Elections with Incumbents: The Election of 1936
From 1932 to 1948 (both inclusive), incumbent Presidents would run for re-election. Alll but one were successful. The most successful of all was the only President to win four presidential elections, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (Sorry for the spoiler, but I think you already knew that.)
Roosevelt took office while the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in the country's history. Americans knew that they were hurting badly from the crisis. But they trusted their President to do his best and take action. During his first 100 days in office, Roosevelt quarterbacked unprecedented federal legislation and issued many executive orders that instituted what he termed "the New Deal". This was a collection of programs designed to produce relief and recovery, as well as reform of what he perceived to be broken with the system. He created programs to provide relief to the unemployed and farmers and also creared economic recovery programs such as the National Recovery Administration. He also instituted major regulatory reforms in the field of finance, communications, and labor, and presided over the end of Prohibition. He used radio to speak directly to the American people, giving what were called his "fireside chats" and he also became the first American president to be televised. Although the depression continued, the economy improved rapidly from 1933 to 1936 and Americans gave the credit for this to their President. The New Deal policies he had already enacted, such as Social Security and unemployment benefits, had proven to be highly popular with most Americans, so popular in fact that even many Republicans supported them.
In 1936, for the Republican Party, it wasn't so much as if they were selecting a presidential candidate, it was more like they were selecting a sacrificial lamb. The Great Depression was beginning its eighth year and much of the population still blamed the Republicans, who had been in power for three terms leading into the depression. They especially blamed Herbert Hoover, the last Republican president and the man who was still hoping to wield influence in the party.
Roosevelt faced only token resistance in his own nomination fight. Henry Skillman Breckinridge, an anti-New Deal lawyer from New York, ran against Roosevelt in four primaries. Breckinridge's opposition to Roosevelt's "New Deal" failed miserably. Breckinridge's best showing was 15% in Maryland. Overall, Roosevelt received 93% of the primary vote, and Breckinridge received only 2%. When the Democratic Party held its convention in Philadelphia between July 23 and 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.
Despite the unlikelihood of victory, a number of candidates sought the Republican Party nomination for President. Potential candidates included future Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft, New York Congressman James W. Wadsworth, Jr., Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg, Iowa Senator Lester Dickinson, New York Congressman Hamilton Fish III, New Jersey Governor Harold Hoffman, Delaware Governor C. Douglass Buck, Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, Michigan Auto magnate Henry Ford, aviator Charles Lindbergh, former President Hoover, Oregon Senator Frederick Steiwer, Senate Minority Leader Charles McNary, former Treasury Secretary Ogden L. Mills and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., cousin of the current president. Ultimately however, all of these men would withdraw from consideration, either because they lacked sufficient support and means to merit serious consideration for the nomination or because they viewed the incumbent president as too formidable.
By the time the Republican convention came around, only five candidates remained. Among these, the leading contenders were Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, Senator William Borah of Idaho and Publisher Frank Knox of Illinois. Republicans held primaries in twelve states. Landon scored victories in Massachusetts and New Jersey, but lost his neighboring state of Nebraska to Borah, who also won in Oregon, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Knox won his home state of Illinois and also in New Hampshire. Two "favorite son" candidates, Governor Warren Green of South Dakota and lawyer Steven Day of Ohio, won the primaries in their home states.
Borah was 71 years of age at the time and was at odds with much of the party establishment. He had not supported Hoover in the 1932 election and would not support his party's candidate in 1936. The party establishment backed Landon, a wealthy businessman and centrist. Landon's campaign manager John Hamilton mobilized the younger elements of the party against the faction led by Herbert Hoover. Hoover's choice was Knox. When it became apparent that Landon had the support of most of the party, a "Stop Landon" coalition was formed a coalition led by Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg, and which included Borah and Knox. But the movement failed and Landon was nominated overwhelmingly on the first ballot by a vote of 984 (for Landon) to 19 (for Borah). Knox had withdrawn from the race, and had agreed to run as Landon's running mate. A petulant Borah complained, "Unless the Republican party is delivered from its reactionary leadership and reorganized in accord with its one-time liberal principles, it will die like the Whig party of sheer political cowardice. The people are offered the Constitution. But the people can't eat the Constitution."
Landon proved to be an ineffective campaigner who spent little time on the road. Most of his attacks on FDR and Social Security were developed by Republican campaigners, and not by Landon himself. Personally, he actually liked many of the aspects of the New Deal, which were beneficial to his state. In the two months after his nomination he didn't make any campaign appearances. This prompted columnist Westbrook Pegler to wryly observe, "Considerable mystery surrounds the disappearance of Alfred M. Landon of Topeka, Kansas. The Missing Persons Bureau has sent out an alarm bulletin bearing Mr. Landon's photograph and other particulars, and anyone having information of his whereabouts is asked to communicate direct with the Republican National Committee."
