United States presidential election, 1936

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Presidential electoral votes by state.
Presidential electoral votes by state.

The U.S. presidential election of 1936 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.

Contents

[edit] Nominations

[edit] Democratic Party nomination

President Roosevelt faced only one primary opponent other than favorite sons. Henry S. 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 delegate swept the race in New Jersey and elsewhere. In other primaries, Breckinridge's best showing was his 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, Pennsylvania. The delegates unanimously renominated incumbents President Franklin Roosevelt and Vice President John Nance Garner. At FDR's request, the two-thirds rule, which had given the South a veto power, was repealed.

This was the first time in American history that an incumbent President had accepted a nomination in person.

[edit] Republican Party nomination

Although many candidates sought the Republican nomination, only two, Governor Landon and Senator Borah, were considered to be serious candidates. While favorite sons Knox, Warren, Green, and Day won their respective primaries, the 70-year-old Borah, a well-known progressive and "insurgent," carried 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:

[edit] Other nominations

Although 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, his bid was cut short when he was assassinated in September of 1935.

It was later revealed by historian and Long biographer T. Harry Williams that the senator 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) and William E. 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.

Father Coughlin, who had allied himself with Dr. Francis Townsend, a left-wing political activist who was pushing for the creation of an old-age pension system, and Rev. Gerald L.K. Smith, a well-known white nationalist 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.

[edit] General election

[edit] Campaign

The election was held on November 3, 1936 (except in Maine, where the election was held earlier).

This election is notable for the Literary Digest poll, which was based on 10 million questionnaires mailed to readers and potential readers; over two million were returned. The Literary Digest, which had correctly predicted the winner of the last 5 elections, announced in its October 31 issue that Landon would be the winner with 370 electoral votes. The cause of this mistake is believed to be due to improper sampling: more Republicans subscribed to the Literary Digest than Democrats.

That same year, George Gallup, an advertising executive who had begun a scientific poll, predicted that Roosevelt would win the election, based on a random sample of 5,000 people. He also predicted that the Literary Digest would mis-predict the results. His correct predictions made public opinion polling a critical element of elections for journalists and indeed for politicians.

Roosevelt won a landslide, carrying 46 of the 48 states and bringing in additional members of Congress. Roosevelt's 60.8% of the popular vote is the second-largest percentage in U.S. history after Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and his 98.5% of the electoral vote is the highest in two-party competition. Roosevelt won the second largest number of electoral votes in history. The Republicans seemed hopelessly doomed--but they recovered two years later.

The Electoral College results, in which Landon only won Maine and Vermont, inspired Democratic party chairman James Farley to amend the then-conventional political wisdom of "As Maine goes, so goes the country" into "As goes Maine, so goes Vermont."

[edit] 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 27,752,648 60.8% 523 John Nance Garner Texas 523
Alfred Mossman Landon Republican Kansas 16,681,862 36.5% 8 William Franklin 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% 0 Other 0
Total 45,647,699 100.0% 531 Total 531
Needed to win 266 Needed to win 266

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1936 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).

[edit] Bibliography

  • Kristi Andersen, The Creation of a Democratic Majority: 1928-1936 (1979), statistical
  • James McGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (1956)
  • Fadely, James Philip. "Editors, Whistle Stops, and Elephants: the Presidential Campaign of 1936 in Indiana." Indiana Magazine of History 1989 85(2): 101-137. Issn: 0019-6673
  • William E. Leuchtenburg, "Election of 1936", in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed., A History of American Presidential Elections vol 3 (1971), analysis and primary documents
  • Donald McCoy, Landon of Kansas (1968)
  • Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Politics of Upheaval (1960), online version

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Navigation

United States Presidential Elections
1789 • 1792 • 1796 • 1800 • 1804 • 1808 • 1812 • 1816 • 1820 • 1824 • 1828 • 1832 • 1836 • 1840 • 1844 • 1848 • 1852 • 1856 • 1860 • 1864 • 1868 • 1872 • 1876 • 1880 • 1884 • 1888 • 1892 • 1896 • 1900 • 1904 • 1908 • 1912 • 1916 • 1920 • 1924 • 1928 • 1932 • 1936 • 1940 • 1944 • 1948 • 1952 • 1956 • 1960 • 1964 • 1968 • 1972 • 1976 • 1980 • 1984 • 1988 • 1992 • 1996 • 2000 • 2004 • 2008 
See also: House • Senate • Governors
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../u/n/i/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1936_1ac5.html"
In other languages