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Campaign finance reform in the United States

Campaign finance laws in the United States have been a contentious political issue since the early days of the union. The most recent major federal law affecting campaign finance was the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002, also known as "McCain-Feingold". Key provisions of the law prohibited unregulated contributions (commonly referred to as "soft money") to national political parties and limited the use of corporate and union money to fund ads discussing political issues within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary election; However,  provisions of BCRA limiting corporate and union expenditures for issue advertising were overturned by the Supreme Court in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life.

Contributions, donations or payments to politicians or political parties, including a campaign committee, newsletter fund, advertisements in convention bulletins, admission to dinners or programs that benefit a political party or political candidate and a political action committee (PAC), are not tax-deductible from income taxes.

First attempts
To gain votes from recently enfranchised, unpropertied voters, Andrew Jackson launched his campaign for the 1828 election through a network of partisan newspapers across the nation. After his election, Jackson began a political patronage system that rewarded political party operatives, which had a profound effect on future elections. Eventually, appointees were expected to contribute portions of their pay back to the political party. During the Jacksonian era, some of the first attempts were made by corporations to influence politicians. Jackson claimed that his charter battle against the Second Bank of the United States was one of the great struggles between democracy and the money power. While it was rumored that The Bank of the United States spent over $40,000 from 1830 to 1832 in an effort to stop Jackson's re-election, Chairman Biddle of the BUS only spent "tens of thousands to distribute information favorable to the bank." This expenditure can be conceived as being spent "against" Jackson, because of the competing ideals of the Bank and Jackson's anti-bank platform.

After the Civil War, parties increasingly relied on wealthy individuals for support, including Jay Cooke, the Vanderbilts, and the Astors. In the absence of a civil service system, parties also continued to rely heavily on financial support from government employees, including assessments of a portion of their federal pay. The first federal campaign finance law, passed in 1867, was a Naval Appropriations Bill which prohibited officers and government employees from soliciting contributions from Navy yard workers. Later, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 established the civil service and extended the protections of the Naval Appropriations Bill to all federal civil service workers. However, this loss of a major funding source increased pressure on parties to solicit funding from corporate and individual wealth.

In the campaign of 1872, a group of wealthy New York Democrats pledged $10,000 each to pay for the costs of promoting the election. On the Republican side, one Ulysses S. Grant supporter alone contributed one fourth of the total finances. One historian said that never before was a candidate under such a great obligation to men of wealth. Vote buying and voter coercion were common in this era. After more standardized ballots were introduced, these practices continued, applying methods such as requiring voters to use carbon paper to record their vote publicly in order to be paid.

Boies Penrose mastered post-Pendleton Act corporate funding through extortionist tactics, such as squeeze bills (legislation threatening to tax or regulate business unless funds were contributed.) During his successful 1896 U.S. Senate campaign, he raised a quarter million dollars within 48 hours. He allegedly told supporters that they should send him to Congress to enable them to make even more money.

In 1896, a wealthy Ohio industrialist, shipping magnate and political operative, Mark Hanna became Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Hanna directly contributed $100,000 to the nomination campaign of fellow Ohioan William McKinley, but recognized that more would be needed to fund the general election campaign. Hanna systematized fund-raising from the business community. He assessed banks 0.25% of their capital, and corporations were assessed in relation to their profitability and perceived stake in the prosperity of the country. McKinley's run became the prototype of the modern commercial advertising campaign, putting the President-to-be's image on buttons, billboards, posters, and so on. Business supporters, determined to defeat the Democratic-populist William Jennings Bryan, were more than happy to give, and Hanna actually refunded or turned down what he considered to be "excessive" contributions that exceeded a business's assessment.

Twentieth-century Progressive advocates, together with journalists and political satirists, argued to the general public that the policies of vote buying and excessive corporate and moneyed influence were abandoning the interests of millions of taxpayers. They advocated strong antitrust laws, restricting corporate lobbying and campaign contributions, and greater citizen participation and control, including standardized secret ballots, strict voter registration and women's suffrage.

In his first term, President Theodore Roosevelt, following President McKinley's assassination of 1901, began trust-busting and anti-corporate-influence activities, but fearing defeat, turned to bankers and industrialists for support in what turned out to be his 1904 landslide campaign. Roosevelt was embarrassed by his corporate financing and was unable to clear a suspicion of a quid pro quo exchange with E.H. Harriman for what was an eventually unfulfilled ambassador nomination. There was a resulting national call for reform, but Roosevelt claimed that it was legitimate to accept large contributions if there were no implied obligation. However, in his 1905 message to Congress following the election, he proposed that "contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law." The proposal, however, included no restrictions on campaign contributions from the private individuals who owned and ran corporations. Roosevelt also called for public financing of federal candidates via their political parties. The movement for a national law to require disclosure of campaign expenditures, begun by the National Publicity Law Association, was supported by Roosevelt but delayed by Congress for a decade.

Tillman Act of 1907
This first effort at wide-ranging reform was the Tillman Act of 1907 which prohibited corporations and nationally chartered (interstate) banks from making direct monetary contributions to federal candidates. However, weak enforcement mechanisms made the Act ineffective.

Disclosure requirements and spending limits for House and Senate candidates followed in 1910 and 1911. General contribution limits were enacted in the Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1925). An amendment to the Hatch Act of 1939 set an annual ceiling of $3 million for political parties' campaign expenditures and $5,000 for individual campaign contributions. The Smith–Connally Act (1943) and Taft–Hartley Act (1947) extended the corporate ban to labor unions.

Federal Elections Campaign Act and the Watergate Amendments
All of these efforts were largely ineffective, easily circumvented and rarely enforced. In 1971, however, Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act, known as FECA, requiring broad disclosure of campaign finance. In 1974, fueled by public reaction to the Watergate Scandal, Congress passed amendments to the Act establishing a comprehensive system of regulation and enforcement, including public financing of presidential campaigns and creation of a central enforcement agency, the Federal Election Commission. Other provisions included limits on contributions to campaigns and expenditures by campaigns, individuals, corporations and other political groups.

The 1976 decision of the US Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo struck down various FECA limits on spending as unconstitutional violations of free speech. Among other changes, this removed limits on candidate expenditures unless the candidate accepts public financing.

Reforms of the 1980s and 1990s
In 1986, several bills were killed in the U.S. Senate by bipartisan maneuvers which did not allow the bills to come up for a vote. The bill would impose strict controls for campaign fund raising. Later in 1988, legislative and legal setbacks on proposals designed to limit overall campaign spending by candidates were shelved after a Republican filibuster. In addition, a constitutional amendment to override a Supreme Court decision failed to get off the ground.

In 1994, Senate Democrats had more bills blocked by Republicans including a bill setting spending limits and authorizing partial public financing of congressional elections. In 1996, bipartisan legislation for voluntary spending limits which rewards those who bare soft money was killed by a Republican filibuster.

In 1997, Senators McCain (R-AZ) and Feingold (D-WI) sought to eliminate soft money and TV advertising expenditures, but the legislation was defeated by a Republican filibuster. Several different proposals were made in 1999 by both parties. The Campaign Integrity Act (H.R. 1867), proposed by Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), would have banned soft money, which was not yet regulated and could be spent on ads that did not petition for the election or defeat of a specific candidate, and raised limits on hard money. The Citizen Legislature & Political Act sponsored by Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) would have repealed all federal freedom act contribution limits and expedited and expanded disclosure (H.R. 1922 in 1999, the 106th Congress, and reintroduced with different numbers through 2007, the 110th Congress). The Shays–Meehan Campaign Reform Act (H.R. 417) evolved into the McCain–Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002
The Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), also called the McCain–Feingold bill after its chief sponsors, John McCain and Russ Feingold. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives on February 14, 2002, with 240 yeas and 189 nays, including 6 members who did not vote. Final passage in the Senate came after supporters mustered the bare minimum of 60 votes needed to shut off debate. The bill passed the Senate, 60–40 on March 20, 2002, and was signed into law by President Bush on March 27, 2002. In signing the law, Bush expressed concerns about the constitutionality of parts of the legislation but concluded, "I believe that this legislation, although far from perfect, will improve the current financing system for Federal campaigns." The bill was the first significant overhaul of federal campaign finance laws since the post-Watergate scandal era. Academic research has used game theory to explain Congress's incentives to pass the Act.

The BCRA was a mixed bag for those who wanted to remove big money from politics. It eliminated all soft money donations to the national party committees, but it also doubled the contribution limit of hard money, from $1,000 to $2,000 per election cycle, with a built-in increase for inflation. In addition, the bill aimed to curtail ads by non-party organizations by banning the use of corporate or union money to pay for "electioneering communications", defined as broadcast advertising that identifies a federal candidate within 30 days of a primary or nominating convention, or 60 days of a general election. This provision of McCain–Feingold, sponsored by Maine Republican Olympia Snowe and Vermont Independent James Jeffords, as introduced applied only to for-profit corporations, but was extended to incorporate non-profit issue organizations, such as the Environmental Defense Fund or the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), as part of the "Wellstone Amendment", sponsored by Senator Paul Wellstone.

