The American Presidential Election of 1940

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The 39th episode in a very long series about the American presidential elections from 1788 to the present. In 1940, FDR is still pretty darn popular, so he figures...why not?

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The 39th Presidential election in American history took place on November 5, 1940. The Great Depression dragged on, and now another world war was being fought all across Europe and in Asia. Franklin Roosevelt, or FDR, and remained popular despite the fact that his New Deal policies had becoming increasingly liberal, for lack of a better word, and despite the fact he tried to pack the Supreme Court so that more of his New Deal policies would not be struck down as unconstitutional.

While the economy had showed signs of recovering early in FDR’s second term, it suddenly went to crap again soon after that. Many former FDR supporters began to lose faith in him. Former allies were now enemies. Al Smith, for example, constantly criticized FDR and had even supported Alf Landon for the 1936 election.

After the court packing attempt, Vice President John Nance Garner turned against FDR, and said he would run in 1940. That didn’t seem to stop the majority of the country from supporting Roosevelt, which was why there were rumours that he might try for an unprecedented third term. FDR had told several people he had no intention of running again, as that would break the two-term tradition set by George Washington 144 years prior. His wife, Eleanor, said he shouldn’t do it.

At the Democratic National Convention, Garner and FDR’s former campaign manager and the Postmaster General James Farley were the two leading candidates for the nomination. But enough key people influenced the majority that only FDR could keep the New Deal policies going, and it was he who once again got the nomination, with Henry Wallace, the Secretary of Agriculture, as his running mate this time.

The Republican Party, who some said would die after the embarrassing defeat of Alf Landon in the 1936 presidential election, found new life when in 1938 they gained a lot of seats in Congress. The downturn of the economy certainly sparked this. By 1940, they thought they were ready to take FDR down.

Still, the party was divided between the interventionists, those who wanted to become more actively involved in what became known as World War II, and the non-interventionists, those who wanted to stay out of the war. Three Republican candidates stood out. Robert Taft, the son of former President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft and a Senator from Ohio, was a non-interventionist. Arthur Vandenberg, a Senator from Michigan, who leaned a bit non-interventionist, and Thomas Dewey, the District Attorney of New York county, who leaned a bit more interventionist than the other two but was still a non-interventionist. Dewey got the most votes early on but was criticized for his youth and lack of foreign policy experience.

All three candidates had weaknesses, actually, and only 300 of the 1,000 delegates had been pledged to a candidate by the time of the Republican National Convention. This left an opening for a dark horse. That dark horse had a really cool name. Wendell Willkie, a lawyer, businessman, and former Democrat who had never previously run for public office. Wilkie had a passionate core of supporters who won most the rest of the Republicans over. Interestingly enough, Wilkie was an interventionist. The Republicans nominated Charles McNary, the Senate Minority Leader, as his running mate, even though McNary had tried to block Willkie’s nomination at the convention.

No third parties stood out at all during this election.

Unlike Landon in 1936, Willkie went aggressively attacked FDR. While he was ok with having New Deal welfare programs, he talked trash about how they were poorly run and created great uncertainty for businesses. He argued the country was not prepared for war, yet, at the same time, Roosevelt was leading the country down the path to war. He also questioned why FDR was breaking the two-term presidential tradition to begin with.

However, Big Business was still mostly blamed at this time for the Depression, and Willkie couldn’t escape being associated with that. Because Willkie campaigned everywhere he could, sometimes he was heckled by crowds, and often had rotten fruit and vegetables thrown at him.