May 30, 2007
FDR’s Electoral Margins Posted by John Steele Gordon at 03:30 PM EST In his recent post on television news, Fredric Smoler wrote, “The newspapers were steadily more anti-FDR between 1932 and 1944. He won his elections by steadily larger margins.” Actually, FDR had his best election in 1936. In 1932 he won 59 percent of the vote; in 1936, 62.6 percent; in 1940, 55 percent; and in 1944, 53.6 percent. (I’m ignoring minor parties.) But I suspect the newspapers were of marginal influence, at least after 1932, as everyone “knew” Roosevelt and knew what they thought about him. I would guess that his drop in 1940 was largely due to people who disapproved of a third term and came out to vote for Wendell Willkie, whose popular vote total was much larger than Alf Landon’s had been (22.3 million to 16.7 million), while Roosevelt’s popular vote was down slightly from 1936 (27.8 in 1936, 27.3 in 1940). FDR’s vote was down again in 1944 (25.6 million), while Dewey’s was slightly down from Willkie’s (22.1 million). The 1944 vote was surely affected by millions being overseas.
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