The law was challenged as unconstitutional by groups and individuals including the California State Democratic Party, the National Rifle Association, and Republican Senator Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), the Senate Majority Whip. After moving through lower courts, in September 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case, McConnell v. FEC. On Wednesday, December 10, 2003, the Supreme Court issued a 5–4 ruling that upheld its key provisions.

Since then, campaign finance limitations continued to be challenged in the Courts. In 2005 in Washington state, Thurston County Judge Christopher Wickham ruled that media articles and segments were considered in-kind contributions under state law. The heart of the matter focused on the I-912 campaign to repeal a fuel tax, and specifically two broadcasters for Seattle conservative talker KVI. Judge Wickham's ruling was eventually overturned on appeal in April 2007, with the Washington Supreme Court holding that on-air commentary was not covered by the State's campaign finance laws (No New Gas Tax v. San Juan County).

In 2006, the United States Supreme Court issued two decisions on campaign finance. In Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., it held that certain advertisements might be constitutionally entitled to an exception from the 'electioneering communications' provisions of McCain-Feingold limiting broadcast ads that merely mention a federal candidate within 60 days of an election. On remand, a lower court then held that certain ads aired by Wisconsin Right to Life in fact merited such an exception. The Federal Election Commission appealed that decision, and in June 2007, the Supreme Court held in favor of Wisconsin Right to Life. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court declined to overturn the electioneering communications limits in their entirety, but established a broad exemption for any ad that could have a reasonable interpretation as an ad about legislative issues.

Also in 2006, the Supreme Court held that a Vermont law imposing mandatory limits on spending was unconstitutional, under the precedent of Buckley v. Valeo. In that case, Randall v. Sorrell, the Court also struck down Vermont's contribution limits as unconstitutionally low, the first time that the Court had ever struck down a contribution limit.

In March 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about whether or not the law could restrict advertising of a documentary about Hillary Clinton. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was decided in January 2010, the Supreme Court finding that §441b's restrictions on expenditures were invalid and could not be applied to Hillary: The Movie.

DISCLOSE Act of 2010
The DISCLOSE Act (S. 3628) was proposed in July 2010. The bill would have amended the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to prohibit government contractors from making expenditures with respect to such elections, and establish additional disclosure requirements for election spending. The bill would have imposed new donor and contribution disclosure requirements on nearly all organizations that air political ads independently of candidates or the political parties. The legislation would have required the sponsor of the ad to appear in the ad itself. President Obama argued that the bill would reduce foreign influence over American elections. Democrats needed at least one Republican to support the measure in order to get the 60 votes to overcome GOP procedural delays, but were unsuccessful.

Voting with dollars
The voting with dollars plan would establish a system of modified public financing coupled with an anonymous campaign contribution process. It was originally described in detail by Yale Law School professors Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres in their 2002 book Voting with Dollars: A New Paradigm for Campaign Finance. All voters would be given a $50 publicly funded voucher to donate to federal political campaigns. All donations including both the $50 voucher and additional private contributions, must be made anonymously through the FEC. Ackerman and Ayres include model legislation in their book in addition to detailed discussion as to how such a system could be achieved and its legal basis.

Of the Patriot dollars (i.e. $50 per voter) given to voters to allocate, they propose $25 going to presidential campaigns, $15 to Senate campaigns, and $10 to House campaigns. Within those restrictions the voucher can be split among any number of candidates for any federal race and between the primary and general elections. At the end of the current election cycle any unspent portions of this voucher would expire and could not be rolled over to subsequent elections for that voter. In the context of the 2004 election cycle $50 multiplied by the approximately 120 million people who voted would have yielded about $6 billion in "public financing" compared to the approximate $4 billion spent in 2004 for all federal elections (House, Senate and Presidential races) combined. Ackerman and Ayres argue that this system would pool voter money and force candidates to address issues of importance to a broad spectrum of voters. Additionally they argue this public finance scheme would address taxpayers' concerns that they have "no say" in where public financing monies are spent, whereas in the Voting with dollars system each taxpayer who votes has discretion over their contribution.

Lessig (2011, p. 269) notes that the cost of this is tiny relative to the cost of corporate welfare, estimated at $100 billion in the 2012 US federal budget. However, this considers only direct subsidies identified by the Cato Institute. It ignores tax loopholes and regulatory and trade decisions, encouraging business mergers and other activities that can stifle competition, creativity and economic growth; the direct subsidies can be a tiny fraction of these indirect costs.

The second aspect of the system increases some private donation limits, but all contributions must be made anonymously through the FEC. In this system, when a contributor makes a donation to a campaign, they send their money to the FEC, indicating to which campaign they want it to go. The FEC masks the money and distributes it directly to the campaigns in randomized chunks over a number of days. Ackerman and Ayres compare this system to the reforms adopted in the late 19th century aimed to prevent vote buying, which led to our current secret ballot process. Prior to that time voting was conducted openly, allowing campaigns to confirm that voters cast ballots for the candidates they had been paid to support. Ackerman and Ayres contend that if candidates do not know for sure who is contributing to their campaigns they are unlikely to take unpopular stances to court large donors which could jeopardize donations flowing from voter vouchers. Conversely, large potential donors will not be able to gain political access or favorable legislation in return for their contributions since they cannot prove to candidates the supposed extent of their financial support.

In 2015, Seattle voters approved the Democracy Vouchers Program, which gives city residents four $25 vouchers to donate to participating candidates. Vouchers have been proposed in other cities and states as a means to diversify the donor pool, help more candidates run for office, and boost political engagement.

Matching funds
Another method allows the candidates to raise funds from private donors, but provides matching funds for the first chunk of donations. For instance, the government might "match" the first $250 of every donation. This would effectively make small donations more valuable to a campaign, potentially leading them to put more effort into pursuing such donations, which are believed to have less of a corrupting effect than larger gifts and enhance the power of less-wealthy individuals. Such a system is currently in place in the U.S. presidential primaries. As of February 2008, there were fears that this system provided a safety net for losers in these races, as shown by loan taken out by John McCain's campaign that used the promise of matching funds as collateral. However, in February 2009 the Federal Election Commission found no violation of the law because McCain permissibly withdrew from the Matching Payment Program and thus was released from his obligations. It also found no reason to believe that a violation occurred as a result of the Committee's reporting of McCain's loan. The Commission closed the files.

Clean elections
Another method, which supporters call clean money, clean elections, gives each candidate who chooses to participate a certain, set amount of money. In order to qualify for this money, the candidates must collect a specified number of signatures and small (usually $5) contributions. The candidates are not allowed to accept outside donations or to use their own personal money if they receive this public funding. Candidates receive matching funds, up to a limit, when they are outspent by privately funded candidates, attacked by independent expenditures, or their opponent benefits from independent expenditures. This is the primary difference between clean money public financing systems and the presidential campaign system, which many have called "broken" because it provides no extra funds when candidates are attacked by 527s or other independent expenditure groups. Supporters claim that Clean Elections matching funds are so effective at leveling the playing field in Arizona that during the first full year of its implementation, disproportionate funding between candidates was a factor in only 2% of the races. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Davis v. Federal Election Commission, however, cast considerable doubt on the constitutionality of these provisions, and in 2011 the Supreme Court held that key provisions of the Arizona law – most notably its matching fund provisions – were unconstitutional in Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett.

This procedure has been in place in races for all statewide and legislative offices in Arizona and Maine since 2000. Connecticut passed a Clean Elections law in 2005, along with the cities of Portland, Oregon and Albuquerque, New Mexico, although Portland's was repealed by voter initiative in 2010. Sixty-nine percent of the voters in Albuquerque voted yes to Clean Elections. A 2006 poll showed that 85% of Arizonans familiar with their Clean Elections system thought it was important to Arizona voters. However, a clean elections initiative in California was defeated by a wide margin at the November 2006 election, with just 25.7% in favor, 74.3% opposed, and in 2008 Alaska voters rejected a clean elections proposal by a two to one margin. Many other states (such as New Jersey) have some form of limited financial assistance for candidates, but New Jersey's experiment with Clean Elections was ended in 2008, in part due to a sense that the program failed to accomplish its goals. Wisconsin and Minnesota have had partial public funding since the 1970s, but the systems have largely fallen into disuse.

A clause in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 ("McCain–Feingold") required the nonpartisan General Accounting Office to conduct a study of clean elections programs in Arizona and Maine. The report, issued in May 2003, found none of the objectives of the systems had yet been attained, but cautioned that because of the relatively short time the programs had been in place, "it is too soon to determine the extent to which the goals of Maine’s and Arizona’s public financing programs are being met... [and] We are not making any recommendations in this report." A 2006 study by the Center for Governmental Studies (an advocate for campaign finance reform) found that Clean Elections programs resulted in more candidates, more competition, more voter participation, and less influence-peddling. In 2008, however, a series of studies conducted by the Center for Competitive Politics (which generally opposes regulation and taxpayer funded political campaigns), found that the programs in Maine, Arizona, and New Jersey had failed to accomplish their stated goals, including electing more women, reducing government spending, reducing special interest influence on elections, bringing more diverse backgrounds into the legislature, or meeting most other stated objectives, including increasing competition or voter participation. These reports confirmed the results of an earlier study by the conservative/libertarian Goldwater Institute on Arizona's program.

