Hello and welcome back to another edition of Lace ‘Em Up’s Presidential Election series for today we will be going over the Election of 1936. Franklin Roosevelt has been the incumbent president for four years and now his looking to win re-election in what some believe will be the biggest election win in U.S. History.

The New Deal & FDR’s Presidency

Following his massive victory in 1932, The Democrats and Franklin Roosevelt wasted no time in dealing with the issues caused by the Great Depression with their first order of business seeing FDR abolish prohibition by signing into law The Cullen-Harrison Act which called for the sale and distribution of alcohol as long as drinks have an alcoholic content of 3.2%. Story has it after Roosevelt signed the act into law, his reported to have said: “I think this would be a Good Time for a Beer”.

With Prohibition out of the way, FDR’s 100 days in office saw him passing a series of social and work programs that were designed to counterattack the depression which could be described as the Three R’s:

• Relief for struggling and unemployed Americans while also creating programs that helped lead to the creation of hospitals, schools, dams etc.
• Recovery of the finanicial markets in order to end the economic crisis that was still going in the U.S. 
• Reform of the banking systems which saw the passing of regulations to big business like the Glass-Steagull Act and the reduction of lassiez fairie economics that helped lead to the depression.

These programs and many more saw the federal government get more involved in the lives and institutions of many Americans then ever before and these program became known as ‘The New Deal’.

While the majority of average Americans supported the New Deal and FDR, others weren’t in favor of it as the rich ended up paying more taxes and their control over major monopolies were being reduced; Not only that, but some argue that the New Deal just further prolonged the Great Depression which is still a point of contention today.

The Supreme Court also wasn’t a big fan of the New Deal either as they struck down part’s of FDR’s agenda in various court cases which led to Roosevelt passing a ‘Second New Deal’ which led to the creation of Social Security, an Eight Hour Work Day, unemployment Benefits and a Federal Minimum Wage among other things.

Due to his overwhelming popularity amongst the poor and middle class, FDR and his Vice President John Nance Garnder were easily renominated by the Democratic Party.

Governor Landon for President

The popularity of the New Deal and the Democrats success in the midterm elections, saw the Republican Party falter; However the Supreme Court’s issue with the New Deal, gave the GOP a little bit of hope that they could take down FDR and a number of candidates were looking for the nomination:

• Herbert Hoover: Former President and former Secretary of Commerce
• Alfred ‘Alf’ Landon: The Governor of Kansas
• William Borah: Senator from Idaho

The Republican Party establishment threw their support behind Alf Landon, who became famous for his handling of the Great Kansas Bond Scandal and supported many progressive policies while also being conservative economic issues such as lowering taxes and balancing the budget.

Landon’s running mate was Frank Knox, a newspaper publisher from Illnois who actually withdrew his name as a nominee for president in order to support the Governor of Kansas.

Huey Long & The Union Party

Once FDR was sworn into office, some far left Democrats believed that he would implement policies that would helped the poor and fix the country and while that was indeed the case, many of them felt that Roosevelt wasn’t going far enough when came to the New Deal and decided to look for someone dynamic and populist enough to challenge the incumbent.

One possible candidate was former Governor and Senator of Lousiana, Huey Pierce Long; Also known as ‘The Kingfish’, Long was an unbashed far left populist who passed numerous policies which greatly helped many in his homestate and he found Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression as lackluster.

He even opposed a many of FDR’s legislations like Social Security, the National Recovery Act and the Glass-Steagull Act as he felt those policies were actually in favor of corperate industries and would disfranchise the poor and minorities. Leading up to the 1936 election, Long and group of his supporters were planning to create a movement to challenge Roosevelt, but on September 9th 1935 Huey P. Long was killed in an assassination attempt.

Some believed that Long’s plan for the 1936 election was to challenge FDR for the nomination only to lose, but use the national attention he would’ve garnered to create a third party that would take on Roosevelt from the left which would break up the New Deal Coalition thus ensuring a GOP victory come election day and then Long would run for president in 1940 and reclaim the White House for the Democrats…but alas Long’s death ended any hopes of this.

Despite his death, the remaining supporters of the of Kingfish decided to create a new politician party called the ‘Union Party’ which would run on Long’s far left platform called “Share Our Wealth” which called for major government spending, taxing the rich and wealth redistruption to the poor.

Some names were considered to represent the Union Party like Burton Wheeler who was Robert La Follette’s running mate in 1924, William Borah who lost the GOP nomination to Alf Landon and Minnesota Governor, Floyd B. Olsen although Olsen was unable to run due to his bout with stomach cancer.

In the end, the Union Party nominated William Lemke who a U.S. Representative from North Dakota with his running mate being a lawyer by the name of Thomas O’ Brien. Ultimately, Lemke lacked the charisma and charm of Huey Long and therefore stood very little chance of being seen as a serious threat in this election.

