1940 United States presidential election in Nebraska

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1940 United States presidential election in Nebraska
Flag of Nebraska.svg
←  1936 November 5, 1940 [1] 1944  →
All 7 Nebraska votes to the Electoral College
  WendellWillkie.jpg FDRoosevelt1938.png
Nominee Wendell Willkie Franklin D. Roosevelt
Party Republican Democratic
Home state New York New York
Running mate Charles L. McNary Henry A. Wallace
Electoral vote70
Popular vote352,201263,677
Percentage57.19%42.81%
Nebraska Presidential Election Results 1940.svg
County Results
President before election

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic

Elected President

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic

The 1940 United States presidential election in Nebraska took place on November 5, 1940, as part of the 1940 United States presidential election. Voters chose seven [2] representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Contents

Nebraska was won by the Republican candidate, business man Wendell Willkie, running with Senate Minority Leader Charles L. McNary, with 57.19% of the popular vote, against incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, running with Secretary Henry A. Wallace, with 42.81% of the popular vote. [3] [4]

Though he had carried the state by over 16 points just 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 neighboring South Dakota. Roosevelt lost the state by almost exactly the same margin as he had carried it four years prior. [5] 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 since Grover Cleveland in 1892 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 and Wayne.

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 when Lyndon B. Johnson carried it by a fairly narrow margin of 5.2% amidst a national landslide victory. FDR's implosion among farmers can likely be attributed to his New Deal programs that paid farmers not 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. [6] [7] Additionally, as Roosevelt was running for his third consecutive term, many voters were warying of breaking the long-standing two term tradition.

Results

1940 United States presidential election in Nebraska
PartyCandidateVotes%
Republican Wendell Willkie 352,201 57.19%
Democratic Franklin D. Roosevelt (inc.)263,67742.81%
Total votes615,878 100%

