1949 New York's 20th congressional district special election

← 1948 May 17, 1949 1950 →
New York's 20th congressional district
Nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. Benjamin Shalleck Party Liberal Democratic Alliance Four Freedoms Popular vote 40,822 24,352 Percentage 50.68% 30.23%   Nominee William H. McIntyre Annette Rubinstein Party Republican American Labor Popular vote 10,026 5,348 Percentage 12.45% 6.64%
U.S. Representative before election Sol Bloom Democratic Elected U.S. Representative Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. Liberal

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v t e

The1949 New York's 20th congressional district special election was held on May 17, 1949, to elect theUnited States representative fromNew York's 20th congressional district.Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. won the election as the nominee of theLiberal andFour Freedoms parties.

Sol Bloom, a member ofTammany Hall, was elected to theUnited States House of Representatives in 1923, and served fourteen terms.^[1] He representedNew York's 20th congressional district at the time of his death on March 7, 1949.^[2] A majority of the district's residents were Jewish and a large amount were Irish.^[3] There wer 138,054 registered voters in the district.^[4]

Hugo Rogers, theborough president of Manhattan and a leader in Tammany Hall, hoped that GovernorThomas Dewey would not call a special election and would instead leave the seat vacant until the1950 election.^[5] TheAmerican Labor Party filed suit 28 days after Bloom's death for Dewey to schedule a special election.^[6] On April 7, Dewey called for an election to be held on May 17.^[7]

Annette Rubinstein, a member of theCommunist Party USA, was nominated by theAmerican Labor Party.^[8] She announced her candidacy at a memorial inMadison Square Garden for the fourth anniversary ofFranklin D. Roosevelt's death.^[9]

TheLiberal Party of New York endorsedFranklin D. Roosevelt Jr. the same day of his announcement,^[10] formally gave him its nomination on April 13,^[11] and Roosevelt accepted it on April 19.^[12]Marshall Field III,Joseph E. Davies,Henry Morgenthau Jr.,Tallulah Bankhead, andDouglas Fairbanks Jr. donated to his campaign.^[13]

Roosevelt threatened to run as the nominee of theFour Freedoms Party if he lost the Democratic nomination.^[14] 3,000 signatures were required to place him onto the ballot^[15] and the Liberal Party claimed that it gathered 11,000-12,000 of the 26,000 signatures to give Roosevelt the Four Freedoms Party ballot line.^[16] On May 6, Tammany Hall filed a lawsuit to remove the Four Freedoms Party from the ballot,^[17] but withdrew it on May 9.^[18]

• Owen McGivern, member of theNew York State Assembly^[19]
• Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., son of PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt
• Benjamin Shalleck

Roosevelt, at the urging ofAlex Rose,^[3][20] announced his campaign on March 15^[21] despite living inWoodbury, which was outside of the district.^[22][23] Charles Horowitz, a former member of Tammany Hall, was Roosevelt's campaign manager.^[24] TheRepublican Party challenged Roosevelt's eligibility to vote in the special election, although he would still be allowed to run, due to his residency, but theNew York Supreme Court ruled in Roosevelt's favor.^[25][26]

Tammany Hall opposed Roosevelt and had Benjamin Shalleck run against him, believing that a Jew would fare better.^[27][28] Shalleck's campaign was managed by Abraham Kaplan.^[29] MayorErastus Corning 2nd attacked Roosevelt's candidacy as an attempt to start apolitical dynasty in control of theNew York State Democratic Party.^[30] Roosevelt claimed thatFrank Costello used his influence in Tammany Hall to stop him from receiving the Democratic nomination.^[31] Shalleck was given the nomination after a two-hour session, far longer than the normal few minutes, on April 11, and district leader Robert B. Blaikie, who opposed him and supported Roosevelt, walked out in protest.^[32]

William McIntyre was nominated by the Republicans^[33] and Alexander Wolf managed his campaign.^[34]

Roosevelt won the election with a majority of the vote.^[35] He raised $14,121 and spent $15,512 while Shalleck raised $2,465 and spent $439.^[36]

• Mearns, John, ed. (1950).The New York Red Book (59 ed.). Williams Press.
• Moore, John; Preimesberger, Jon; Tarr, David, eds. (2001).Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections.Congressional Quarterly.ISBN 1-56802-602-1.
• Soyer, Daniel (2012)."'Support the Fair Deal in the Nation; Abolish the Raw Deal in the City': The Liberal Party in 1949".New York History.93 (2).Cornell University Press:147–81.JSTOR 23645398.

• Special elections to the 81st United States Congress
• 1949 elections in the United States
• Roosevelt family

• Use mdy dates from March 2021