Campaign Strategies

FDR is running on the accomplishments of the New Deal and his looking to expand on these programs if elected to a second term; With the Great Depression entering it’s eighth year, many Americans still held out hope in Roosevelt’s policies.

Republicans are using the endorsements of famed track-and-field star, Jesse Owens as well as former New York Governor and Democrat, Al Smith to promote Alf Landon as the man who knows how to cut debt and balance the budget. Landon himself believes that the New Deal has some good stuff in it, but argued that these work programs could lead to wasteful spending and cause problems to many businesses. 

Roosevelt responds sacarastically to these attacks in a speech about how the Republicans were indeed in support of his policies and this soon leads to GOP changing their strategy up by going a bit more aggresive on FDR.

The Republicans are now using political cartoons to paint the New Deal as pure fantasy with promises of great things but sound too good to be true, while Landon was the safe and sensible choice for the common people.

Their also using animated cartoons to attack the Democrats in what could probably be seen as the first ever animated commerical in U.S. History with the cartoon showing a donkey called “The New Deal Jackass” being given Russian Vodka as a way to say that the New Deal is communist before the donkey goes out of control and destroys everything including a box that the narrator says has the ideas of the Democratic platform in 1932 and how that’s been kicked to the side.

Alf Landon also mentions how the New Deal is subverting the Constitution but expresses his dislike of social security by saying: “This is the largest tax bill in our history, and to call it Social Security would be a fraud on the working man.”

In response to all of this, FDR famously gave a speech in Madison Square Garden on Halloween of 1936 which has become famous for his defiant words of ‘I Welcome Their Hatred‘.

Despite their best efforts, most Americans still favor FDR and Landon’s weak campaigning doesn’t due much to change that nor is the fact that Landon didn’t even go out to campaign but, instead relied on others to write speeches for him that would attack Roosevelt.

This led to a columnist famously writing: “Considerably mystery surrounding the disappearance of Alfred M. Landon of Topeka Kansas…The Missing Persons Bureau has sent out an alarm bulletin bearing Mr. Landon’s photograph and other particulars, and any information of his whereabouts is asked to communicate direct with the Republican National Committee.”

The Importance of Election Polling

Another notable thing about this race surrounds election polling as a largely successful weekly magazine called ‘The Literary Digest’ conducted a survey to 10 million of it’s reader on who they think would win between Franklin Roosevelt and Alf Landon and out of those 10 million, over 2 million came back and responded that Landon would win with 370 electoral votes and 57% of the popular vote.

Why this is imporant? Well in addition to being a very influential magazine, The Literary Digest also predicted the outcome of the last five president elections correctly, so when the survey’s came back to reveal that most believed that Landon would win most then most took the polling result very seriously. 

One person who didn’t take this polling seriously was an advertising expert named George Gallup who conducted a scientific poll that revealed that FDR would win after surveying thousands of people using quota sampling.

Many today think that the Literary Digest’s polling for this election was problematic because most of their readers who filled out the survey were either Republicans or wealthy people who were more bias for Landon than Roosevelt and secondly, the poll wasn’t representative of the entire country especially those in states that were hit hard by the Great Depression…But what was the outcome of the 1936 election? Let’s look at the results.

Election of 1936: The Results

It appears that the Literary Digest was dead wrong with their polling as Franklin Roosevelt easily won re-election, recieving 523 electoral votes and 60.8% of the popular vote. This made FDR the first of third presidents to be re-elected with more than 500 electoral votes and the first Democrat to be re-elected with more of the electoral and popular vote then he had in the previous election.

In terms of electoral votes Alf Landon received…8, you heard that right…8 electoral votes and 36.5% of the popular vote as he only won the states of Vermont and Maine. In terms of the popular vote, Landon suffered the worse defeat for a Republican candidate trying to run for president and when it comes to the electoral vote, Landon (much like William Howard Taft in 1912) got the lowest amount of electoral votes for a major party candidate.

William Lemke and the Union Party came in third with no electoral votes and just 2% of the popular vote which ultimately lead to the party coming to an end not too long after this election.

Speaking of things coming to an end, The Literary Digest would end up folding just 18 months after this election but not without posting a photo that says ‘Is Our Face Red’ in their next edition, however George Gallup’s scientific polling was so successful that it’s become the model many use when it comes to predicting the outcomes of elections, today known as ‘The Gallup Poll’.

If you like this kind of content, be sure to leave your thoughts down below in the comment section and be sure to follow Lace ‘Em Up on X @laceemupoffice you can follow me also on X @hakeemfullerton and I’ll see you in the next article.