Results by county

County [8] Wendell Lewis Willkie
Republican		Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Democratic		MarginTotal votes cast
# %# %# %
Adams 6,63060.60%4,31139.40%2,31921.20%10,941
Antelope 4,33166.77%2,15533.23%2,17633.55%6,486
Arthur 34864.21%19435.79%15428.41%542
Banner 45066.57%22633.43%22433.14%676
Blaine 45459.35%31140.65%14318.69%765
Boone 3,33462.34%2,01437.66%1,32024.68%5,348
Box Butte 2,94257.27%2,19542.73%74714.54%5,137
Boyd 1,73462.13%1,05737.87%67724.26%2,791
Brown 1,78364.65%97535.35%80829.30%2,758
Buffalo 6,38761.14%4,06038.86%2,32722.27%10,447
Burt 3,44357.08%2,58942.92%85414.16%6,032
Butler 2,96647.75%3,24652.25%-280-4.51%6,212
Cass 4,70456.46%3,62743.54%1,07712.93%8,331
Cedar 4,39762.67%2,61937.33%1,77825.34%7,016
Chase 1,55763.27%90436.73%65326.53%2,461
Cherry 2,70560.30%1,78139.70%92420.60%4,486
Cheyenne 2,39455.20%1,94344.80%45110.40%4,337
Clay 3,57666.98%1,76333.02%1,81333.96%5,339
Colfax 2,58752.28%2,36147.72%2264.57%4,948
Cuming 4,38373.32%1,59526.68%2,78846.64%5,978
Custer 6,26959.66%4,23840.34%2,03119.33%10,507
Dakota 2,14046.91%2,42253.09%-282-6.18%4,562
Dawes 3,18464.26%1,77135.74%1,41328.52%4,955
Dawson 5,44566.02%2,80333.98%2,64232.03%8,248
Deuel 1,15667.17%56532.83%59134.34%1,721
Dixon 3,03861.37%1,91238.63%1,12622.75%4,950
Dodge 7,14162.51%4,28237.49%2,85925.03%11,423
Douglas 53,32544.38%66,84055.62%-13,515-11.25%120,165
Dundy 1,44164.22%80335.78%63828.43%2,244
Fillmore 3,67765.13%1,96934.87%1,70830.25%5,646
Franklin 2,35463.08%1,37836.92%97626.15%3,732
Frontier 2,06966.08%1,06233.92%1,00732.16%3,131
Furnas 3,31664.85%1,79735.15%1,51929.71%5,113
Gage 8,15661.55%5,09638.45%3,06023.09%13,252
Garden 1,35164.73%73635.27%61529.47%2,087
Garfield 1,05366.39%53333.61%52032.79%1,586
Gosper 1,00161.45%62838.55%37322.90%1,629
Grant 42363.51%24336.49%18027.03%666
Greeley 1,53050.46%1,50249.54%280.92%3,032
Hall 7,41261.26%4,68738.74%2,72522.52%12,099
Hamilton 3,28666.36%1,66633.64%1,62032.71%4,952
Harlan 2,18261.73%1,35338.27%82923.45%3,535
Hayes 75955.93%59844.07%16111.86%1,357
Hitchcock 1,66358.33%1,18841.67%47516.66%2,851
Holt 4,84061.61%3,01638.39%1,82423.22%7,856
Hooker 40373.27%14726.73%25646.55%550
Howard 1,69643.11%2,23856.89%-542-13.78%3,934
Jefferson 4,98064.35%2,75935.65%2,22128.70%7,739
Johnson 2,91968.26%1,35731.74%1,56236.53%4,276
Kearney 1,79253.44%1,56146.56%2316.89%3,353
Keith 2,02253.48%1,75946.52%2636.96%3,781
Keya Paha 1,00466.67%50233.33%50233.33%1,506
Kimball 1,19061.82%73538.18%45523.64%1,925
Knox 4,35257.79%3,17942.21%1,17315.58%7,531
Lancaster 27,38458.63%19,32141.37%8,06317.26%46,705
Lincoln 5,90854.36%4,96045.64%9488.72%10,868
Logan 49860.51%32539.49%17321.02%823
Loup 53965.10%28934.90%25030.19%828
Madison 7,35364.87%3,98235.13%3,37129.74%11,335
McPherson 41471.63%16428.37%25043.25%578
Merrick 2,88666.31%1,46633.69%1,42032.63%4,352
Morrill 2,21460.08%1,47139.92%74320.16%3,685
Nance 1,96357.77%1,43542.23%52815.54%3,398
Nemaha 3,81759.96%2,54940.04%1,26819.92%6,366
Nuckolls 3,01761.70%1,87338.30%1,14423.39%4,890
Otoe 5,79966.46%2,92733.54%2,87232.91%8,726
Pawnee 2,64362.35%1,59637.65%1,04724.70%4,239
Perkins 1,41357.28%1,05442.72%35914.55%2,467
Phelps 2,51257.63%1,84742.37%66515.26%4,359
Pierce 3,27169.30%1,44930.70%1,82238.60%4,720
Platte 4,92956.07%3,86243.93%1,06712.14%8,791
Polk 2,65361.87%1,63538.13%1,01823.74%4,288
Red Willow 3,11955.70%2,48144.30%63811.39%5,600
Richardson 4,83354.07%4,10545.93%7288.14%8,938
Rock 1,10464.79%60035.21%50429.58%1,704
Saline 3,67346.48%4,22953.52%-556-7.04%7,902
Sarpy 2,16546.04%2,53753.96%-372-7.91%4,702
Saunders 4,91754.16%4,16245.84%7558.32%9,079
Scotts Bluff 7,98964.20%4,45535.80%3,53428.40%12,444
Seward 4,11761.95%2,52938.05%1,58823.89%6,646
Sheridan 3,16166.87%1,56633.13%1,59533.74%4,727
Sherman 1,49444.18%1,88855.82%-394-11.65%3,382
Sioux 1,07263.43%61836.57%45426.86%1,690
Stanton 2,07465.74%1,08134.26%99331.47%3,155
Thayer 3,89365.21%2,07734.79%1,81630.42%5,970
Thomas 48663.70%27736.30%20927.39%763
Thurston 1,97349.18%2,03950.82%-66-1.65%4,012
Valley 2,44960.63%1,59039.37%85921.27%4,039
Washington 2,92252.57%2,63647.43%2865.15%5,558
Wayne 3,20969.70%1,39530.30%1,81439.40%4,604
Webster 2,84768.18%1,32931.82%1,51836.35%4,176
Wheeler 49553.69%42746.31%687.38%922
York 5,32270.75%2,20029.25%3,12241.50%7,522
Totals352,20157.19%263,67742.81%88,52414.37%615,878

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "United States Presidential election of 1940 - Encyclopædia Britannica" . Retrieved August 19, 2018.
  2. ↑ "1940 Election for the Thirty-ninth Term (1941-45)" . Retrieved August 19, 2018.
  3. ↑ "1940 Presidential General Election Results - Nebraska" . Retrieved August 19, 2018.
  4. ↑ "The American Presidency Project - Election of 1940" . Retrieved August 19, 2018.
  5. ↑ "1940 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  6. ↑ "F.D.R.'s Disastrous Experiment". www.nytimes.com. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
  7. ↑ "Farmers and the New Deal". History Learning Site. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
  8. ↑ "NE US President Race, November 05, 1940". Our Campaigns.
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