Constitutional amendments
OCCUPIED Amendment

The Occupy Movement, spreading across the United States and other nations with over 1,500 sites, called for U.S. campaign finance reform eliminating corporate influence on politics and reducing social and economic inequality. In response to the Occupy Wall Street protests, Representative Ted Deutch introduced the "Outlawing Corporate Cash Undermining the Public Interest in our Elections and Democracy" (OCCUPIED) constitutional amendment on November 18, 2011. The OCCUPIED amendment would outlaw the use of for-profit corporation money in U.S. election campaigns and give Congress and states the authority to create a public campaign finance system. Unions and non-profit organizations will still be able to contribute to campaigns. On November 1, 2011, Senator Tom Udall also introduced a constitutional amendment in Congress to reform campaign finance which would allow Congress and state legislatures to establish public campaign finance. Two other constitutional campaign finance reform amendments were introduced in Congress in November 2011.

Harvard law professor and Creative Commons board member Lawrence Lessig called for a constitutional convention in a September 24–25, 2011 conference co-chaired by the Tea Party Patriots' national coordinator. Lessig's initial constitutional amendment would allow legislatures to limit political contributions from non-citizens, including corporations, anonymous organizations, and foreign nationals, and he also supports public campaign financing and electoral college reform to establish the one person, one vote principle. Lessig's web site convention.idea.informer.com allows anyone to propose and vote on constitutional amendments.

Saving American Democracy Amendment

The Saving American Democracy Amendment is a United States constitutional amendment proposed in December 2011 by Senators Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) "to expressly exclude for-profit corporations from the rights given to natural persons by the Constitution of the United States, prohibit corporate spending in all elections, and affirm the authority of Congress and the States to regulate corporations and to regulate and set limits on all election contributions and expenditures." The Saving American Democracy Amendment was meant to overturn the 2010 United States Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Democracy For All Amendment

The Democracy For All Amendment was introduced in multiple sessions of Congress beginning with the 113th. It would grant Congress and the States the ability to limit the raising and spending of money in campaigns for public office. It would also grant Congress and the States the ability to distinguish between a natural person and an artificial entity, such as a corporation. The resolution was introduced in the Senate by Senator Tom Udall and in the House by Representative Ted Deutch during both congresses. During the 113th Congress the resolution received 129 co-sponsors in the House (all Democrats), and 48 co-sponsors in the Senate (46 Democrats, 2 Independents). In the Senate, the resolution was never voted on, and in the House, it was sent to the House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice.

We The People Amendment

The We the People Amendment would establish that constitutional rights are reserved for natural persons only, that artificial entities — corporations, limited liability companies, and other incorporated entities established by the laws of any state, the United States, or any foreign state — have no rights under the Constitution and are subject to regulation through federal, state, or local law, and further establishes that privileges of such entities cannot be construed as inherent or inalienable. It would require federal, state, and local governments to regulate, limit, or prohibit political contributions or expenditures, including those made by a candidate, and would require any permissible political contributions and expenditures to be publicly disclosed. It would also prohibit the courts from construing the spending of money to influence elections as a form of protected speech under the First Amendment or from holding that the amendment would abridge the freedom of the press.

CFR28
CFR28 is a proposed constitutional amendment designed to deliver campaign finance reform without infringing on free speech. It claims to do this using two primary provisions.

First, CFR28 restricts candidate funding to consist of small citizen contributions and public financing. These citizen contribution limits are set biannually at one percent of the median annual income of all Americans (currently less than $400), so limits adjust with inflation. However, these limited contributions can be supplemented or displaced by Congress or State Legislatures.

Second, to overcome the Citizens United v. FEC decision that equated money spent on political speech with the speech itself (thus giving such spending First Amendment protection), CFR28 specifically targets independent political advertising for elimination. It does this by defining advertising as uninvited media that costs more than the limit mentioned above. This definition still allows unlimited spending on news, commentary and entertainment about candidates, but the audience will only see such media if they choose to after being told who is sponsoring it. All other speech about candidates is unlimited.

CFR28 further claims to prevent foreign influence on American elections because foreign sponsored media will not be able to hide among messaging from domestic super PACs since super PAC advertising will be eliminated.

At almost two pages and the first amendment with subsections, CFR28 is longer than other proposed constitutional amendments on campaign finances as it attempts to eliminate loopholes and provide some implementation provisions.

As a loophole example, CFR28 disallows any funding source not authorized under CFR28 to eliminate all corporate funding and nullifying the Buckley v. Valeo decision, which allows candidates themselves to spend unlimited personal funds on their campaigns. And by preventing donors from giving to candidates outside their voting district or state (except for the President), it also voids the decision in McCutcheon v. FEC which allowed citizens to contribute to an unlimited number of candidates around the country.

CFR28's implementing provisions include preventing subsidies and interference in citizen choices to help candidates, and allows unlimited volunteering for candidates. It also has reporting requirements and mandates that Congress enact relevant laws "to ensure manifold commitment to the integrity of American democracy" in order to compel networks and social media to cooperate.

In addition to providing the text of the proposed constitutional amendment, the CFR28.org web site explains it line-by-line both in writing and through several videos. It also includes a blog on related topics.

Redefining Quid Pro Quo
A different approach would allow private contributions as they currently are; however it would severely penalize those who gain substantive, material favors in exchange for their contributions and those who grant such favors in exchange for receiving contributions. Thus new limitations would not be imposed on what one can give—but rather on what one can get in return. (Needless to say, if such additional limitations could be introduced, many of the special interests would contribute much less than they currently do, and the effects of the remaining contributions would be much less corrupting). Currently quid pro quo is considered a bribery only if the person who provided material incentives to a public official explicitly tied those on receiving a specific favor in return.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in January 2010, the US Supreme Court ruled that corporations and unions can not constitutionally be prohibited from promoting the election of one candidate over another candidate.

Ruling
Justice Kennedy's majority opinion found that the BCRA §203 prohibition of all independent expenditures by corporations and unions violated the First Amendment's protection of free speech. The majority wrote, "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech."

Justice Kennedy's opinion for the majority also noted that since the First Amendment (and the Court) do not distinguish between media and other corporations, these restrictions would allow Congress to suppress political speech in newspapers, books, television and blogs. The Court overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652 (1990), which had held that a state law that prohibited corporations from using treasury money to support or oppose candidates in elections did not violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court also overruled that portion of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, 540 U.S. 93 (2003), that upheld BCRA's restriction of corporate spending on "electioneering communications". The Court's ruling effectively freed corporations and unions to spend money both on "electioneering communications" and to directly advocate for the election or defeat of candidates (although not to contribute directly to candidates or political parties).

The majority argued that the First Amendment protects associations of individuals as well as individual speakers, and further that the First Amendment does not allow prohibitions of speech based on the identity of the speaker. Corporations, as associations of individuals, therefore have speech rights under the First Amendment.

Dissent
Justice Stevens, J. wrote, in partial dissent:

 * The basic premise underlying the Court’s ruling is its iteration, and constant reiteration, of the proposition that the First Amendment bars regulatory distinctions based on a speaker’s identity, including its "identity" as a corporation. While that glittering generality has rhetorical appeal, it is not a correct statement of the law. Nor does it tell us when a corporation may engage in electioneering that some of its shareholders oppose. It does not even resolve the specific question whether Citizens United may be required to finance some of its messages with the money in its PAC. The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.

 * In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races.

Justice Stevens also wrote: "The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution. Before turning to the question whether to overrule Austin and part of McConnell, it is important to explain why the Court should not be deciding that question."

Impact on spending
The effects of the ruling can be seen in the amount of spending and money raised after this decision. The largest donation from an organization before this ruling was over 14 million just in 2008 with the average around 9 million from the year 2000- 2010. Subsequently starting at election year 2012 the amount of donations began to increase every election year with its current close at 2020 with 167 million dollars from a single organization.

Public response
Senator McCain, one of the two original sponsors of campaign finance reform, noted after the decisions that "campaign finance reform is dead" – but predicted a voter backlash once it became obvious how much money corporations and unions now could and would pour into campaigns.

In a Washington Post-ABC News poll in early February 2010 it was found that roughly 80% of Americans were opposed to the January 2010 Supreme court's ruling. The poll reveals relatively little difference of opinion on the issue among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling), Republicans (76 percent) and independents (81 percent). In response to the ruling, a grassroots, bipartisan group called Move to Amend was created to garner support for a constitutional amendment overturning corporate personhood and declaring that money is not speech.

McCutcheon et al. v. Federal Election Commission
On April 2, 2014, the Supreme Court issued a 5–4 ruling that the 1971 FECA's aggregate limits restricting how much money a donor may contribute in total to all candidates or committees violated the First Amendment. The controlling opinion was written by Chief Justice Roberts, and joined by Justices Scalia, Alito and Kennedy; Justice Thomas concurred in the judgment but wrote separately to argue that all limits on contributions were unconstitutional. Justice Breyer filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor.


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1936 United States presidential election

The 1936 United States presidential election was the 38th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1936. In the midst of the Great Depression, incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Governor Alf Landon of Kansas in a landslide. Roosevelt won the highest share of the popular vote (60.8%) and the electoral vote (98.49%, carrying every state except Maine and Vermont) since the largely uncontested 1820 election. The sweeping victory consolidated the New Deal Coalition in control of the Fifth Party System.

