1940 United States presidential election

1940 United States presidential election

The 1940 U.S. presidential election was the 39th quadrennial presidential election.Incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican businessman Wendell Willkie to be reelected for an unprecedented third term in office. The election was contested in the shadow of World War II in Europe, as the United States was emerging from the Great Depression.

About 1940 United States presidential election in brief

Summary 1940 United States presidential electionThe 1940 U.S. presidential election was the 39th quadrennial presidential election.Incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican businessman Wendell Willkie to be reelected for an unprecedented third term in office. The election was contested in the shadow of World War II in Europe, as the United States was emerging from the Great Depression. Roosevelt did not want to campaign for a third term initially, but was driven by worsening conditions in Europe. He and his allies sought to defuse challenges from other party leaders such as James Farley and Vice President John Nance Garner. The 1940 Democratic National Convention re-nominated Roosevelt on the first ballot, while Garner was replaced on the ticket by Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace. Willkie, a dark horse candidate, defeated conservative Senator Robert A. Taft and prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey on the sixth presidential ballot of the 1940 Republican National Convention. Roosevelt led in all pre-election polls and won a comfortable victory; his margins, though still significant, were less decisive than they had been in 1932 and 1936. He maintained his strong support from labor unions, urban political machines, ethnic minority voters, and the traditionally Democratic Solid South, allowing Roosevelt to win a thirdterm. The two-term tradition, although not yet enshrined in the Constitution, had been established by George Washington when he refused to run for aThird term in 1796. Other former presidents, such as Ulysses S. Grant in 1880 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 had made serious attempts to run.

The former failed to be nominated, while the latter, forced to run on a third-party ticket, lost to Woodrow Wilson due to the split in the Republican vote. In 1940, William B. Bankhead of Alabama won the vice-presidential nomination with 626 votes to 329 for House Speaker William Bankhead. The Republican Party was deeply divided up to be the opening to the 1940 National Convention in Philadelphia, leading up to the opening of the Republican Party Convention in 1940. In the end, Roosevelt decided to pick a new running mate, Henry A Wallace, an outspoken liberal and an outspoken conservative who was too radical and in his private life to be an effective running mate. But Roosevelt insisted that without Wallace on theticket he would decline re-election. The Democratic Party’s political bosses, who feared that no Democrat except Roosevelt could defeat the popular Willkie. At the July 1940 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt easily swept aside challenges from Farley, who had turned in his second term because of his liberal economic and social policies. He was aided by the party’s political. bosses who feared no Democrat could defeat Willkie and wanted to ensure that Roosevelt would be re-elected as president for a second term. The party’s. political bosses feared no Democratic except Roosevelt would defeat thepopular Willkie; they wanted to make sure that Roosevelt was re- elected as president. The. Republican Party. was divided up up to being the leading party in the leading months of 1940.