Personally. Landon respected and admired Roosevelt and bore him no personal animosity. His only complaint about much of the New Deal legislation was that it was hostile to business and involved too much waste and inefficiency. But late in the campaign, Landon changed tactics and began to attack the President in his rhetoric. He accused Roosevelt of becoming so powerful that he was subverting the Constitution. In one campaign address, Landon told his audience:
"The President spoke truly when he boasted 'We have built up new instruments of public power.' He spoke truly when he said these instruments could provide 'shackles for the liberties of the people and enslavement for the public'. These powers were granted with the understanding that they were only temporary. But after the powers had been obtained, and after the emergency was clearly over, we were told that another emergency would be created if the power was given up. In other words, the concentration of power in the hands of the President was not a question of temporary emergency. It was a question of permanent national policy. In my opinion the emergency of 1933 was a mere excuse. 'National economic planning', the term used by this Administration to describe its policy, violates the basic ideals of the American system. The price of economic planning is the loss of economic freedom. And economic freedom and personal liberty go hand in hand."
For a time, the election appeared closer than it actually turned out. The Literary Digest, a magazine, ran a poll, which was based on 10 million questionnaires mailed to readers and potential readers. Of these, 2.3 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. This turned out to be horribly incorrect. The poll demonstrated the problems with erroneous polling methodology. More Republicans subscribed to the Literary Digest than Democrats, skewing the results. Also, the Literary Digest relied on voluntary responses. In another poll taken that year, pollster George Gallup, an advertising executive, predicted that Roosevelt would win the election, based on a quota sample of 50,000 people. He also predicted that the Literary Digest prediction would be wrong. His accuracy would cause the Gallup Poll to become a staple of future presidential elections.
The election was in essence a referendum on the New Deal. Voters showed a strong preference to the "hands on" approach of Roosevelt over the "let the market correct itself" approach of his Republican predecessor Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt won by a landslide, carrying 46 of the 48 states and bringing in many additional Democratic members of Congress. He won every state except for Maine and Vermont. 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.
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. No major-party candidate has won so few electoral votes since this election.
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, although they were not able to win the presidency again until 1952.
Roosevelt took office while the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in the country's history. Americans knew that they were hurting badly from the crisis. But they trusted their President to do his best and take action. During his first 100 days in office, Roosevelt quarterbacked unprecedented federal legislation and issued many executive orders that instituted what he termed "the New Deal". This was a collection of programs designed to produce relief and recovery, as well as reform of what he perceived to be broken with the system. He created programs to provide relief to the unemployed and farmers and also creared economic recovery programs such as the National Recovery Administration. He also instituted major regulatory reforms in the field of finance, communications, and labor, and presided over the end of Prohibition. He used radio to speak directly to the American people, giving what were called his "fireside chats" and he also became the first American president to be televised. Although the depression continued, the economy improved rapidly from 1933 to 1936 and Americans gave the credit for this to their President. The New Deal policies he had already enacted, such as Social Security and unemployment benefits, had proven to be highly popular with most Americans, so popular in fact that even many Republicans supported them.
In 1936, for the Republican Party, it wasn't so much as if they were selecting a presidential candidate, it was more like they were selecting a sacrificial lamb. The Great Depression was beginning its eighth year and much of the population still blamed the Republicans, who had been in power for three terms leading into the depression. They especially blamed Herbert Hoover, the last Republican president and the man who was still hoping to wield influence in the party.
Roosevelt faced only token resistance in his own nomination fight. Henry Skillman Breckinridge, an anti-New Deal lawyer from New York, ran against Roosevelt in four primaries. Breckinridge's opposition to Roosevelt's "New Deal" failed miserably. Breckinridge's best showing was 15% in Maryland. Overall, Roosevelt received 93% of the primary vote, and Breckinridge received only 2%. When the Democratic Party held its convention in Philadelphia between July 23 and 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.
Despite the unlikelihood of victory, a number of candidates sought the Republican Party nomination for President. Potential candidates included future Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft, New York Congressman James W. Wadsworth, Jr., Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg, Iowa Senator Lester Dickinson, New York Congressman Hamilton Fish III, New Jersey Governor Harold Hoffman, Delaware Governor C. Douglass Buck, Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, Michigan Auto magnate Henry Ford, aviator Charles Lindbergh, former President Hoover, Oregon Senator Frederick Steiwer, Senate Minority Leader Charles McNary, former Treasury Secretary Ogden L. Mills and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., cousin of the current president. Ultimately however, all of these men would withdraw from consideration, either because they lacked sufficient support and means to merit serious consideration for the nomination or because they viewed the incumbent president as too formidable.