Roosevelt and Vice President John Nance Garner were re-nominated without opposition. With the backing of party leaders, Landon defeated progressive Senator William Borah at the 1936 Republican National Convention to win his party's presidential nomination. The populist Union Party nominated Congressman William Lemke for president.

The election took place as the Great Depression entered its eighth year. Roosevelt was still working to push the provisions of his New Deal economic policy through Congress and the courts. However, the New Deal policies he had already enacted, such as Social Security and unemployment benefits, had proven to be highly popular with most Americans. Landon, a political moderate, accepted much of the New Deal but criticized it for waste and inefficiency.

Roosevelt went on to win the greatest electoral landslide since the rise of hegemonic control between the Democratic and Republican parties in the 1850s. Roosevelt took 60.8% of the popular vote, while Landon won 36.56% and Lemke won 1.96%. Roosevelt carried every state except Maine and Vermont, which together cast eight electoral votes. By winning 523 electoral votes and 98.49% of the electoral vote total, this was the largest share of the Electoral College since 1820 and the second-largest number of raw electoral votes ever received by a candidate, and the largest ever for a Democrat. Roosevelt also won by the widest margin in the popular vote for a Democrat in history, although Lyndon Johnson would later win a slightly higher share of the popular vote in 1964. Roosevelt's 523 electoral votes marked the first of only three times in American history when a presidential candidate received over 500 electoral votes in a presidential election (the others being in 1972 and 1984) and made Roosevelt the only Democratic president to accomplish this feat.

Democratic Party nomination
Before his assassination, there was a challenge from Louisiana Senator Huey Long. But, due to his untimely death, President Roosevelt faced only one primary opponent other than various favorite sons. Henry Skillman Breckinridge, an anti-New Deal lawyer from New York, filed to run against Roosevelt in four primaries. Breckinridge's challenge of the popularity of the New Deal among Democrats failed miserably. In New Jersey, President Roosevelt did not file for the preference vote and lost that primary to Breckinridge, even though he did receive 19% of the vote on write-ins. Roosevelt's candidates for delegates swept the race in New Jersey and elsewhere. In other primaries, Breckinridge's best showing was 15% in Maryland. Overall, Roosevelt received 93% of the primary vote, compared to 2.5% for Breckinridge.

The Democratic Party Convention was held in Philadelphia between July 23 and 27. The delegates unanimously re-nominated incumbents President Roosevelt and Vice-president John Nance Garner. At Roosevelt's request, the two-thirds rule, which had given the South a de facto veto power, was repealed.

Republican Party nomination
Following the landslide defeat of former President Herbert Hoover at the previous presidential election in 1932, combined with devastating congressional losses that year, the Republican Party was largely seen as rudderless. In truth, Hoover maintained control of the party machinery and was hopeful of making a comeback, but any such hopes were dashed as soon as the 1934 mid-term elections, which saw further losses by the Republicans and made clear the popularity of the New Deal among the public. The expected third-party candidacy of prominent Senator Huey Long briefly reignited Hoover's hopes, but they were just as quickly ended by Long's assassination in September 1935. While Hoover thereafter refused to actively disclaim any potential draft efforts, he privately accepted that he was unlikely to be nominated, and even less likely to defeat Roosevelt in any rematch. Draft efforts did focus on former Vice-president Charles G. Dawes and Senate Minority Leader Charles L. McNary, two of the few prominent Republicans not to have been associated with Hoover's administration, but both men quickly disclaimed any interest in running.

The 1936 Republican National Convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio, between June 9 and 12. Although many candidates sought the Republican nomination, only two, Governor Landon and Senator William Borah from Idaho, were considered to be serious candidates. While County Attorney Earl Warren from California, Governor Warren Green of South Dakota, and Stephen A. Day from Ohio won their respective primaries, the seventy-year-old Borah, a well-known progressive and "insurgent," won the Wisconsin, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Oregon primaries, while also performing quite strongly in Knox's Illinois and Green's South Dakota. The party machinery, however, almost uniformly backed Landon, a wealthy businessman and centrist, who won primaries in Massachusetts and New Jersey and dominated in the caucuses and at state party conventions.

With Knox withdrawing to become Landon's selection for vice-president (after the rejection of New Hampshire Governor Styles Bridges) and Day, Green, and Warren releasing their delegates, the tally at the convention was as follows:
 * Alf Landon 984
 * William Borah 19

Other nominations
Many people, most significantly Democratic National Committee Chairman James Farley, expected Huey Long, the colorful Democratic senator from Louisiana, to run as a third-party candidate with his "Share Our Wealth" program as his platform. Polls made during 1934 and 1935 suggested Long could have won between six and seven million votes, or approximately fifteen percent of the actual number cast in the 1936 election.

Popular support for Long's Share Our Wealth program raised the possibility of a 1936 presidential bid against incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt. When questioned by the press, Long gave conflicting answers on his plans for 1936. While promising to support a progressive Republican like Sen. William Borah, Long claimed that he would only support a Share Our Wealth candidate. At times, he even expressed the wish to retire: "I have less ambition to hold office than I ever had." However, in a later Senate speech, he admitted that he "might have a good parade to offer before I get through". Long's son Russell B. Long believed that his father would have run on a third party ticket in 1936. This is evidenced by Long's writing of a speculative book, My First Days in the White House, which laid out his plans for the presidency after the 1936 election.

Long biographers T. Harry Williams and William Ivy Hair speculated that Long planned to challenge Roosevelt for the Democratic nomination in 1936, knowing he would lose the nomination but gain valuable publicity in the process. Then he would break from the Democrats and form a third party using the Share Our Wealth plan as its basis. He hoped to have the public support of Father Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest and populist talk radio personality from Royal Oak, Michigan; Iowa agrarian radical Milo Reno; and other dissidents like Francis Townsend and the remnants of the End Poverty in California movement. Diplomat Edward M. House warned Roosevelt "many people believe that he can do to your administration what Theodore Roosevelt did to the Taft administration in '12."

In spring 1935, Long undertook a national speaking tour and regular radio appearances, attracting large crowds and increasing his stature. At a well attended Long rally in Philadelphia, a former mayor told the press "There are 250,000 Long votes" in this city. Regarding Roosevelt, Long boasted to the New York Times' Arthur Krock: "He's scared of me. I can out promise him, and he knows it." While addressing reporters in late summer of 1935, Long proclaimed:

"'I'll tell you here and now that Franklin Roosevelt will not be the next President of the United States. If the Democrats nominate Roosevelt and the Republicans nominate Hoover, Huey Long will be your next President.'"

As the 1936 election approached, the Roosevelt administration grew increasingly concerned by Long's popularity. Democratic National Committee Chairman James Farley commissioned a secret poll in early 1935 "to find out if Huey's sales talks for his 'share the wealth' program were attracting many customers". Farley's poll revealed that if Long ran on a third-party ticket, he would win about 4 million votes (about 10% of the electorate). In a memo to Roosevelt, Farley wrote: "It was easy to conceive of a situation whereby Long by polling more than 3,000,000 votes, might have the balance of power in the 1936 election. For example, the poll indicated that he would command upwards of 100,000 votes in New York State, a pivotal state in any national election and a vote of that size could easily mean the difference between victory and defeat ... That number of votes would mostly come from our side and the result might spell disaster".

In response, Roosevelt in a letter to his friend William E. Dodd, the US ambassador to Germany, wrote: "Long plans to be a candidate of the Hitler type for the presidency in 1936. He thinks he will have a hundred votes at the Democratic convention. Then he will set up as an independent with Southern and mid-western Progressives ... Thus he hopes to defeat the Democratic Party and put in a reactionary Republican. That would bring the country to such a state by 1940 that Long thinks he would be made dictator. There are in fact some Southerners looking that way, and some Progressives drifting that way ... Thus it is an ominous situation".

However, Long was assassinated in September 1935. Some historians, including Long biographer T. Harry Williams, contend that Long had never, in fact, intended to run for the presidency in 1936. Instead, he had been plotting with Father Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest and populist talk radio personality, to run someone else on the soon-to-be-formed "Share Our Wealth" Party ticket. According to Williams, the idea was that this candidate would split the left-wing vote with President Roosevelt, thereby electing a Republican president and proving the electoral appeal of Share Our Wealth. Long would then wait four years and run for president as a Democrat in 1940.

Prior to Long's death, leading contenders for the role of the sacrificial 1936 candidate included Idaho Senator William Borah, Montana Senator and running mate of Robert M. La Follette in 1924 Burton K. Wheeler, and Governor Floyd B. Olson of the Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party. After Long's assassination, however, the two senators lost interest in the idea, while Olson was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer.

Father Coughlin, who had allied himself with Dr. Francis Townsend, a left-wing political activist who was pushing for the creation of an old-age pension system, and Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith, was eventually forced to run Representative William Lemke (R-North Dakota) as the candidate of the newly created "Union Party", with Thomas C. O'Brien, a lawyer and former District Attorney for Boston, as Lemke's running-mate. Lemke, who lacked the charisma and national stature of the other potential candidates, fared poorly in the election, barely managing two percent of the vote, and the party was dissolved the following year.

