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The 1936 United States presidential election was the 38th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1936. In the midst of the Great Depression, incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Governor Alf Landon of Kansas in a landslide.
- Overview
- Political atmosphere
- The nominations and campaign
United States presidential election of 1936, American presidential election held on November 3, 1936, in which Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt won reelection, defeating Republican Alf Landon.
(Read Eleanor Roosevelt’s Britannica essay on Franklin Roosevelt.)
Britannica Quiz
All-American History Quiz
In 1932, amid the Great Depression, Roosevelt had won a landslide victory over incumbent Herbert Hoover, ending 12 years of Republican rule. After assuming the office, he took quick and decisive action, pursuing the New Deal, a broad array of measures intended to achieve economic recovery, to provide relief to the millions of poor and unemployed, and to reform aspects of the economy that Roosevelt believed had caused the collapse. The measures, passed in his first hundred days in office, had produced a limited degree of recovery by the fall of 1934, and in that year’s midterm elections the Democrats built on their already substantial majorities. Although the New Deal had alienated conservatives, including many businessmen, most Americans supported Roosevelt’s programs.
Surmising that additional action was required, Roosevelt introduced a “Second New Deal” in 1935 that included the Social Security Act and the Works Progress Administration. In addition, the Democratic Congress also passed a major tax revision—labeled by its opponents as a “soak-the-rich” tax—that raised tax rates for persons with large incomes and for large corporations.
The Republicans were in disarray politically from their devastating loss in 1932. In 1936 they rallied at their national convention, held in Cleveland June 9–12, in favour of Landon, considered a moderate progressive, who won 984 of the 1,003 delegate votes. The delegates unanimously ratified Landon’s choice of running mate, Frank Knox, publisher of the Chicago Daily News and a critic of the New Deal (in a surprise, Knox would go on to be appointed in 1940 by Roosevelt as secretary of the U.S. Navy). The Republican platform was as much anti-Roosevelt as it was pro-Republican. It began:
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America is in peril. The welfare of American men and women and the future of our youth are at stake. We dedicate ourselves to the preservation of their political liberty, their individual opportunity and their character as free citizens, which today for the first time are threatened by Government itself.
For three long years the New Deal Administration has dishonored American traditions and flagrantly betrayed the pledges upon which the Democratic Party sought and received public support.
•The powers of Congress have been usurped by the President.
Results of the presidential election of 1936, won by Franklin D. Roosevelt with 523 electoral votes.
In the presidential election, incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election, defeating Republican Governor Alf Landon of Kansas. Roosevelt took every state but Vermont and Maine, winning with the fourth-largest electoral vote margin in American history.
Party Nominees: Electoral Vote: Popular Vote Presidential: Vice Presidential Democratic: Franklin D. Roosevelt: John Garner: 523: 98.5%: 27,750,866: 60.8%
PartyPartyNominees(presidential)Nominees(vice Presidential)STATETOTAL VOTEDemocraticDemocraticSTATETOTAL VOTEFRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELTFRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELTSTATETOTAL VOTEVotes%Alabama275,744238,19686.4Detailed national-level Presidential Election Results for 1936.
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The crushing defeat by Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt of his Republican challenger Alfred M. Landon in the presidential election of 1936 was a watershed in American politics.
