1940 United States presidential election
The U.S. presidential election of 1940 was fought in the shadow of World War II, which had started the previous September. Incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with tradition and ran for a third term, which became a major issue.
Nominations
Democratic Party nomination
Roosevelt dithered about whether to run for a third term, but there was strong Democratic support for it and he chose to accept the nomination.
At the national convention, he chose Henry A. Wallace, his Secretary of Agriculture, to be the vice-presidential nominee. Wallace, an outspoken liberal, was strenuously opposed by many at the convention, particularly the more conservative Southern Democrats.
Republican Party nomination
Long before the 1940 Republican National Convention, held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the three "main" candidates for the nomination were considered to be Senators Robert Taft of Ohio and Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan and Thomas E. Dewey, the "gangbusting" District Attorney from Manhattan. 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 nominee. Willkie, a former Democrat who had been a Roosevelt delegate at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, had been considered an unlikely choice. 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. They helped build a powerful grass roots network of supporters. The May 8 Gallup showed Dewey at 67% support among Republicans, followed by Vandenberg and Taft, with Willkie at 3%.
To isolationists Willkie seemed one of them, saying, "No man has the right to use the great powers of the Presidency to lead the people, indirectly, into war"; the next day headlines blared, "MUST AVOID WAR, WILLKIE DECLARES."
The Nazi's rapid blitz into France shook public opinion to its roots, even as Taft was telling a Kansas audience that America must concentrate on domestic issues to prevent the New Deal from using the international crisis to extend its powers at home. In New York Republican Congressman Hamilton Fish warned that Roosevelt had become Churchill's willing accomplice in leading his nation to war against Germany to make the world safe for international communism. He denied being an isolationist, saying he was actually a non-interventionist who wanted negotiated settlements of disputes rather than American involvement in foreign wars. Nevertheless, sympathy for the British was mounting daily. By mid-June, little over one week before the convention, Gallup reported Willkie was in second place with 17% as Dewey started slipping. Willkie was stumping the country getting the votes of businessmen and German-Americans. (His father was a German immigrant.) As the delegates were arriving at Philadelphia, . Gallup reported Willkie had surged to 29%, Dewey had slipped 5 more points to 47%, and Taft, Vandenberg and Hoover traled at 8, 8, and 6%.
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 convention itself, keynote speaker Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota announced 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 data not reported until after the convention: Willkie had pulled ahead among Republican voters by 44% to only 29% for the collapsing Dewey. On the first ballot no one came close to a majority. As delegates belonging to "favorite son" candidates were released, the incessant cries of "We want Willkie" inside the hall mirrored not only public opinion at home, but the political calculus inside the heads of the delegates. They decided Dewey was a loser, and Willkie could be the big winner in the fall. Finally, on the sixth ballot, he received a and won the nomination.
Having given little thought to who he would select as his vice-presidential nominee, Willkie left the decision to convention chairman Joe Martin, 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 and McNary was nominated by acclamation.
General election
Campaign
Willkie campaigned against the New Deal and the government's lack of military preparedness. During the election, Roosevelt preempted the military issue by expanding military contracts. Willkie then reversed his approach and accused Roosevelt of warmongering. On election day Roosevelt received 27 million votes to Willkie's 22 million, and in the Electoral College, Roosevelt defeated Willkie 449 to 82.
The election was held on November 5, 1940.
Results
| Presidential candidate | Party | Home state | Popular vote | Electoral vote |
Running mate | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Percentage | Vice-presidential candidate | Home state | Electoral vote | ||||
| 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 | 0 | |
| Other | 65,922 | 0.1% | — | Other | — | |||
| Total | 49,902,113 | 100% | 531 | 531 | ||||
| Needed to win | 266 | 266 | ||||||
Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. "1940 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved July 31, 2005. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 31, 2005. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
See also
References
- 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).
- S. Everett Gleason and William L. Langer; The Undeclared War, 1940-1941 1953 Policy toward war in Europe; pro FDR
- Jonas, Manfred. Isolationism in America, 1935-1941 (1966).
- Herbert S. Parmet and Marie B. Hecht; Never Again: A President Runs for a Third Term 1968.
- Schneider, James C. Should America Go to War? The Debate over Foreign Policy in Chicago, 1939-1941 (1989)
External links