 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
All 7Nebraska votes to theElectoral College | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 County Results
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The1940 United States presidential election in Nebraska took place on November 5, 1940, as part of the1940 United States presidential election. Voters chose seven[1] representatives, or electors, to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.
Nebraska was won by theRepublican candidate, business manWendell Willkie, running withSenate Minority LeaderCharles L. McNary, with 57.19% of the popular vote, againstincumbentDemocratic PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt, running withSecretaryHenry A. Wallace, with 42.81% of the popular vote.[2][3]
Though he had carried the state by over 16 pointsjust four years earlier in 1936, Roosevelt's popularity with Nebraskans completely eroded in 1940, and with 57.19% of the popular vote, the state would prove to be Willkie's second strongest state in the 1940 election, after neighboringSouth Dakota. Roosevelt lost the state by almost exactly the same margin as he had carried it four years prior.[4] This constituted a Republican victory margin of 14.4%, with the results in Nebraska representing a very large 30.8% shift to the right from 1936. Nebraska weighed in as a drastic 24.3% more Republican than the nation as whole. Roosevelt became the first Democrat sinceGrover Cleveland in1892 to win the presidency without carrying Nebraska.
Key to Willkie's landslide victory was his overperformance among rural farmers in Nebraska, whom Roosevelt had carried decisively in 1936. Willkie flipped 39 counties that had been reliably Democratic just 4 years earlier, those being:Banner,Blaine,Box Butte,Boyd,Burt,Chase,Cherry,Cheyenne,Cuming,Custer,Dawes,Dawson,Deuel,Dodge,Dundy,Frontier,Gosper,Grant,Harlan,Hayes,Hitchcock,Holt,Keith,Kimball,Knox,Madison,Merrick,Morrill,Pawnee,Perkins,Phelps,Pierce,Red Willow,Scotts Bluff,Sheridan,Sioux,Stanton,Thomas andWayne.
The 1940 election would mark a turning point in Nebraska's politics; the state has voted for the Republican nominee by double digits in every election since, except for whenLyndon B. Johnson carried it by a relatively narrow margin of 5.2% amidst anational landslide victory. FDR's implosion among farmers can likely be attributed to hisNew Deal programs that paid farmersnot to produce food and to destroy some crops, which was an attempt to cure the problem of food overproduction; the policy instead resulted in the United States needing to import food from other countries and paying more for it.[5][6] Additionally, as Roosevelt was running for his third consecutive term, many voters were wary of breaking the long-standing two term tradition.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Wendell Willkie | 352,201 | 57.19% | |
| Democratic | Franklin D. Roosevelt (inc.) | 263,677 | 42.81% | |
| Total votes | 615,878 | 100% | ||
| County[7] | Wendell Lewis Willkie Republican | Franklin Delano Roosevelt Democratic | Margin | Total votes cast | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Adams | 6,630 | 60.60% | 4,311 | 39.40% | 2,319 | 21.20% | 10,941 |
