1940 United States presidential election in Tennessee

← 1936 November 5, 1940[1] 1944 →
All 11Tennessee votes to theElectoral College
Nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt Wendell Willkie Party Democratic Republican Home state New York New York Running mate Henry A. Wallace Charles L. McNary Electoral vote 11 0 Popular vote 351,601 169,153 Percentage 67.25% 32.35%
County Results Roosevelt   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90%   90–100% Willkie   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90%
President before election Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic Elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic

The1940 United States presidential election in Tennessee took place on November 5, 1940, as part of the1940 United States presidential election. Tennessee voters chose 11^[2] representatives, or electors, to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.

For over a century afterthe Civil War, Tennessee was divided according to political loyalties established in that war.Unionist regions covering almost all ofEast Tennessee,Kentucky Pennyroyal-alliedMacon County, and the fiveWest TennesseeHighland Rim counties ofCarroll,Henderson,McNairy,Hardin andWayne^[3] voted Republican – generally by landslide margins – as they saw the Democratic Party as the "war party" who had forced them into a war they did not wish to fight.^[4] Contrariwise, the rest ofMiddle and West Tennessee who had supported and driven the state's secession was equally fiercely Democratic as it associated the Republicans withReconstruction.^[5] Afterthe disfranchisement of the state's African-American population bya poll tax was largely complete in the 1890s,^[6] the Democratic Party was certain of winning statewide elections if united,^[7] although unlike the Deep South Republicans would almost always gain thirty to forty percent of the statewide vote from mountain and Highland Rim support.

In 1920 by moving into a small number of traditionally Democratic areas in Middle Tennessee^[8] and expanding turnout due to the Nineteenth Amendment and powerful isolationist sentiment,^[9] the Republican Party captured Tennessee's presidential electoral votes and won the governorship and three congressional seats in addition to the rock-ribbed GOPFirst andSecond Districts. In 1922 and 1924, with the ebbing of isolationist sympathy and a consequent decline in turnout,^[10] the Democratic Party regained Tennessee's governorship and presidential electoral votes; however, in 1928anti-Catholicism against Democratic nomineeAl Smith in this powerfully fundamentalist state^[11] meant thatHerbert Hoover bettered Harding's performance without however gaining the down-ballot coattails of 1920.

These Republican gains would be completely reversed in the 1930s due to the impact ofthe Great Depression, which was generally blamed upon the Republican Party's policies during the 1920s. Internal divisions prevented the Republicans taking advantage of a disputed Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1932 betweenLewis Pope andHill McAlister,^[12] and for the next third of a century the Republicans would rarely contest statewide offices seriously despite their continuing dominance of East Tennessee and half a dozen Unionist counties in the middle and west of the state.^[13] Statewide politics for the decade and a half after the beginning of the Depression would be dominated byEdward Hull “Boss” Crump, whose Memphispolitical machine would consistently provide decisive votes in statewide Democratic primaries — aided by cross-party voting by Republicans in eastern mountain counties.^[13] Crump would be supported during this era by long-serving SenatorKenneth Douglas McKellar, and in 1938 when several statewide candidates allied themselves with Tennessee's other Senator,Gordon Browning, the Crump/McKellar machine not merely defeated the collaboration, but even unseated Senator Browning.^[14]

Incumbent PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt, who was now running withSecretary of AgricultureHenry A. Wallace in place of incumbent Vice PresidentJohn Nance Garner, would visit Tennessee at the beginning of September.^[15] In his visit he defended his accomplishment asAssistant Secretary of the Navy inthe Wilson administration, and the work of theTennessee Valley Authority which the New Deal had created. Republican nomineeWendell Willkie and running mateMinority Leader andOregon senior SenatorCharles L. McNary did not comment^[16] or visit the state. A Gallup poll in mid-October showed Roosevelt maintaining his 1936 68 percent vote percentage,^[17] and in the end Roosevelt carriedTennessee with 67.25 percent of the popular vote to 32.35 percent for Willkie.^[18]

• Bradley
• Claiborne
• Cumberland
• Greene
• Hardin
• McNairy

• McMinn
• Roane

Roosevelt's 67.25 percent vote share was slightly below what he managed in 1936, but slightly greater than what he gained in Tennessee in 1932. Nationally Willkie won eight states and almost 700 counties that had supported Roosevelt four years earlier, mostly because ofMidwesternGerman-American opposition to increasing "tension" withNazi Germany.^[21] However, in heavily Anglophile Tennessee, support for aid to theUnited Kingdom inWorld War II turned substantial numbers of normally rock-ribbed GOP voters to Roosevelt.^[22] Although FDR lost five normally Republican counties which he had carried in 1936 inBradley,Claiborne,Cumberland,Greene andHardin, he won two counties that had backedHoover andLandon in his first two runs. FDR was the first Democrat to ever carryRoane County.^[23]

As ofthe 2020 presidential election, this is the last occasion whenKnox County has voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.^[24]

• 1940 United States Senate election in Tennessee
• 1940 Tennessee gubernatorial election

• 1940 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in Tennessee
• 1940 Tennessee elections

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