The Socialist Party again ran Norman Thomas who had been their candidate in 1928 and for Vice President George A. Nelson, a Wisconsin dairy farmer and writer on farming issues.

The Communist Party (CPUSA) nominated Earl Browder and for vice president their 1932 candidate James W. Ford, who had been the first African American nominee.

William Dudley Pelley, Chief of the Silver Shirts Legion, ran on the ballot for the Christian Party in Washington State, but won fewer than two thousand votes.

Pre-election polling
This election is notable for The Literary Digest poll, which was based on ten million questionnaires mailed to readers and potential readers; 2.38 million were returned. The Literary Digest had correctly predicted the winner of the last five elections, and announced in its October 31 issue that Landon would be the winner with 57.08% of the vote (v Roosevelt) and 370 electoral votes.

The cause of this mistake has often been attributed to improper sampling: more Republicans subscribed to the Literary Digest than Democrats, and were thus more likely to vote for Landon than Roosevelt. Indeed, every other poll made at this time predicted Roosevelt would win, although most expected him to garner no more than 370 electoral votes. However, a 1976 article in The American Statistician demonstrates that the actual reason for the error was that the Literary Digest relied on voluntary responses. As the article explains, the 2.38 million "respondents who returned their questionnaires represented only that subset of the population with a relatively intense interest in the subject at hand, and as such constitute in no sense a random sample ... it seems clear that the minority of anti-Roosevelt voters felt more strongly about the election than did the pro-Roosevelt majority." A more detailed study in 1988 showed that both the initial sample and non-response bias were contributing factors, and that the error due to the initial sample taken alone would not have been sufficient to predict the Landon victory.

The magnitude of the error by the Literary Digest (39.08% for the popular vote margin for Landon v Roosevelt) destroyed the magazine's credibility, and it folded within 18 months of the election, while George Gallup, an advertising executive who had begun a scientific poll, predicted that Roosevelt would win the election, based on a quota sample of 50,000 people.

His correct predictions made public opinion polling a critical element of elections for journalists, and indeed for politicians. The Gallup Poll would become a staple of future presidential elections, and remains one of the most prominent election polling organizations.

Campaign
Landon proved to be an ineffective campaigner who rarely travelled. Most of the attacks on FDR and Social Security were developed by Republican campaigners rather than Landon himself. In the two months after his nomination, he made no campaign appearances. Columnist Westbrook Pegler lampooned, "Considerable mystery surrounds 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 anyone having information of his whereabouts is asked to communicate direct with the Republican National Committee."

Landon respected and admired Roosevelt and accepted most of the New Deal but objected that it was hostile to business and involved too much waste and inefficiency. Late in the campaign, Landon accused Roosevelt of corruption – that is, of acquiring so much power that he was subverting the Constitution:

"The President spoke truly when he boasted ... 'We have built up new instruments of public power.' He spoke truly when he said these instruments could provide 'shackles for the liberties of the people ... and ... enslavement for the public.' These powers were granted with the understanding that they were only temporary. But after the powers had been obtained, and after the emergency was clearly over, we were told that another emergency would be created if the power was given up. In other words, the concentration of power in the hands of the President was not a question of temporary emergency. It was a question of permanent national policy. In my opinion the emergency of 1933 was a mere excuse ... National economic planning—the term used by this Administration to describe its policy—violates the basic ideals of the American system ... The price of economic planning is the loss of economic freedom. And economic freedom and personal liberty go hand in hand."

Franklin Roosevelt's most notable speech in the 1936 campaign was an address he gave in Madison Square Garden in New York City on 31 October. Roosevelt offered a vigorous defense of the New Deal:

"For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred."

Results
Roosevelt won in a landslide, carrying 46 of the 48 states and bringing in many additional Democratic members of Congress. After Lyndon B. Johnson's 61.05% share of the popular vote in 1964, Roosevelt's 60.8% is the second-largest percentage in U.S. history (since 1824, when the vast majority of or all states have had a popular vote), and his 98.49% of the electoral vote is the highest in two-party competition.

The Republican Party saw its total in the United States House of Representatives reduced to 88 seats and in the United States Senate to 16 seats in their respective elections and only won four governorships in the 1936 elections. Roosevelt won the largest number of electoral votes ever recorded at that time, and has so far only been surpassed by Ronald Reagan in 1984, when seven more electoral votes were available to contest. Garner also won the highest percentage of the electoral vote of any vice president.

Landon won only eight electoral votes, tying William Howard Taft's total in his unsuccessful re-election campaign in 1912. As of 2023, this is the equal lowest electoral vote total for a major-party candidate; the lowest number since was Reagan's 1984 opponent, Walter Mondale, who won only thirteen electoral votes.

Roosevelt's net vote totals in the twelve largest cities increased from 1,791,000 votes in the 1932 election to 3,479,000 votes which was the highest for any presidential candidate from 1920 to 1948. Philadelphia and Columbus, Ohio, which had voted for Hoover in the 1932 election, voted for Roosevelt in the 1936 election. Although the majority of black voters had been Republican in the 1932 election Roosevelt won two-thirds of black voters in the 1936 election.

Norman Thomas, who had received 884,885 votes in the 1932 election saw his totals decrease to 187,910.

Roosevelt also took 98.57% of the vote in South Carolina, the largest recorded vote percentage of any candidate in any one state with an opponent in any presidential election (this excludes Andrew Jackson in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Missouri in 1832, who won 100% of the vote in these states as he was unopposed).

This was the last Democratic landslide in the West, as Democrats won every state except Kansas (Landon's home state) by more than 10%. West of the Great Plains States, Roosevelt only lost eight counties. Since 1936, only Richard Nixon in 1972 (winning all but 19 counties) and Ronald Reagan in 1980 (winning all but twenty counties) have even approached such a disproportionate ratio.

Of the 3,095 counties, parishes and independent cities making returns, Roosevelt won in 2,634 (85 percent) while Landon carried 461 (15 percent); this was one of the few measures by which Landon's campaign was more successful than Hoover's had been four years prior, with Landon winning 87 more counties than Hoover did, albeit mostly in less populous parts of the country. Democrats also expanded their majorities in Congress, winning control of over three-quarters of the seats in each house.

The election saw the consolidation of the New Deal coalition; while the Democrats lost some of their traditional allies in big business, high-income voters, businessmen and professionals, they were replaced by groups such as organized labor and African Americans, the latter of whom voted Democratic for the first time since the Civil War, and made major gains among the poor and other minorities. Roosevelt won 86 percent of the Jewish vote, 81 percent of the Catholics, 80 percent of union members, 76 percent of Southerners, 76 percent of Blacks in northern cities, and 75 percent of people on relief. Roosevelt also carried 102 of the nation's 106 cities with a population of 100,000 or more.

Some political pundits predicted the Republicans, whom many voters blamed for the Great Depression, would soon become an extinct political party. However, the Republicans would make a strong comeback in the 1938 congressional elections, and while they would remain a potent force in Congress, they were not able to regain control of the House or the Senate until 1946, and would not regain the presidency until 1952.

The Electoral College results, in which Landon only won Maine and Vermont, inspired Democratic Party chairman James Farley - who had in fact declared during the campaign that Roosevelt would lose only these two states - to amend the then-conventional political wisdom of "As Maine goes, so goes the nation" into "As Maine goes, so goes Vermont." In fact, since then, the states of Vermont and Maine voted for the same candidate in every election except the 1968 presidential election. Additionally, a prankster posted a sign on Vermont's border with New Hampshire the day after the 1936 election, reading, "You are now leaving the United States."

This was the last election in which Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota would vote Democratic until 1964. Of these states, only Indiana would vote Democratic again after 1964 (for Barack Obama in 2008), making this the penultimate time a Democrat won any of the Great Plains states.

Source (Popular Vote):

Source (Electoral Vote):

Results by state
Source:

States that flipped from Republican to Democratic

 * Connecticut
 * Delaware
 * New Hampshire
 * Pennsylvania

Close states
Margin of victory less than 5% (4 electoral votes):
 * 1) New Hampshire, 1.75% (3,818 votes)

Margin of victory greater than 5% but less than 10% (29 electoral votes):
 * 1) Kansas, 7.72% (66,793 votes)
 * 2) Massachusetts, 9.46% (174,103 votes)
 * 3) Delaware, 9.77% (12,466 votes)

Tipping point state:
 * 1) Ohio, 20.56% (619,285 votes)

Statistics
Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Democratic)
 * 1)  Issaquena County, Mississippi 100.00%
 * 2)  Horry County, South Carolina 100.00%
 * 3)  Lancaster County, South Carolina 100.00%
 * 4)  Greensville County, Virginia 100.00%
 * 5)  Edgefield County, South Carolina 99.92%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Republican)
 * 1)  Jackson County, Kentucky 89.05%
 * 2)  Johnson County, Tennessee 84.39%
 * 3)  Owsley County, Kentucky 83.02%
 * 4)  Leslie County, Kentucky 81.39%
 * 5)  Avery County, North Carolina 77.98%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Other)
 * 1)  Burke County, North Dakota 31.63%
 * 2)  Sheridan County, North Dakota 28.88%
 * 3)  Hettinger County, North Dakota 28.25%
 * 4)  Mountrail County, North Dakota 25.73%
 * 5)  Steele County, North Dakota 24.30%

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text:
1940 United States presidential election

The 1940 United States presidential election was the 39th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 5, 1940. Incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican businessman Wendell Willkie to be reelected for an unprecedented third term in office. Until 1988, this was the last time in which the incumbent's party won three consecutive presidential elections. It was also the fourth presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1860, 1904, 1920, 1944, and 2016.

