall. Willkie's amateur status, his fresh face, appealed to delegates as well as voters. The delegations were selected not by primaries but by party leaders in each state, and they had a keen sense of the fast-changing pulse of public opinion. Gallup found the same thing in polling data not reported until after the convention: Willkie had moved ahead among Republican voters by 44% to only 29% for the collapsing Dewey. As the pro-Willkie galleries repeatedly yelled "We Want Willkie", the delegates on the convention floor began their vote. Dewey led on the first ballot but steadily lost strength thereafter. Both Taft and Willkie gained in strength on each ballot, and by the fourth ballot it was obvious that either Willkie or Taft would be the nominee. The key moments came when the delegations of large states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York left Dewey and Vandenberg and switched to Willkie, giving him the victory on the sixth ballot. The voting went like this:

Presidential vote

ballot;	1	2	3	4	5	6
Thomas E. Dewey	360	338	315	250	57	11
Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft	189	203	212	254	377	310
Wendell L. Willkie	105	171	259	306	429	633
Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg	76	73	72	61	42	-
Pennsylvania Governor Arthur H. James	74	66	59	56	59	1
Massachusetts Rep. Joseph W. Martin	44	26	-	-	-	-
Hanford MacNider	32	34	28	26	4	2
Frank E. Gannett	33	30	11	9	1	1
New Hampshire Senator Styles Bridges	19	9	1	1	-	-
Former President Herbert Hoover	17	-	-	-	20	9
Oregon Senator Charles L. McNary	3	10	10	8	9	-

Willkie's nomination is still considered by most historians to have been one of the most dramatic moments in any political convention. Having given little thought to who he would select as his vice-presidential nominee, Willkie left the decision to convention chairman and Massachusetts Congressman Joe Martin, the House Minority Leader, who suggested Senate Minority Leader Charles L. McNary of Oregon. Despite the fact that McNary had spearheaded a "Stop Willkie" campaign late in the balloting, the candidate picked him to be his running mate:

Vice Presidential vote

Charles L. McNary	848
Dewey Short	108
Styles Bridges	2

General election

The Fall Campaign

Willkie crusaded against Roosevelt's attempt to break the two-term presidential tradition, arguing that "if one man is indispensable, then none of us is free." Willkie also criticized what he claimed was the incompetence and waste in Roosevelt's New Deal welfare programs; he stated that as President he would keep most of FDR's government programs but would make them more efficient. Willkie was a fearless campaigner; he often visited industrial areas where Republicans were still blamed for causing the Great Depression and where FDR was highly popular. In these areas Willkie frequently had rotten fruit and produce thrown at him, and was heckled by crowds, yet he was unfazed. Willkie also accused Roosevelt of leaving the nation unprepared for war, but Roosevelt preempted the military issue by expanding military contracts and establishing the lend-lease program to supply the British with badly-needed weapons and warships. Willkie then reversed his approach and accused Roosevelt of secretly planning to take the nation into World War II. The charge did cut into Roosevelt's support; in response FDR, in a pledge that he would later regret, promised that he would "not send American boys into any foreign wars." On election day - November 5 - Roosevelt received 27 million votes to Willkie's 22 million, and in the Electoral College, Roosevelt defeated Willkie 449 to 82. Willkie did get over six million more votes than the GOP's 1936 nominee, Alfred M. Landon, and he ran strong in rural areas in the American Midwest, taking over 57% of the farm vote. Roosevelt, meanwhile, carried every American city with a population over 400,000 except for Cincinnati, Ohio.

Results

Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Popular Vote		Electoral Vote	Running Mate	Running Mate's Home State	Running Mate's Electoral Vote
			Count	Percentage
Franklin D. Roosevelt	Democratic	New York	27,313,945	54.7%	449	Henry Agard Wallace	Iowa	449
Wendell Lewis Willkie	Republican	New York	22,347,744	44.8%	82	Charles L. McNary	Oregon	82
Norman Thomas	Socialist	New York	116,599	0.2%	0	Maynard C. Krueger	Illinois	0
Roger Babson	Prohibition	Massachusetts	57,903	0.1%	0	Edgar Moorman	Illinois	0
Other			65,922	0.1%	0	Other		0
Total			49,902,113	100.0%	531	Total		531
Needed to win					266	Needed to win		266

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1940 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (July 31, 2005).

Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 31, 2005).

Results by state

		Franklin Roosevelt Democratic			Wendell Willkie Republican			Other			State Total
State	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#
Alabama	11	250,726	85.2	11	42,184	14.3	-	1,309	0.4	-	294,219	AL
Arizona	3	95,267	63.5	3	54,030	36.0	-	742	0.5	-	150,039	AZ
Arkansas	9	158,622	79.0	9	42,121	21.0	-	not on ballot			200,743	AR
California	22	1,877,618	57.4	22	1,351,419	41.3	-	39,754	1.2	-	3,268,791	CA
Colorado	6	265,554	48.4	-	279,576	50.9	6	3,874	0.7	-	549,004	CO
Connecticut	8	417,621	53.4	8	361,819	46.3	-	2,062	0.3	-	781,502	CT
Delaware	3	74,599	54.7	3	61,440	45.1	-	335	0.3	-	136,374	DE
Florida	7	359,334	74.0	7	126,158	26.0	-	not on ballot			485,492	FL
Georgia	12	265,194	84.9	12	46,360	14.8	-	997	0.3	-	312,551	GA
Idaho	4	127,842	54.4	4	106,553	45.3	-	773	0.3	-	235,168	ID
Illinois	29	2,149,934	51.0	29	2,047,240	48.5	-	20,761	0.5	-	4,217,935	IL
Indiana	14	874,063	49.0	-	899,466	50.5	14	9,218	0.5	-	1,782,747	IN
Iowa	11	578,800	47.6	-	632,370	52.0	11	4,260	0.4	-	1,215,430	IA
Kansas	9	364,725	42.4	-	489,169	56.7	9	6,403	0.7	-	860,297	KS
Kentucky	11	557,222	57.4	11	410,384	42.3	-	2,457	0.3	-	970,063	KY
Louisiana	10	319,751	85.9	10	52,446	14.1	-	108	0.0	-	372,305	LA
Maine	5	156,478	48.8	-	163,951	51.1	5	411	0.1	-	320,840	ME
Maryland	8	384,546	58.3	8	269,534	40.8	-	6,037	0.9	-	660,117	MD
Massachusetts	17	1,076,522	53.1	17	939,700	46.4	-	10,771	0.5	-	2,026,993	MA
Michigan	19	1,032,991	49.5	-	1,039,917	49.9	19	13,021	0.6	-	2,085,929	MI
Minnesota	11	644,196	51.4	11	596,274	47.7	-	10,718	0.9	-	1,251,188	MN
Mississippi	9	168,267	95.7	9	7,364	4.2	-	193	0.1	-	175,824	MS
Missouri	15	958,476	52.3	15	871,009	47.5	-	4,244	0.2	-	1,833,729	MO
Montana	4	145,698	58.8	4	99,579	40.2	-	2,596	1.1	-	247,873	MT
Nebraska	7	263,677	42.8	-	352,201	57.2	7	not on ballot			615,878	NE
Nevada	3	31,945	60.1	3	21,229	39.9	-	not on ballot			53,174	NV
New Hampshire	4	125,292	53.2	4	110,127	46.8	-	not on ballot			235,419	NH
New Jersey	16	1,016,404	51.5	16	944,876	47.9	-	12,934	0.7	-	1,974,214	NJ
New Mexico	3	103,699	56.6	3	79,315	43.3	-	244	0.1	-	183,258	NM
New York	47	3,251,918	51.6	47	3,027,478	48.0	-	22,200	0.4	-	6,301,596	NY
North Carolina	13	609,015	74.0	13	213,633	26.0	-	not on ballot			822,648	NC
North Dakota	4	124,036	44.2	-	154,590	55.0	4	2,149	0.8	-	280,775	ND
Ohio	26	1,733,139	52.2	26	1,586,773	47.8	-	not on ballot			3,319,912	OH
Oklahoma	11	474,313	57.4	11	348,872	42.2	-	3,027	0.4	-	826,212	OK
Oregon	5	258,415	53.7	5	219,555	45.6	-	3,270	0.7	-	481,240	OR
Pennsylvania	36	2,171,035	53.2	36	1,889,848	46.3	-	17,831	0.4	-	4,078,714	PA
Rhode Island	4	182,182	56.7	4	138,653	43.2	-	313	0.1	-	321,148	RI
South Carolina	8	95,470	95.6	8	4,360	4.4	-	2	0.0	-	99,832	SC
South Dakota	4	131,362	42.6	-	177,065	57.4	4	not on ballot			308,427	SD
Tennessee	11	351,601	67.3	11	169,153	32.4	-	2,069	0.4	-	522,823	TN
Texas	23	909,974	80.9	23	212,692	18.9	-	1,865	0.2	-	1,124,531	TX
Utah	4	154,277	62.3	4	93,151	37.6	-	391	0.2	-	247,819	UT
Vermont	3	64,269	44.9	-	78,371	54.8	3	422	0.3	-	143,062	VT
Virginia	11	235,961	68.1	11	109,363	31.6	-	1,283	0.4	-	346,607	VA
Washington	8	462,145	58.2	8	322,123	40.6	-	9,565	1.2	-	793,833	WA
West Virginia	8	495,662	57.1	8	372,414	42.9	-	not on ballot			868,076	WV
Wisconsin	12	704,821	50.2	12	679,206	48.3	-	21,495	1.5	-	1,405,522	WI
Wyoming	3	59,287	52.8	3	52,633	46.9	-	320	0.3	-	112,240	WY
TOTALS:	531	27,313,945	54.7	449	22,347,744	44.8	82	240,424	0.5	-	49,902,113
TO WIN:	266

