1936 United States presidential election

United States presidential election, 1936
	Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Landon/Knox, Blue denotes those won by Roosevelt/Garner. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
President before election; Franklin D. Roosevelt; Democratic	Elected President ; Franklin D. Roosevelt; Democratic

The United States presidential election of 1936 was the most lopsided presidential election in the history of the United States in terms of electoral votes. In terms of the popular vote, it was the third biggest victory since the election of 1820, which was not seriously contested.

The election took place as the Great Depression entered its eighth year. Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt was still working to push the provisions of his New Deal economic policy through Congress and the courts. However, the New Deal policies he had already enacted, such as Social Security and unemployment benefits, had proven to be highly popular with most Americans. Roosevelt's Republican opponent was Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, a political moderate.

Although some political pundits predicted a close race, Roosevelt went on to win the greatest electoral landslide since the beginning of the current two-party system in the 1850s, carrying all but 8 electoral votes. Roosevelt carried every state except Maine and Vermont.

By winning 523 electoral votes, Roosevelt received 98.49% of the electoral vote, the highest percentage since 1820. Roosevelt also won the largest number of electoral votes ever recorded at that time, so far only surpassed by Ronald Reagan in the 1984 election, when 7 more electoral votes were available. In addition, Roosevelt won 60.8% of the national popular vote, the second highest popular-vote percentage won since 1820.

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

The 1936 Republican National Convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio, between June 9 and June 12. Although many candidates sought the Republican nomination, only two, Governor Landon and Senator Borah, were considered to be serious candidates. While favorite sons County Attorney Earl Warren of California, Governor Warren Green of South Dakota, and Stephen A. Day of Ohio won their respective primaries, the 70-year-old Borah, a well-known progressive and "insurgent," won the Wisconsin, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Oregon primaries, while also performing quite strongly in Knox's Illinois and Green's South Dakota. However, the party machinery almost uniformly backed Landon, a wealthy businessman and centrist, who won primaries in Massachusetts and New Jersey and dominated in the caucuses and at state party conventions.

With Knox withdrawing as Landon's selection for vice-president and Day, Green, and Warren releasing their delegates, the tally at the convention was:

Alfred Landon 984
William Borah 19

Democratic Party nomination

President Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York
Former Assistant Secretary of War Henry Skillman Breckinridge of New York

President Franklin D. Roosevelt faced only one primary opponent other than various favorite sons. Henry Skillman Breckinridge, an anti-New Deal lawyer from New York, filed to run against Roosevelt in four primaries. Breckinridge's test of the popularity of the New Deal among Democrats failed, as he lost by wide margins. In New Jersey, President Roosevelt did not file for the preference vote and lost that primary to Breckinridge, though he did receive 19% of the vote on write-ins. Roosevelt's candidates for delegates swept the race in New Jersey and elsewhere. In other primaries, Breckinridge's best showing was 15% in Maryland. Overall, Roosevelt received 93% of the primary vote, compared to 2% for Breckinridge.^[1]

The Democratic Party Convention was held in Philadelphia between July 23 and July 27. The delegates unanimously re-nominated incumbents President Roosevelt and Vice-President John Nance Garner. At Roosevelt's request, the two-thirds rule, which had given the South a veto power, was repealed.

The Balloting
Presidential Ballot		Vice Presidential Ballot
Franklin D. Roosevelt	1100	John Nance Garner	1100

Other nominations

Many people expected Huey Long, the colorful Democratic senator from Louisiana, to run as a third-party candidate with his "Share Our Wealth" program as his platform. However, he was assassinated in September 1935. It was later revealed by historian and Long biographer T. Harry Williams that Long had never, in fact, intended to run for the presidency in 1936. Instead, he had been plotting with Father Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest and populist talk radio personality, to run someone else on the soon-to-be-formed "Share Our Wealth" Party ticket. According to Williams, the idea was that this candidate would split the left-wing vote with President Roosevelt, thereby electing a Republican president and proving the electoral appeal of SOW. Long would then wait four years and run for president as a Democrat in 1940.