The election was contested in the shadow of World War II in Europe, as the United States was finally emerging from the Great Depression. Roosevelt did not want to campaign for a third term initially, but was driven by worsening conditions in Europe. He and his allies sought to defuse challenges from other party leaders such as James Farley and Vice President John Nance Garner. The 1940 Democratic National Convention re-nominated Roosevelt on the first ballot, while Garner was replaced on the ticket by Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace. Willkie, a dark horse candidate, defeated conservative Senator Robert A. Taft and prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey on the sixth presidential ballot of the 1940 Republican National Convention.

Roosevelt, acutely aware of strong isolationist and non-interventionist sentiment, promised there would be no involvement in foreign wars if he were re-elected. Willkie, who had not previously run for public office, conducted an energetic campaign, managing to revive Republican strength in areas of the Midwest and Northeast. He criticized perceived incompetence and waste in the New Deal, warned of the dangers of breaking the two-term tradition, and accused Roosevelt of secretly planning to take the country into World War II. However, Willkie's association with big business damaged his cause, as many working class voters blamed corporations and business leaders for the Great Depression. Roosevelt led in all pre-election polls and won a comfortable victory; his margins, though still significant, were less decisive than they had been in 1932 and 1936.

Democratic Party
Throughout the winter, spring, and summer of 1940, there was much speculation as to whether Roosevelt would break with longstanding tradition and run for an unprecedented third term. The two-term tradition, although not yet enshrined in the Constitution, had been established by George Washington when he refused to run for a third term in 1796; other former presidents, such as Ulysses S. Grant in 1880 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 had made serious attempts to run for a third term, but the former failed to be nominated, while the latter, forced to run on a third-party ticket, lost to Woodrow Wilson due to the split in the Republican vote. President Roosevelt refused to state definitely whether he would run for a third term. He even indicated to some ambitious Democrats that he would not run. Two of them thus decided to seek the Democratic nomination. These were James Farley, his former campaign manager, and Vice President John Nance Garner. Garner was a Texas conservative who had come to disagree with Roosevelt's liberal economic and social policies, and declined to run for a third term as vice president.

However, as Nazi Germany swept through western Europe and menaced the United Kingdom in the summer of 1940, Roosevelt decided that only he had the necessary experience and skills to see the nation safely through the Nazi threat. He was aided by the party's political bosses, who feared that no Democrat except Roosevelt could defeat the popular Willkie.

At the July 1940 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt easily swept aside challenges from Farley and Garner. Roosevelt picked Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace of Iowa to replace Garner on the ticket. An outspoken liberal who had been a Republican until he joined Roosevelt's cabinet, he met strong opposition from conservatives and party traditionalists. Wallace was also known as "eccentric" in his private life: some years earlier, he had been a follower of Theosophist mystic Nicholas Roerich. But Roosevelt insisted that without Wallace he would not run. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt came to Chicago to vouch for Wallace, and he won the vice-presidential nomination with 626 votes to 329 for House Speaker William B. Bankhead of Alabama.

Republican Party
In the months leading up to the opening of the 1940 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Republican Party was deeply divided between the party's isolationists, who wanted to stay out of World War II at all costs, and the party's interventionists, who felt that the United Kingdom needed to be given all aid short of war to prevent Nazi Germany from conquering all of Europe. The three leading candidates for the Republican nomination - Senator Robert A. Taft from Ohio, Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg from Michigan, and District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey from New York - were all isolationists to varying degrees.

Taft was the leader of the conservative, isolationist wing of the Republican Party, and his main strength was in his native Midwestern United States and parts of the Southern United States. Dewey, the District Attorney for Manhattan, had risen to national fame as the "Gangbuster" prosecutor who had sent numerous infamous Mafia figures to prison, most notably Lucky Luciano, the organized-crime boss of New York City. Dewey had won most of the presidential primaries in the spring of 1940, and he came into the Republican Convention in June with the largest number of delegate votes, although he was still well below the number needed to win. Vandenberg, the senior Republican in the Senate, was the "favorite son" candidate of the Michigan delegation and was considered a possible compromise candidate if Taft or Dewey faltered. Former President Herbert Hoover was also spoken of as a compromise candidate.

However, each of these candidates had weaknesses that could be exploited. Taft's outspoken isolationism and opposition to any American involvement in the European war convinced many Republican leaders that he could not win a general election, particularly as France fell to the Nazis in June 1940 and Germany threatened the United Kingdom. Dewey's relative youth—he was only 38 in 1940—and lack of any foreign-policy experience caused his candidacy to weaken as the Wehrmacht emerged as a fearsome threat. In 1940, Vandenberg was also an isolationist (he would change his foreign-policy stance during World War II) and his lackadaisical, lethargic campaign never caught the voters' attention. Hoover still bore the stigma of having presided over the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression. This left an opening for a dark horse candidate to emerge.

A Wall Street-based industrialist named Wendell Willkie, who had never before run for public office, emerged as the unlikely nominee. Willkie, a native of Indiana and a former Democrat who had supported Franklin Roosevelt in the 1932 United States presidential election, was considered an improbable choice. Willkie had first come to public attention as an articulate critic of Roosevelt's attempt to break up electrical power monopolies.

Willkie was the CEO of the Commonwealth & Southern Corporation, which provided electrical power to customers in eleven states. In 1933, President Roosevelt had created the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which promised to provide flood control and cheap electricity to the impoverished people of the Tennessee Valley. However, the government-run TVA would compete with Willkie's Commonwealth & Southern, and this led Willkie to criticize and oppose the TVA's attempt to compete with private power companies. Willkie argued that the government had unfair advantages over private corporations, and should thus avoid competing directly against them.

However, Willkie did not dismiss all of Roosevelt's social welfare programs, indeed supporting those he believed could not be managed any better by the free enterprise system. Furthermore, unlike the leading Republican candidates, Willkie was a forceful and outspoken advocate of aid to the Allies of World War II, especially the United Kingdom. His support of giving all aid to the British "short of declaring war" won him the support of many Republicans on the East Coast of the United States, who disagreed with their party's isolationist leaders in Congress.

Willkie's persuasive arguments impressed these Republicans, who believed that he would be an attractive presidential candidate. Many of the leading press barons of the era, such as Ogden Reid of the New York Herald Tribune, Roy Howard of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain and John and Gardner Cowles Jr. publishers of the Minneapolis Star and the Minneapolis Tribune, as well as The Des Moines Register and Look magazine, supported Willkie in their newspapers and magazines. Even so, Willkie remained a long-shot candidate; the May 8 Gallup Poll showed Dewey at 67% support among Republicans, followed by Vandenberg and Taft, with Willkie at only 3%.

The German Army's rapid Blitzkrieg campaign into France in May 1940 shook American public opinion, even as Taft was telling a Kansas audience that America needed to concentrate on domestic issues to prevent Roosevelt from using the war crisis to extend socialism at home. Both Dewey and Vandenberg also continued to oppose any aid to the United Kingdom that might lead to war with Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, sympathy for the embattled British was mounting daily, and this aided Willkie's candidacy. By mid-June, little over one week before the Republican Convention opened, the Gallup poll reported that Willkie had moved into second place with 17%, and that Dewey was slipping. Fueled by his favorable media attention, Willkie's pro-British statements won over many of the delegates. As the delegates were arriving in Philadelphia, Gallup reported that Willkie had surged to 29%, Dewey had slipped five more points to 47%, and Taft, Vandenberg and Hoover trailed at 8%, 8%, and 6% respectively.

Hundreds of thousands, perhaps as many as one million, telegrams urging support for Willkie poured in, many from "Willkie Clubs" that had sprung up across the country. Millions more signed petitions circulating everywhere. At the 1940 Republican National Convention itself, keynote speaker Harold Stassen, the Governor of Minnesota, announced his support for Willkie and became his official floor manager. Hundreds of vocal Willkie supporters packed the upper galleries of the convention hall. Willkie's amateur status and fresh face appealed to delegates as well as voters. Most of the delegations were selected not by primaries, but by party leaders in each state, and they had a keen sense of the fast-changing pulse of public opinion. Gallup found the same thing in polling data not reported until after the convention: Willkie had moved ahead among Republican voters by 44% to only 29% for the collapsing Dewey. As the pro-Willkie galleries chanted "We Want Willkie!" the delegates on the convention floor began their vote. Dewey led on the first ballot, but steadily lost strength thereafter. Both Taft and Willkie gained in strength on each ballot, and by the fourth ballot it was obvious that either Willkie or Taft would be the nominee. The key moments came when the delegations of large states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York left Dewey and Vandenberg and switched to Willkie, giving him the victory on the sixth ballot.