| Antelope | 4,331 | 66.77% | 2,155 | 33.23% | 2,176 | 33.55% | 6,486 |
| Arthur | 348 | 64.21% | 194 | 35.79% | 154 | 28.41% | 542 |
| Banner | 450 | 66.57% | 226 | 33.43% | 224 | 33.14% | 676 |
| Blaine | 454 | 59.35% | 311 | 40.65% | 143 | 18.69% | 765 |
| Boone | 3,334 | 62.34% | 2,014 | 37.66% | 1,320 | 24.68% | 5,348 |
| Box Butte | 2,942 | 57.27% | 2,195 | 42.73% | 747 | 14.54% | 5,137 |
| Boyd | 1,734 | 62.13% | 1,057 | 37.87% | 677 | 24.26% | 2,791 |
| Brown | 1,783 | 64.65% | 975 | 35.35% | 808 | 29.30% | 2,758 |
| Buffalo | 6,387 | 61.14% | 4,060 | 38.86% | 2,327 | 22.27% | 10,447 |
| Burt | 3,443 | 57.08% | 2,589 | 42.92% | 854 | 14.16% | 6,032 |
| Butler | 2,966 | 47.75% | 3,246 | 52.25% | -280 | -4.51% | 6,212 |
| Cass | 4,704 | 56.46% | 3,627 | 43.54% | 1,077 | 12.93% | 8,331 |
| Cedar | 4,397 | 62.67% | 2,619 | 37.33% | 1,778 | 25.34% | 7,016 |
| Chase | 1,557 | 63.27% | 904 | 36.73% | 653 | 26.53% | 2,461 |
| Cherry | 2,705 | 60.30% | 1,781 | 39.70% | 924 | 20.60% | 4,486 |
| Cheyenne | 2,394 | 55.20% | 1,943 | 44.80% | 451 | 10.40% | 4,337 |
| Clay | 3,576 | 66.98% | 1,763 | 33.02% | 1,813 | 33.96% | 5,339 |
| Colfax | 2,587 | 52.28% | 2,361 | 47.72% | 226 | 4.57% | 4,948 |
| Cuming | 4,383 | 73.32% | 1,595 | 26.68% | 2,788 | 46.64% | 5,978 |
| Custer | 6,269 | 59.66% | 4,238 | 40.34% | 2,031 | 19.33% | 10,507 |
| Dakota | 2,140 | 46.91% | 2,422 | 53.09% | -282 | -6.18% | 4,562 |
| Dawes | 3,184 | 64.26% | 1,771 | 35.74% | 1,413 | 28.52% | 4,955 |
| Dawson | 5,445 | 66.02% | 2,803 | 33.98% | 2,642 | 32.03% | 8,248 |
| Deuel | 1,156 | 67.17% | 565 | 32.83% | 591 | 34.34% | 1,721 |
| Dixon | 3,038 | 61.37% | 1,912 | 38.63% | 1,126 | 22.75% | 4,950 |
| Dodge | 7,141 | 62.51% | 4,282 | 37.49% | 2,859 | 25.03% | 11,423 |
| Douglas | 53,325 | 44.38% | 66,840 | 55.62% | -13,515 | -11.25% | 120,165 |
| Dundy | 1,441 | 64.22% | 803 | 35.78% | 638 | 28.43% | 2,244 |
| Fillmore | 3,677 | 65.13% | 1,969 | 34.87% | 1,708 | 30.25% | 5,646 |
| Franklin | 2,354 | 63.08% | 1,378 | 36.92% | 976 | 26.15% | 3,732 |
| Frontier | 2,069 | 66.08% | 1,062 | 33.92% | 1,007 | 32.16% | 3,131 |
| Furnas | 3,316 | 64.85% | 1,797 | 35.15% | 1,519 | 29.71% | 5,113 |
| Gage | 8,156 | 61.55% | 5,096 | 38.45% | 3,060 | 23.09% | 13,252 |
| Garden | 1,351 | 64.73% | 736 | 35.27% | 615 | 29.47% | 2,087 |
| Garfield | 1,053 | 66.39% | 533 | 33.61% | 520 | 32.79% | 1,586 |
| Gosper | 1,001 | 61.45% | 628 | 38.55% | 373 | 22.90% | 1,629 |
| Grant | 423 | 63.51% | 243 | 36.49% | 180 | 27.03% | 666 |
| Greeley | 1,530 | 50.46% | 1,502 | 49.54% | 28 | 0.92% | 3,032 |
| Hall | 7,412 | 61.26% | 4,687 | 38.74% | 2,725 | 22.52% | 12,099 |
| Hamilton | 3,286 | 66.36% | 1,666 | 33.64% | 1,620 | 32.71% | 4,952 |
| Harlan | 2,182 | 61.73% | 1,353 | 38.27% | 829 | 23.45% | 3,535 |
| Hayes | 759 | 55.93% | 598 | 44.07% | 161 | 11.86% | 1,357 |
| Hitchcock | 1,663 | 58.33% | 1,188 | 41.67% | 475 | 16.66% | 2,851 |
| Holt | 4,840 | 61.61% | 3,016 | 38.39% | 1,824 | 23.22% | 7,856 |
| Hooker | 403 | 73.27% | 147 | 26.73% | 256 | 46.55% | 550 |
| Howard | 1,696 | 43.11% | 2,238 | 56.89% | -542 | -13.78% | 3,934 |
| Jefferson | 4,980 | 64.35% | 2,759 | 35.65% | 2,221 | 28.70% | 7,739 |
