United States presidential election in Massachusetts, 1940

United States presidential election in Massachusetts, 1940

November 5, 1940

Nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt Wendell Willkie Party Democratic Republican Home state New York Indiana Running mate Henry A. Wallace Charles L. McNary Electoral vote 17 0 Popular vote 1,076,522 939,700 Percentage 53.1% 46.4%

County Results   Roosevelt – 60–70%   Roosevelt – 50–60%   Willkie – 50–60%   Willkie – 60–70%

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

The 1940 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 5, 1940, as part of the 1940 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, corporate lawyer Wendell Willkie of Indiana. Roosevelt ran with Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace of Iowa, while Willkie's running mate was Senate Minority Leader Charles L. McNary of Oregon.

Roosevelt carried the state with 53.11% of the vote to Willkie's 46.36%, a Democratic victory margin of 6.75%.

As Roosevelt was re-elected nationally to an unprecedented third term, Massachusetts weighed in as about 3% more Republican than the national average.

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 landslides of 1932 and 1936. Roosevelt's 1940 victory thus marked the fourth 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.

Roosevelt and Willkie 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 Willkie's wins were sparsely populated counties.

Results

United States presidential election in Massachusetts, 1940[1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Democratic	Franklin D. Roosevelt	1,076,522	53.11%	17
	Republican	Wendell Willkie	939,700	46.36%	0
	Socialist	Norman Thomas	4,091	0.20%	0
	Communist	Earl Browder	3,806	0.19%	0
	Socialist Labor	John W. Aiken	1,492	0.07%	0
	Prohibition	Roger Babson	1,370	0.07%	0
	Write-ins	Write-ins	12	0.00%	0
Totals			2,026,993	100.00%	17

References

1. "1940 Presidential General Election Results - Massachusetts". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 2013-02-07.

See also