Willkie's nomination was one of the most dramatic moments in any political convention. Having given little thought to whom he would select as his vice-presidential nominee, Willkie left the decision to convention chairman and Massachusetts Representative Joseph Martin, the House Minority Leader, who suggested Senate Minority Leader Charles L. McNary from Oregon. Despite the fact that McNary had spearheaded a "Stop Willkie" campaign late in the balloting, the convention picked him to be Willkie's running mate.

Polling
The Gallup Poll accurately predicted the election outcome. However, the American Institute of Public Opinion, responsible for the Gallup Poll, avoided predicting the outcome, citing a four percent margin of error. The Gallup Poll also found that, if there was no war in Europe, voters preferred Willkie over Roosevelt.

Fall campaign
Willkie crusaded against Roosevelt's attempt to break the two-term presidential tradition, arguing that "if one man is indispensable, then none of us is free." Even some Democrats who had supported Roosevelt in the past disapproved of his attempt to win a third term, and Willkie hoped to win their votes. Willkie also criticized what he claimed was the incompetence and waste in Roosevelt's New Deal welfare programs. He stated that as president he would keep most of Roosevelt's government programs, but would make them more efficient.

However, many Americans still blamed business leaders for the Great Depression, and the fact that Willkie symbolized "Big Business" hurt him with many working-class voters. Willkie was a fearless campaigner; he often visited industrial areas where Republicans were still blamed for causing the Great Depression and where Roosevelt was highly popular. In these areas, Willkie frequently had rotten fruit and vegetables thrown at him and was heckled by crowds; still, he was unfazed.

Willkie also accused Roosevelt of leaving the nation unprepared for war, but Roosevelt's military buildup and transformation of the nation into the "Arsenal of Democracy" removed the "unpreparedness" charge as a major issue. Willkie then reversed his approach and charged Roosevelt with secretly planning to take the nation into World War II. This accusation did cut into Roosevelt's support. In response, Roosevelt, in a pledge that he would later regret, promised that he would "not send American boys into any foreign wars." The United Kingdom and Germany actively interfered throughout the election, hoping to exploit public sentiments and cultivate political contacts.

Results
Roosevelt led in all pre-election opinion polls by various margins. On Election Day—November 5, 1940, he received 27.3 million votes to Willkie's 22.3 million, and in the Electoral College, he defeated Willkie by a margin of 449 to 82. Willkie did get over six million more votes than the Republican nominee in 1936, Alf Landon, and he ran strong in rural areas in the American Midwest, taking over 57% of the farm vote. Many counties in the Midwest have not voted for a Democrat since. Roosevelt, meanwhile, carried every American city with a population of more than 400,000 except Cincinnati, Ohio. Of the 106 cities with more than 100,000 population, he won 61% of the votes cast; in the Southern United States as a whole, he won 73% of the total vote. In the remainder of the country (the rural and small-town Northern United States), Willkie had a majority of 53%. In the cities, there was a class differential, with the white-collar and middle-class voters supporting the Republican candidate, and working class, blue-collar voters going for FDR. In the North, Roosevelt won 87% of the Jewish vote, 73% of the Catholics, and 61% of the nonmembers, while all the major Protestant denominations showed majorities for Willkie.

Roosevelt's net vote totals in the twelve largest cities decreased from 3,479,000 votes in the 1936 election to 2,112,000 votes, but it was still higher than his result from the 1932 election when he won by 1,791,000 votes. Of the 3,094 counties/independent cities, Roosevelt won in 1,947 (62.93%) while Willkie carried 1,147 (37.07%).

Records
Roosevelt was the third of just four presidents in United States history to win re-election with a lower percentage of the electoral vote than in their prior elections, the other three were James Madison in 1812, Woodrow Wilson in 1916 and Barack Obama in 2012. Additionally, Roosevelt was the fourth of only five presidents to win re-election with a smaller percentage of the popular vote than in prior elections, the other four are James Madison in 1812, Andrew Jackson in 1832, Grover Cleveland in 1892, and Obama in 2012. This marked the first time since 1892 that the Democrats won the popular vote in three consecutive elections, and the first since 1840 where they won three consecutive elections. Although at a rate lower than 1936, Roosevelt maintained his strong majorities from labor unions, big city political machines, ethnic minority voters, and the traditionally Democratic Solid South. Roosevelt's third consecutive victory inspired the Twenty-second Amendment, limiting the number of terms a person may be president.

As of 2023, Roosevelt was the sixth of seven presidential nominees to win a significant number of electoral votes in at least three elections, the others being Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland, William Jennings Bryan, and Richard Nixon. Of these, Jackson, Cleveland, and Roosevelt also won the popular vote in at least three elections. Jefferson, Cleveland, and Roosevelt were also their respective party's nominees for three consecutive elections.

This was the first time that North Dakota voted for a losing candidate and the first time since 1892 that a Democrat won without Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska. This was also the first time anyone won without Colorado and Nebraska since 1908, and Kansas since 1900. It was also the fourth presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1860, 1904, 1920, 1944, and 2016.

Willkie and McNary both died in 1944 (October 8, and February 25, respectively); the first, and to date only time both members of a major-party presidential ticket died during the term for which they sought election. Had they been elected, Willkie's death would have resulted in the Secretary of State becoming acting president for the remainder of the term ending on January 20, 1945, in accordance with the Presidential Succession Act of 1886.

Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote):

Results by state
Source:

States that flipped from Democratic to Republican

 * Colorado
 * Indiana
 * Iowa
 * Kansas
 * Michigan
 * Nebraska
 * North Dakota
 * South Dakota

Close states
Margin of victory less than 1% (19 electoral votes):
 * 1) Michigan, 0.33% (6,926 votes)

Margin of victory less than 5% (192 electoral votes):
 * 1) Indiana, 1.42% (25,403 votes)
 * 2) Wisconsin, 1.82% (25,615 votes)
 * 3) Maine, 2.33% (7,473 votes)
 * 4) Illinois, 2.43% (102,694 votes)
 * 5) Colorado, 2.55% (14,022 votes)
 * 6) New York, 3.56% (224,440 votes)
 * 7) New Jersey, 3.62% (71,528 votes)
 * 8) Minnesota, 3.83% (47,922 votes)
 * 9) Iowa, 4.41% (53,570 votes)
 * 10) Ohio, 4.41% (146,366 votes)
 * 11) Missouri, 4.77% (87,467 votes)

Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (83 electoral votes):
 * 1) Wyoming, 5.93% (6,654 votes)
 * 2) New Hampshire, 6.44% (15,165 votes)
 * 3) Massachusetts, 6.75% (136,822 votes)
 * 4) Pennsylvania, 6.89% (281,187 votes) (tipping point state)
 * 5) Connecticut, 7.14% (55,802 votes)
 * 6) Oregon, 8.07% (38,860 votes)
 * 7) Idaho, 9.05% (21,289 votes)
 * 8) Delaware, 9.65% (13,159 votes)
 * 9) Vermont, 9.86% (14,102 votes)

Statistics
Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Democratic)
 * 1)  Terrell County, Georgia 100.00%
 * 2)  Tate County, Mississippi 99.81%
 * 3)  Lancaster County, South Carolina 99.57%
 * 4)  Calhoun County, South Carolina 99.55%
 * 5)  Chesterfield County, South Carolina 99.31%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Republican)
 * 1)  McIntosh County, North Dakota 91.66%
 * 2)  Jackson County, Kentucky 88.62%
 * 3)  Gillespie County, Texas 86.74%
 * 4)  Mercer County, North Dakota 85.36%
 * 5)  Johnson County, Tennessee 84.21%

Foreign interference
The British government engaged covert intelligence operations to support Roosevelt, including the planting of false news stories, wiretaps, "October surprises", and other intelligence activities. The German government had allocated $5 million as a campaign war chest via the German embassy to bribe Democratic delegates at the 1940 convention, using American businessman William Rhodes Davis as a conduit. Davis was sympathetic to the German cause after his meeting with Hermann Göring and was enlisted for this purpose. Later, he directed some of these funds towards supporting anti-Roosevelt radio broadcasts by the isolationist labor leader John L. Lewis, with the aim of impeding Roosevelt's re-election bid. Initially a supporter of Roosevelt in 1936, Davis had become disillusioned by 1940, and the two had grown apart over foreign policy. The German envoy in Mexico had also requested $160,000 to sway an unnamed Democratic Party operative in Pennsylvania to unseat interventionist Democratic Senator Joseph Guffey, who was a prominent critic of Nazi Germany. Davis was later identified as Abwehr agent C-80 following his death in August 1941.


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1944 United States presidential election

The 1944 United States presidential election was the 40th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 1944. The election took place during World War II, which ended the following year. Incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey to win an unprecedented fourth term. It was also the fifth (and second consecutive) presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1860, 1904, 1920, 1940, and 2016.

Roosevelt had become the first president to win a third term with his victory in the 1940 presidential election, with little doubt that he would seek a fourth term. Unlike in 1940, Roosevelt faced little opposition within his own party, and he easily won the presidential nomination of the 1944 Democratic National Convention. Concerned that Roosevelt's ill health would mean the vice president would likely become president, the convention dropped Roosevelt's vice president Henry A. Wallace in favor of Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri. Governor Dewey of New York emerged as the front-runner for the Republican nomination after his victory in the Wisconsin primary, and he defeated conservative Governor John W. Bricker at the 1944 Republican National Convention.

