 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 75.9%[1] 6.4pp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 County results Municipality results
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The1936 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 3, 1936, as part of the1936 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, incumbentPresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt ofNew York, over theRepublican nominee,GovernorAlf Landon ofKansas. Roosevelt ran with incumbentVice PresidentJohn Nance Garner ofTexas, while Landon's running mate was newspaper publisherFrank Knox ofIllinois. Also running that year wasWilliam Lemke of the short-livedUnion Party, and his running mateThomas 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 wasSocialistNorman Thomas with only 0.28%. Massachusetts weighed in as about 14.8% more Republican than the nation.
In the Jacksonian era, Massachusetts had been a typically Whig state, and after the founding of the Republican Party, it transitioned to being a bastion of Yankee Republicanism. In 1928, withAl Smith heading the Democratic ticket, a coalition of Irish Catholic and other ethnic immigrant voters primarily based in urban areas flipped Massachusetts and neighboring Rhode Island Democratic for the first time since before the Civil War (or, in Massachusetts' case, ever), leaving aside Wilson's low plurality wins in these states in the three-way race of 1912.[2]
However, Massachusetts trended hard towards Hoover in 1932, giving Roosevelt only a four-point win despite having voted for Smith four years earlier, displaying something of a 'snapback'[3] to its traditional New England Republican roots. As Roosevelt was re-elected nationally in a massive landslide, Massachusetts remained well to the right of the nation overall. Whereas pre-New Deal Republicans from south and west of theHudson showed very little loyalty to their old party following the Depression, in New England, Republicans became galvanized to slow FDR's expansion of the public sector.[4]
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 might otherwise have been natural members of Roosevelt'sNew Deal coalition. While Lemke finished with only 1.95 percent nationally, in Massachusetts, Lemke received 6.45 percent of the vote, making Massachusetts his third strongest state in the nation. Lemke fared particularly well in poor Catholic precincts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where he even outpolled Landon in all Irish neighborhoods saveBrighton. In the poorest Irish neighborhoods,[5] Lemke reached over 16 percent of the vote; in contrast he received less than his national average in Boston's richest precincts.[5]
This is the last election in which the towns ofDana,Enfield,Greenwich, andPrescott voted in a presidential election as they were disincorporated in 1938 due to the construction of theQuabbin Reservoir and all their territory was absorbed into surrounding towns
| 1936 United States presidential election in Massachusetts[6] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Democratic | Franklin D. Roosevelt (inc.) | 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 | ||
| County | Franklin D Roosevelt Democratic | Alf Landon Republican | William Lemke Union | Various candidates Other parties | Margin | Total votes cast[7] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Barnstable | 4,751 | 28.82% | 11,337 | 68.77% | 310 | 1.88% | 87 | 0.53% | -6,586 | -39.95% | 16,485 |
| Berkshire | 29,087 | 54.30% | 22,607 | 42.20% | 1,571 | 2.93% | 303 | 0.57% | 6,480 | 12.10% | 53,568 |
| Bristol | 80,805 | 57.25% | 49,754 | 35.25% | 9,765 | 6.92% | 821 | 0.58% | 31,051 | 22.00% | 141,145 |
| Dukes | 931 | 35.60% | 1,655 | 63.29% | 19 | 0.73% | 10 | 0.38% | -724 | -27.69% | 2,615 |
| Essex | 106,078 | 47.57% | 97,310 | 43.64% | 18,176 | 8.15% | 1,435 | 0.64% | 8,768 | 3.93% | 222,999 |
| Franklin | 9,324 | 39.31% | 13,756 | 57.99% | 515 | 2.17% | 126 | 0.53% | -4,432 | -18.68% | 23,721 |
| Hampden | 80,164 | 57.19% | 51,288 | 36.59% | 7,929 | 5.66% | 799 | 0.57% | 28,876 | 20.60% | 140,180 |
| Hampshire | 15,412 | 49.87% | 14,012 | 45.34% | 1,131 | 3.66% | 351 | 1.14% | 1,400 | 4.53% | 30,906 |
| Middlesex | 189,512 | 45.17% | 199,704 | 47.60% | 28,386 | 6.77% | 1,918 | 0.46% | -10,192 | -2.43% | 419,520 |
| Nantucket | 548 | 35.49% | 969 | 62.76% | 25 | 1.62% | 2 | 0.13% | -421 | -27.27% | 1,544 |
| Norfolk | 57,770 | 38.80% | 82,545 | 55.44% | 7,732 | 5.19% | 843 | 0.57% | -24,775 | -16.64% | 148,890 |
| Plymouth | 30,466 | 39.05% | 41,942 | 53.76% | 5,096 | 6.53% | 506 | 0.65% | -11,476 | -14.71% | 78,010 |
| Suffolk | 223,732 | 63.92% | 96,418 | 27.55% | 27,799 | 7.94% | 2,061 | 0.59% | 127,314 | 36.37% | 350,010 |
| Worcester | 114,136 | 54.15% | 85,316 | 40.48% | 10,185 | 4.83% | 1,127 | 0.53% | 28,820 | 13.67% | 210,764 |
| Totals | 942,716 | 51.22% | 768,613 | 41.76% | 118,639 | 6.45% | 10,389 | 0.56% | 174,103 | 9.46% | 1,840,357 |
Roosevelt and Landon would split the state's 14 counties, winning 7 counties each. Roosevelt and Landon both did well in some of the Bay State's population centers, with Roosevelt carrying Suffolk, Worcester, and Hampden Counties (home to Boston, Worcester, and Springfield, respectively), and Landon carrying the suburban counties of Middlesex and Norfolk.
This was the last election that the former towns ofDana,Enfield,Greenwich, andPrescott participated in, as these staunchly Republican towns ceased to exist in 1938 when they were flooded to construct theQuabbin Reservoir. All four towns voted for Landon.
State and district results of the1936 United States presidential election | ||
|---|---|---|
|  | |
.jpg)
.jpg)