Prior to Long's death, leading contenders for the role of the sacrificial 1936 candidate included Senators Burton K. Wheeler (D-Montana) William Edgar Borah (R-Idaho), and Governor Floyd B. Olson (FL-Minnesota). After the assassination, however, the two senators lost interest in the idea and Olson was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer.

Charles Coughlin, having allied himself with Francis Townsend, an activist who was pushing for the creation of an old-age pension system, and Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith, a well-known white supremacist and spokesman for the Christian Right, was eventually forced to run Congressman William Lemke (R-North Dakota) as the candidate of the newly-created "Union Party". Lemke, who lacked the charisma and national stature of the other potential candidates, fared poorly in the election, barely managing 2% of the vote, and the party was dissolved the following year.

William Dudley Pelley, Chief of the Silver Shirts Legion, ran on the ballot in Washington state, managing to secure less than 2,000 votes.

General election

Campaign

Election results by county.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Alf Landon

The election was held on November 3, 1936.

The 1936 poll showed that the Republican governor of Kansas, Alf Landon, would likely be the overwhelming winner.^[2] This seemed possible to some, as the Republicans had fared well in Maine, where the congressional and gubernatorial elections were then held in September, as opposed to the rest of the nation, where these elections were held in November along with the presidential election, as they are today. This seemed especially likely in light of the conventional wisdom, "As Maine goes, so goes the nation", a truism coined because Maine was regarded as a "bellwether" state which usually supported the winning candidate's party. However, only 24% of those sureveyed answered, and the magazine's readership was mainly wealthy people, who were more likely to be pro-Landon.

That same year, George Gallup, an advertising executive who had begun a scientific poll, predicted that Roosevelt would win the election, based on a quota sample of 50,000 people. He also predicted that the Literary Digest would be wrong. His correct predictions made public opinion polling a critical element of elections for journalists and indeed for politicians. The Gallup Poll would become a staple of future presidential elections and remains one of the most prominent election polling organizations to this day.

Results

Roosevelt won by a landslide, carrying 46 of the 48 states and bringing in many additional Democratic members of Congress. After fellow Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson's 61.1% share of the popular vote in 1964, Roosevelt's 60.8% is the second-largest percentage in U.S. history since the nearly unopposed election of James Monroe in 1820, and his 98.5% of the electoral vote is the highest in two-party competition. Roosevelt won the largest number of electoral votes ever recorded at that time, so far only surpassed by Ronald Reagan in 1984, when 7 more electoral votes were available. Landon became the second official major-party candidate since the current system was established to win fewer than ten electoral votes; in fact, he tied fellow Republican William Taft, who won 8 votes in his 1912 re-election campaign. No major-party candidate has won so few electoral votes since this election; the closest anyone has come since was Reagan's 1984 opponent, Walter Mondale, who only won 13 votes.

Some political pundits predicted the Republicans, whom many voters blamed for the Great Depression, would soon become an extinct political party. However, the Republicans would make a strong comeback in the 1938 congressional elections and would remain a potent force in Congress, although they were not able to win the presidency again until 1952.

The Electoral College results, in which Landon only won Maine and Vermont, inspired Democratic Party chairman James Farley, who had in fact declared during the campaign that FDR was to lose only these two states, to amend the then-conventional political wisdom of "As Maine goes, so goes the nation" into "As goes Maine, so goes Vermont." Additionally, a prankster posted a sign on Vermont's border with New Hampshire the day after the 1936 election, reading: "You are now leaving the United States." Some of Roosevelt's advisers even joked that America's fiscal woes might be best solved if he offered to sell Vermont and Maine to Canada.

As of 2008, even after many years as a classic "blue" state that usually supports Democratic presidential candidates, Vermont has voted for more Republican presidential nominees than any other state. From 1856 through 1960, Vermont gave the state's electoral votes to the Republican Party nominee in every presidential election. No other state has voted so many times in a row for major candidates of the same political party. Maine also held a similar political record. From 1856 through 1960, Maine voted for the Republican candidate in every presidential election but one (in 1912, the state gave Democrat Woodrow Wilson a plurality with 39.43% of the vote). Another state that had been reliably Republican for a very long time up to 1936 was Pennsylvania. Roosevelt was the first Democrat to carry Pennsylvania since "favorite son" James Buchanan did so in 1856.