See also

• President of the United States
• United States Senate elections, 1940
• History of the United States (1918-1945)

Bibliography

• James McGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (1956)
• Ellsworth Barnard, Wendell Willkie: Fighter for Freedom (1966)
• Cole, Wayne S. Charles A. Lindbergh and the Battle against American Intervention in World War II (1974)
• Cole, Wayne S. America First: The Battle against Intervention, 1940-41 (1953)
• Doenecke, Justus D. The Battle Against Intervention, 1939-1941 (1997), includes short narrative and primary documents.
• Doenecke, Justus D. Storm on the Horizon: The Challenge to American Intervention, 1939-1941 (2000).
• Henry O. Evjen, "The Willkie Campaign; An Unfortunate Chapter in Republican Leadership", Journal of Politics, 14 (May 1952), in JSTOR
• S. Everett Gleason and William L. Langer; The Undeclared War, 1940-1941 1953 Policy toward war in Europe; pro FDR
• Grant, Philip A., Jr. "The Presidential Election of 1940 in Missouri." Missouri Historical Review 1988 83(1): 1-16. ISSN 0026-6582 Abstract: Missouri serves as a good barometer of nationwide political sentiment; The two major political parties considered Missouri a key state in the 1940 presidential election. Wendell Willkie captured 64 of the state's 114 counties, but huge majorities in the urban counties carried the state for Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• Jonas, Manfred. Isolationism in America, 1935-1941 (1966).
• Neal, Steve. Dark Horse: A Biography of Wendell Willkie (1989)
• Herbert S. Parmet and Marie B. Hecht; Never Again: A President Runs for a Third Term 1968. the major scholarly study
• Peters, Charles. Five Days in Philadelphia: 1940, Wendell Willkie, and the Political Convention That Freed FDR to Win World War II (2006)
• Ross, Hugh. "John L. Lewis and the Election of 1940." Labor History 1976 17(2): 160-189. ISSN 0023-656X Fulltext at Ebsco. Abstract: The breach between John L. Lewis and Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 stemmed from domestic and foreign policy concerns. The struggle to organize the steel industry, and after 1938, business attempts to erode Walsh-Healy and the Fair Labor Standards Act provided the backdrop for the feud. But activities of Nazi agents, working through William Rhodes Davis, increased Lewis' suspicions of Roosevelt's interventionist foreign policy and were important in the decision to support Wendell Willkie.
• Schneider, James C. Should America Go to War? The Debate over Foreign Policy in Chicago, 1939-1941 (1989)

External links

• 1940 popular vote by counties

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