| Johnson | 2,919 | 68.26% | 1,357 | 31.74% | 1,562 | 36.53% | 4,276 |
| Kearney | 1,792 | 53.44% | 1,561 | 46.56% | 231 | 6.89% | 3,353 |
| Keith | 2,022 | 53.48% | 1,759 | 46.52% | 263 | 6.96% | 3,781 |
| Keya Paha | 1,004 | 66.67% | 502 | 33.33% | 502 | 33.33% | 1,506 |
| Kimball | 1,190 | 61.82% | 735 | 38.18% | 455 | 23.64% | 1,925 |
| Knox | 4,352 | 57.79% | 3,179 | 42.21% | 1,173 | 15.58% | 7,531 |
| Lancaster | 27,384 | 58.63% | 19,321 | 41.37% | 8,063 | 17.26% | 46,705 |
| Lincoln | 5,908 | 54.36% | 4,960 | 45.64% | 948 | 8.72% | 10,868 |
| Logan | 498 | 60.51% | 325 | 39.49% | 173 | 21.02% | 823 |
| Loup | 539 | 65.10% | 289 | 34.90% | 250 | 30.19% | 828 |
| Madison | 7,353 | 64.87% | 3,982 | 35.13% | 3,371 | 29.74% | 11,335 |
| McPherson | 414 | 71.63% | 164 | 28.37% | 250 | 43.25% | 578 |
| Merrick | 2,886 | 66.31% | 1,466 | 33.69% | 1,420 | 32.63% | 4,352 |
| Morrill | 2,214 | 60.08% | 1,471 | 39.92% | 743 | 20.16% | 3,685 |
| Nance | 1,963 | 57.77% | 1,435 | 42.23% | 528 | 15.54% | 3,398 |
| Nemaha | 3,817 | 59.96% | 2,549 | 40.04% | 1,268 | 19.92% | 6,366 |
| Nuckolls | 3,017 | 61.70% | 1,873 | 38.30% | 1,144 | 23.39% | 4,890 |
| Otoe | 5,799 | 66.46% | 2,927 | 33.54% | 2,872 | 32.91% | 8,726 |
| Pawnee | 2,643 | 62.35% | 1,596 | 37.65% | 1,047 | 24.70% | 4,239 |
| Perkins | 1,413 | 57.28% | 1,054 | 42.72% | 359 | 14.55% | 2,467 |
| Phelps | 2,512 | 57.63% | 1,847 | 42.37% | 665 | 15.26% | 4,359 |
| Pierce | 3,271 | 69.30% | 1,449 | 30.70% | 1,822 | 38.60% | 4,720 |
| Platte | 4,929 | 56.07% | 3,862 | 43.93% | 1,067 | 12.14% | 8,791 |
| Polk | 2,653 | 61.87% | 1,635 | 38.13% | 1,018 | 23.74% | 4,288 |
| Red Willow | 3,119 | 55.70% | 2,481 | 44.30% | 638 | 11.39% | 5,600 |
| Richardson | 4,833 | 54.07% | 4,105 | 45.93% | 728 | 8.14% | 8,938 |
| Rock | 1,104 | 64.79% | 600 | 35.21% | 504 | 29.58% | 1,704 |
| Saline | 3,673 | 46.48% | 4,229 | 53.52% | -556 | -7.04% | 7,902 |
| Sarpy | 2,165 | 46.04% | 2,537 | 53.96% | -372 | -7.91% | 4,702 |
| Saunders | 4,917 | 54.16% | 4,162 | 45.84% | 755 | 8.32% | 9,079 |
| Scotts Bluff | 7,989 | 64.20% | 4,455 | 35.80% | 3,534 | 28.40% | 12,444 |
| Seward | 4,117 | 61.95% | 2,529 | 38.05% | 1,588 | 23.89% | 6,646 |
| Sheridan | 3,161 | 66.87% | 1,566 | 33.13% | 1,595 | 33.74% | 4,727 |
| Sherman | 1,494 | 44.18% | 1,888 | 55.82% | -394 | -11.65% | 3,382 |
| Sioux | 1,072 | 63.43% | 618 | 36.57% | 454 | 26.86% | 1,690 |
| Stanton | 2,074 | 65.74% | 1,081 | 34.26% | 993 | 31.47% | 3,155 |
| Thayer | 3,893 | 65.21% | 2,077 | 34.79% | 1,816 | 30.42% | 5,970 |
| Thomas | 486 | 63.70% | 277 | 36.30% | 209 | 27.39% | 763 |
| Thurston | 1,973 | 49.18% | 2,039 | 50.82% | -66 | -1.65% | 4,012 |
| Valley | 2,449 | 60.63% | 1,590 | 39.37% | 859 | 21.27% | 4,039 |
| Washington | 2,922 | 52.57% | 2,636 | 47.43% | 286 | 5.15% | 5,558 |
| Wayne | 3,209 | 69.70% | 1,395 | 30.30% | 1,814 | 39.40% | 4,604 |
| Webster | 2,847 | 68.18% | 1,329 | 31.82% | 1,518 | 36.35% | 4,176 |
| Wheeler | 495 | 53.69% | 427 | 46.31% | 68 | 7.38% | 922 |
| York | 5,322 | 70.75% | 2,200 | 29.25% | 3,122 | 41.50% | 7,522 |
| Totals | 352,201 | 57.19% | 263,677 | 42.81% | 88,524 | 14.37% | 615,878 |
State and district results of the1940 United States presidential election | ||
|---|---|---|
|  | |