Electoral results
Presidential candidate	Party	Home state	Popular vote		Electoral vote	Running mate
Presidential candidate	Party	Home state	Count	Percentage	Electoral vote	Vice-presidential candidate	Home state	Electoral vote
Franklin D. Roosevelt	Democratic	New York	27,752,648	60.8%	523	John Nance Garner	Texas	523
Alf Landon	Republican	Kansas	16,681,862	36.5%	8	Frank Knox	Illinois	8
William Lemke	Union	North Dakota	892,378	2.0%	0	Thomas C. O'Brien	Massachusetts	0
Norman Thomas	Socialist	New York	187,910	0.4%	0	George A. Nelson	Wisconsin	0
Earl Browder	Communist	Kansas	79,315	0.2%	0	James W. Ford	New York	0
Other			53,586	0.1%	—	Other		—
Total			45,647,699	100%	531			531
Needed to win					266			266

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. "1936 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved July 31, 2005.

Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 31, 2005.

Results by state

		Franklin Roosevelt Democratic			Alfred Landon Republican			William Lemke Union			Other			State Total
State	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#	%	electoral votes	#
Alabama	11	238,136	86.4	11	35,358	12.8	-	551	0.2	-	1,639	0.6	-	275,244	AL
Arizona	3	86,722	69.9	3	33,433	26.9	-	3,307	2.7	-	701	0.6	-	124,163	AZ
Arkansas	9	146,765	81.8	9	32,039	17.9	-	4	0.0	-	615	0.3	-	179,423	AR
California	22	1,766,836	67.0	22	836,431	31.7	-	not on ballot			35,615	1.4	-	2,638,882	CA
Colorado	6	295,021	60.4	6	181,267	37.1	-	9,962	2.0	-	2,434	0.5	-	488,684	CO
Connecticut	8	382,129	55.3	8	278,685	40.4	-	21,805	3.2	-	8,104	1.2	-	690,723	CT
Delaware	3	69,702	54.6	3	57,236	44.9	-	442	0.4	-	223	0.2	-	127,603	DE
Florida	7	249,117	76.1	7	78,248	23.9	-	not on ballot						327,365	FL
Georgia	12	255,364	87.1	12	36,942	12.6	-	141	0.1	-	728	0.3	-	293,175	GA
Idaho	4	125,683	63.0	4	66,256	33.2	-	7,678	3.9	-	not on ballot			199,617	ID
Illinois	29	2,282,999	57.7	29	1,570,393	39.7	-	89,439	2.3	-	13,691	0.4	-	3,956,522	IL
Indiana	14	934,974	56.6	14	691,570	41.9	-	19,407	1.2	-	4,946	0.3	-	1,650,897	IN
Iowa	11	621,756	54.4	11	487,977	42.7	-	29,687	2.6	-	3,313	0.3	-	1,142,733	IA
Kansas	9	464,520	53.7	9	397,727	46.0	-	497	0.1	-	2,770	0.3	-	865,014	KS
Kentucky	11	541,944	58.5	11	369,702	39.9	-	12,501	1.4	-	2,056	0.2	-	926,203	KY
Louisiana	10	292,894	88.8	10	36,791	11.2	-	not on ballot			93	0.0	-	329,778	LA
Maine	5	126,333	41.5	-	168,823	55.5	5	7,581	2.5	-	1,503	0.5	-	304,240	ME
Maryland	8	389,612	62.4	8	231,435	37.0	-	not on ballot			3,849	0.6	-	624,896	MD
Massachusetts	17	942,716	51.2	17	768,613	41.8	-	118,639	6.5	-	10,389	0.6	-	1,840,357	MA
Michigan	19	1,016,794	56.3	19	699,733	38.8	-	75,795	4.2	-	12,776	0.7	-	1,805,098	MI
Minnesota	11	698,811	61.8	11	350,461	31.0	-	74,296	6.6	-	6,407	0.6	-	1,129,975	MN
