1932 United States presidential election in Massachusetts

← 1928 November 8, 1932 1936 →
Turnout	69.5%[1] 4.5pp
Nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt Herbert Hoover Party Democratic Republican Home state New York California Running mate John Nance Garner Charles Curtis Electoral vote 17 0 Popular vote 800,148 736,959 Percentage 50.64% 46.64%
County results Municipality results Roosevelt   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80% Hoover   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90%   90–100%
President before election Herbert Hoover Republican Elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic

The1932 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 8, 1932, as part of the1932 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose 17 representatives, or electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.

Massachusetts voted for theDemocratic nominee,GovernorFranklin D. Roosevelt ofNew York, over theRepublican nominee, incumbentPresidentHerbert Hoover ofCalifornia. Roosevelt ran withSpeaker of the HouseJohn Nance Garner ofTexas, and Hoover ran with incumbentVice PresidentCharles Curtis ofKansas.

Roosevelt carried the state with 50.64% of the vote to Hoover's 46.64%, a Democratic victory margin of 4.00%.Socialist candidateNorman Thomas came in a distant third, with 2.17%. Massachusetts had once been a typical Yankee Republican bastion in the wake of theCivil War, voting Republican in every election from1856 until1924, except in1912, when former Republican PresidentTheodore Roosevelt had run as aProgressive candidate against incumbent Republican PresidentWilliam Howard Taft, splitting the Republican vote and allowing DemocratWoodrow Wilson to win Massachusetts with a plurality of only 35.53% of the vote.

In1920 and 1924, Republicans had carried Massachusetts by landslide margins, sweeping every county in the state, including a GOP victory in the city ofBoston. However, in1928, a coalition of Irish Catholic and other ethnic immigrant voters primarily based in urban areas turned out massively for Catholic DemocratAl Smith,^[2] making Massachusetts and neighboringRhode Island the only states outside of theSolid South to vote Democratic that year, as Herbert Hoover won a third consecutive Republican landslide nationally. After 1912, 1928 was only the second time in history that Massachusetts had voted Democratic, and with 50.24% of the vote, Al Smith became the first Democratic presidential candidate ever to win a majority of the vote in Massachusetts.

Although Roosevelt was not a Catholic, the key to his victory in Massachusetts in 1932 was building on Smith's winning coalition, and bringing ethnic Catholic voters into the broader Democratic coalition. With the embattled incumbent President Hoover failing to adequately address theGreat Depression, economic issues would motivate 1928 Smith voters to remain loyal to the Democrats in 1932. 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.New England as a whole was Hoover's most favorable region, giving him four of his six state victories. Although FDR performed much more strongly than Smith nationwide, he only slightly outperformed Smith in Massachusetts, and with the state weighing in as about 14% more Republican than the national average.

As Roosevelt won the state with the same coalition that had propelled Al Smith to victory four years earlier, the county map in 1932 remained the same as it was in 1928, with only percentages, margins, and turnout shifting. Roosevelt won the state despite carrying only 4 of the state's 14 counties. The most vital component to Roosevelt's victory was the Democratic dominance inSuffolk County, home to the state's capital and largest city,Boston. Like Smith, Roosevelt took over 60% of the vote in Suffolk County. Another crucial victory for Roosevelt was inHampden County, home to the city ofSpringfield. The remaining two counties that went to FDR wereBristol County, south of the Boston area, and ruralBerkshire County in the far west of the state. This is the most recent election in which the statewide winner did not carryEssex County.

• United States presidential elections in Massachusetts

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• United States presidential elections in Massachusetts
• 1932 Massachusetts elections

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