By the time the Republican convention came around, only five candidates remained. Among these, the leading contenders were Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, Senator William Borah of Idaho and Publisher Frank Knox of Illinois. Republicans held primaries in twelve states. Landon scored victories in Massachusetts and New Jersey, but lost his neighboring state of Nebraska to Borah, who also won in Oregon, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Knox won his home state of Illinois and also in New Hampshire. Two "favorite son" candidates, Governor Warren Green of South Dakota and lawyer Steven Day of Ohio, won the primaries in their home states.
Borah was 71 years of age at the time and was at odds with much of the party establishment. He had not supported Hoover in the 1932 election and would not support his party's candidate in 1936. The party establishment backed Landon, a wealthy businessman and centrist. Landon's campaign manager John Hamilton mobilized the younger elements of the party against the faction led by Herbert Hoover. Hoover's choice was Knox. When it became apparent that Landon had the support of most of the party, a "Stop Landon" coalition was formed a coalition led by Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg, and which included Borah and Knox. But the movement failed and Landon was nominated overwhelmingly on the first ballot by a vote of 984 (for Landon) to 19 (for Borah). Knox had withdrawn from the race, and had agreed to run as Landon's running mate. A petulant Borah complained, "Unless the Republican party is delivered from its reactionary leadership and reorganized in accord with its one-time liberal principles, it will die like the Whig party of sheer political cowardice. The people are offered the Constitution. But the people can't eat the Constitution."
Landon proved to be an ineffective campaigner who spent little time on the road. Most of his attacks on FDR and Social Security were developed by Republican campaigners, and not by Landon himself. Personally, he actually liked many of the aspects of the New Deal, which were beneficial to his state. In the two months after his nomination he didn't make any campaign appearances. This prompted columnist Westbrook Pegler to wryly observe, "Considerable mystery surrounds the disappearance of Alfred M. Landon of Topeka, Kansas. The Missing Persons Bureau has sent out an alarm bulletin bearing Mr. Landon's photograph and other particulars, and anyone having information of his whereabouts is asked to communicate direct with the Republican National Committee."
Personally. Landon respected and admired Roosevelt and bore him no personal animosity. His only complaint about much of the New Deal legislation was that it was hostile to business and involved too much waste and inefficiency. But late in the campaign, Landon changed tactics and began to attack the President in his rhetoric. He accused Roosevelt of becoming so powerful that he was subverting the Constitution. In one campaign address, Landon told his audience:
"The President spoke truly when he boasted 'We have built up new instruments of public power.' He spoke truly when he said these instruments could provide 'shackles for the liberties of the people and enslavement for the public'. These powers were granted with the understanding that they were only temporary. But after the powers had been obtained, and after the emergency was clearly over, we were told that another emergency would be created if the power was given up. In other words, the concentration of power in the hands of the President was not a question of temporary emergency. It was a question of permanent national policy. In my opinion the emergency of 1933 was a mere excuse. 'National economic planning', the term used by this Administration to describe its policy, violates the basic ideals of the American system. The price of economic planning is the loss of economic freedom. And economic freedom and personal liberty go hand in hand."
For a time, the election appeared closer than it actually turned out. The Literary Digest, a magazine, ran a poll, which was based on 10 million questionnaires mailed to readers and potential readers. Of these, 2.3 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. This turned out to be horribly incorrect. The poll demonstrated the problems with erroneous polling methodology. More Republicans subscribed to the Literary Digest than Democrats, skewing the results. Also, the Literary Digest relied on voluntary responses. In another poll taken that year, pollster George Gallup, an advertising executive, predicted that Roosevelt would win the election, based on a quota sample of 50,000 people. He also predicted that the Literary Digest prediction would be wrong. His accuracy would cause the Gallup Poll to become a staple of future presidential elections.
The election was in essence a referendum on the New Deal. Voters showed a strong preference to the "hands on" approach of Roosevelt over the "let the market correct itself" approach of his Republican predecessor Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt won by a landslide, carrying 46 of the 48 states and bringing in many additional Democratic members of Congress. He won every state except for Maine and Vermont. 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.
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. No major-party candidate has won so few electoral votes since this election.
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, although they were not able to win the presidency again until 1952.