Mississippi	9	157,318	97.1	9	4,443	2.7	-	not on ballot			329	0.2	-	162,090	MS
Missouri	15	1,111,043	60.8	15	697,891	38.2	-	14,630	0.8	-	5,071	0.3	-	1,828,635	MO
Montana	4	159,690	69.3	4	63,598	27.6	-	5,549	2.4	-	1,675	0.7	-	230,512	MT
Nebraska	7	347,445	57.1	7	247,731	40.7	-	12,847	2.1	-	not on ballot			608,023	NE
Nevada	3	31,925	72.8	3	11,923	27.2	-	not on ballot						43,848	NV
New Hampshire	4	108,460	49.7	4	104,642	48.0	-	4,819	2.2	-	193	0.1	-	218,114	NH
New Jersey	16	1,083,549	59.6	16	719,421	39.6	-	9,405	0.5	-	6,752	0.4	-	1,819,127	NJ
New Mexico	3	106,037	62.7	3	61,727	36.5	-	924	0.6	-	448	0.3	-	169,176	NM
New York	47	3,293,222	58.9	47	2,180,670	39.0	-	not on ballot			122,506	2.2	-	5,596,398	NY
North Carolina	13	616,141	73.4	13	223,283	26.6	-	2	0.0	-	38	0.0	-	839,464	NC
North Dakota	4	163,148	59.6	4	72,751	26.6	-	36,708	13.4	-	1,109	0.4	-	273,716	ND
Ohio	26	1,747,140	58.0	26	1,127,855	37.4	-	132,212	4.4	-	5,382	0.2	-	3,012,589	OH
Oklahoma	11	501,069	66.8	11	245,122	32.7	-	not on ballot			3,549	0.5	-	749,740	OK
Oregon	5	266,733	64.4	5	122,706	29.6	-	21,831	5.3	-	2,751	0.7	-	414,021	OR
Pennsylvania	36	2,353,987	56.9	36	1,690,200	40.8	-	67,468	1.6	-	26,771	0.7	-	4,138,426	PA
Rhode Island	4	165,238	53.1	4	125,031	40.2	-	19,569	6.3	-	1,340	0.4	-	311,178	RI
South Carolina	8	113,791	98.6	8	1,646	1.4	-	not on ballot						115,437	SC
South Dakota	4	160,137	54.0	4	125,977	42.5	-	10,338	3.5	-	not on ballot			296,472	SD
Tennessee	11	328,083	68.9	11	146,520	30.8	-	296	0.1	-	1,639	0.3	-	476,538	TN
Texas	23	734,485	87.1	23	103,874	12.3	-	3,281	0.4	-	1,842	0.2	-	843,482	TX
Utah	4	150,246	69.3	4	64,555	29.8	-	1,121	0.5	-	755	0.4	-	216,677	UT
Vermont	3	62,124	43.2	-	81,023	56.4	3	not on ballot			542	0.4	-	143,689	VT
Virginia	11	234,980	70.2	11	98,336	29.4	-	233	0.1	-	1,041	0.3	-	334,590	VA
Washington	8	459,579	66.4	8	206,892	29.9	-	17,463	2.5	-	8,404	1.2	-	692,338	WA
West Virginia	8	502,582	60.6	8	325,358	39.2	-	not on ballot			2,005	0.2	-	829,945	WV
Wisconsin	12	802,984	63.8	12	380,828	30.3	-	60,297	4.8	-	14,451	1.1	-	1,258,560	WI
Wyoming	3	62,624	60.6	3	38,739	37.5	-	1,653	1.6	-	366	0.4	-	103,382	WY
TOTALS:	531	27,752,648	60.8	523	16,681,862	36.5	8	892,378	2.0	-	320,811	0.7	-	45,647,699
TO WIN:	266

Close states

New Hampshire, 1.75%

References

^ Our Campaigns - US President - D Primaries Race - Feb 01, 1936
^ Straw Vote Fight Arouses Interest The Pittsburgh Press; November 2, 1936

External links

1936 popular vote by counties
How close was the 1936 election? — Michael Sheppard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

[1] Our Campaigns - US President - D Primaries Race - Feb 01, 1936

[2] Straw Vote Fight Arouses Interest The Pittsburgh Press; November 2, 1936

[1]

[2]

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