United States presidential election in Massachusetts, 1936

United States presidential election in Massachusetts, 1936

November 3, 1936

Nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt Alf Landon William Lemke Party Democratic Republican Union Home state New York Kansas North Dakota Running mate John N. Garner Frank Knox Thomas C. O'Brien Electoral vote 17 0 0 Popular vote 942,716 768,613 118,639 Percentage 51.2% 41.8% 6.5%

County Results   Roosevelt – 60–70%   Roosevelt – 50–60%   Roosevelt – <50%   Landon – <50%   Landon – 50–60%   Landon – 60–70%

President before election Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic Elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic

The 1936 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 3, 1936 as part of the 1936 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose 17 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice President.

Massachusetts voted for the Democratic nominee, incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York, over the Republican nominee, Governor Alf Landon of Kansas. Roosevelt ran with incumbent Vice President John Nance Garner of Texas, while Landon's running mate was newspaper publisher Frank Knox of Illinois. Also running that year was William Lemke of the short-lived Union Party, and his running mate Thomas C. O'Brien.

Roosevelt carried the state with 51.22% of the vote to Landon's 41.76%, a Democratic victory margin of 9.46%. Lemke came in third with 6.45%, while in a distant fourth was Socialist Norman Thomas with only 0.28%.

Once a typical Yankee Republican bastion in the wake of the Civil War, Massachusetts had been a Democratic-leaning state since 1928, when a coalition of Irish Catholic and other ethnic immigrant voters primarily based in urban areas turned Massachusetts and neighboring Rhode Island into New England's only reliably Democratic states. Massachusetts voted for Al Smith in 1928, and for Franklin Roosevelt in his national Democratic landslide of 1932. Roosevelt's 1936 victory thus marked the third straight win for the Democratic Party in Massachusetts, a state that had voted Democratic only once in its history prior to this series of consecutive Democratic wins.

However the state was still closely divided between the newly emerging Democratic majority coalition, and its traditional New England Republican roots, and consequently Massachusetts was one of FDR's weakest victories. As Roosevelt was re-elected nationally in a massive landslide, Massachusetts weighed in as about 15% more Republican than the national average. New England overall would be the only region where Landon was at all competitive; Landon's only victories in the entire nation were neighboring Vermont and Maine.

A contributing factor to Roosevelt's relative weakness in Massachusetts was the strong showing of William Lemke in the state. Lemke and his Union Party ran on a populist platform that appealed to many working class voters who would otherwise have been natural members of Roosevelt's New Deal coalition. While Lemke finished with only 1.95% nationally, in Massachusetts, Lemke received 6.45% of the vote, making Massachusetts his third strongest state in the nation.

Roosevelt and Landon would split the state's fourteen counties, winning 7 counties each. However Roosevelt won the most heavily populated parts of the state including the cities of Boston, Worcester, and Springfield, while most of Landon's wins were sparsely populated counties.

Results

United States presidential election in Massachusetts, 1936[1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Democratic	Franklin D. Roosevelt	942,716	51.22%	17
	Republican	Alf Landon	768,613	41.76%	0
	Union	William Lemke	118,639	6.45%	0
	Socialist	Norman Thomas	5,111	0.28%	0
	Communist	Earl Browder	2,930	0.16%	0
	Socialist Labor	John W. Aiken	1,305	0.07%	0
	Prohibition	D. Leigh Colvin	1,032	0.06%	0
	Write-ins	Write-ins	11	0.00%	0
Totals			1,840,357	100.00%	17

References

1. "1936 Presidential General Election Results - Massachusetts". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 2013-02-07.

See also