As World War II was going well for the United States and the Allies, Roosevelt remained popular despite his long tenure. Dewey campaigned against the New Deal and for a smaller government, but was ultimately unsuccessful in convincing the country to change course. The election was closer than Roosevelt's other presidential campaigns, but Roosevelt still won by a 7.5 percentage point margin in the popular vote and by a wide margin in the Electoral College. Rumors of Roosevelt's ill health, although somewhat dispelled by his vigorous campaigning, proved to be prescient; Roosevelt died less than three months into his fourth term and was succeeded by Truman.

Democratic Party

President Roosevelt was the popular, wartime incumbent and faced little formal opposition. Although many Southern Democrats mistrusted Roosevelt's racial policies, he brought enormous war activities to the region and the end of its marginal status was in sight. No major figure opposed Roosevelt publicly, and he was re-nominated easily when the Democratic Convention met in Chicago. Some pro-segregationist delegates tried to unite behind Virginia senator Harry F. Byrd, but he refused to campaign actively against Roosevelt, and did not get enough delegates to seriously threaten the President's chances.

The obvious physical decline in the president's appearance, as well as rumors of secret health problems, led many delegates and party leaders to strongly oppose Vice President Henry A. Wallace for a second term. Opposition to Wallace came especially from Catholic leaders in big cities and moderate Democrats. Wallace, who had been Roosevelt's vice president since January 1941, was regarded by most conservatives as being too left-wing and personally eccentric to be next in line for the presidency. He had performed so poorly as economic coordinator that Roosevelt had to remove him from that post. Numerous moderate party leaders privately sent word to Roosevelt that they would fight Wallace's re-nomination as vice president and proposed instead Senator Harry S. Truman, a moderate from Missouri. Truman was highly visible as the chairman of a Senate wartime committee investigating fraud and inefficiency in the war program. Roosevelt, who personally liked Wallace and knew little about Truman, agreed reluctantly to accept Truman as his running mate to preserve party unity. Even so, many delegates on the left refused to abandon Wallace, and they voted for him on the first ballot. However, enough large Northern, Midwestern, and Southern states supported Truman to give him victory on the second ballot. The fight over the vice-presidential nomination proved to be consequential; the ticket won and Roosevelt died in April 1945, and Truman instead of Wallace became the nation's thirty-third President.

Republican Party
As 1944 began, the frontrunners for the Republican nomination appeared to be Wendell Willkie, the party's 1940 nominee, Senator Robert A. Taft from Ohio, the leader of the party's conservatives, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the leader of the party's moderate eastern establishment, General Douglas MacArthur, then serving as an Allied commander in the Pacific theater of the war, and former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen, then serving as a U.S. naval officer in the Pacific. Taft surprised many by declining to run for president as he wanted to remain in the Senate; instead, he voiced his support for a fellow Ohio conservative, Governor John W. Bricker.

With Taft out of the race some Republican conservatives favored General MacArthur. However, MacArthur's chances were limited by the fact that he was leading Allied forces against Japan, and thus could not campaign for the nomination. His supporters entered his name in the Wisconsin primary nonetheless. The Wisconsin primary proved to be the key contest, as Dewey won by a surprisingly wide margin. He took fourteen delegates to four for Harold Stassen, while MacArthur won the three remaining delegates. Willkie was shut out in the Wisconsin primary; he did not win a single delegate. His unexpectedly poor showing in Wisconsin forced him to withdraw as a candidate for the nomination. However, at the time of his sudden death in early October 1944, Willkie had endorsed neither Dewey nor Roosevelt. At the 1944 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Dewey easily overcame Bricker and was nominated for president on the first ballot. Dewey, a moderate to liberal Republican, chose the conservative Bricker as his running mate. Dewey originally preferred fellow liberal California Governor Earl Warren, but agreed on Bricker to preserve party unity (Warren would go on to run with Dewey in the 1948 election). Bricker was nominated for vice president by acclamation.

Fall campaign
The Republicans campaigned against the New Deal, seeking a smaller government and less-regulated economy as the end of the war seemed in sight. Nonetheless, Roosevelt's continuing popularity was the main theme of the campaign. To quiet rumors of his poor health, Roosevelt insisted on making a vigorous campaign swing in October and rode in an open car through city streets.

Numerous campaign songs for F.D.R. were written, possibly in an effort to advertise on radio during radio's Golden Age. These included 1940's "Franklin D. Roosevelt's Back Again" and "Mister Roosevelt, Won't You Please Run Again." In 1944, Broadway actress Mary Crane Hone published piano march "Let's Re-Re-Re-Elect Roosevelt." Its lyrics were: Let's make each one of our blows felt

For the causes of humanity and war.

With world peace just around the corner,

His leadership is necessary still.

So - Let's Re-Re-Re-Elect Roosevelt... A high point of the campaign occurred when Roosevelt, speaking to a meeting of labor union leaders, gave a speech carried on national radio in which he ridiculed Republican claims that his administration was corrupt and wasteful with tax money. He particularly derided a Republican claim that he had sent a US Navy warship to pick up his Scottish Terrier Fala in Alaska, noting that "Fala was furious" at such rumors. The speech was met with loud laughter and applause from the labor leaders. In response, Governor Dewey gave a blistering partisan speech in Oklahoma City a few days later on national radio, in which he accused Roosevelt of being "indispensable" to corrupt big-city Democratic organizations and American Communists; he also referred to members of Roosevelt's cabinet as a "motley crew". However, American battlefield successes in Europe and the Pacific during the campaign, such as the liberation of Paris in August 1944 and the successful Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines in October 1944, made President Roosevelt unbeatable.

Results
Throughout the campaign, Roosevelt led Dewey in all the polls by varying margins. On election day, the Democratic incumbent scored a fairly comfortable victory over his Republican challenger. Roosevelt took 36 states for 432 electoral votes (266 were needed to win), while Dewey won twelve states and 99 electoral votes. In the popular vote, Roosevelt won 25,612,916 (53.4%) votes to Dewey's 22,017,929 (45.9%). Dewey conceded in a radio address the following morning, but declined to personally call or to send a telegram to President Roosevelt. Roosevelt sent Dewey a telegram reading, "I thank you for your statement, which I heard over the air a few minutes ago." Roosevelt's victory made him the only person ever to win the presidential popular vote four times, and neither party would again win the popular vote four consecutive times until the Democrats did so in all four elections from 2008 to 2020.

The important question had been which leader, Roosevelt or Dewey, should be chosen for the critical days of peacemaking and reconstruction following the war's conclusion. Most American voters concluded that they should retain the governing party, and particularly the president who represented it. They also felt it unsafe to do so in "wartime", in view of ever-increasing domestic disagreements.

Dewey did better against Roosevelt than any of Roosevelt's previous three Republican opponents: Roosevelt's percentage and margin of the total vote were both less than in 1940. Dewey flipped the states of Wyoming, Wisconsin, and Ohio from the previous election, while Roosevelt flipped Michigan. Dewey also gained the personal satisfaction of finishing ahead of Roosevelt in his hometown of Hyde Park, New York, and ahead of Truman in his hometown of Independence, Missouri. Dewey would again become the Republican presidential nominee in 1948, challenging President Truman (who had assumed that office on FDR's death), and would again lose, though by somewhat smaller popular- and electoral-vote margins.

Roosevelt's net vote totals in the twelve largest cities increased from 2,112,000 votes in the 1940 election to 2,230,000 votes. Of the 3,095 counties/independent cities making returns, Roosevelt won the most popular votes in 1,751 (56.58%) while Dewey carried 1,343 (43.39%). The Texas Regular ticket carried one county (0.03%). In New York, only the combined support of the American Labor and Liberal parties (pledged to Roosevelt but otherwise independent of the Democrats to maintain their identities) enabled Roosevelt to win the electoral votes of his home state.

In 1944, the constantly growing Southern protest against Roosevelt's leadership became clearest in Texas, where 135,553 people voted against Roosevelt but not for the Republican ticket. The Texas Regular ticket resulted from a split in the Democratic Party in its two state conventions, May 23 and September 12, 1944. This ticket, which represented the Democratic element opposing the re-election of President Roosevelt, called for the "restoration of states' rights which have been destroyed by the Communist New Deal" and "restoration of the supremacy of the white race". Its electors were uninstructed.

Records
Until 1996 this was the last time in which an incumbent Democratic president won re-election after serving a full term in office, and it was the second and last time until 2012 in which the incumbent president won re-election with fewer electoral votes and a smaller popular vote margin than had been won in the previous election. This was also the last election until 2012 in which the incumbent Democratic president received over 50 percent of the popular vote after receiving over 50 percent of it in the previous election.

As of 2023, this was the most recent presidential election in which a Democratic ticket has won every state of the former Confederacy as well as the entire southern region. This was the first election since 1892 that a Democrat won without taking Wyoming and Ohio. Roosevelt is the only president to serve for more than two terms; in 1951, the Twenty-second Amendment was ratified, limiting the number of terms a person may be president.

As he had in 1940, Roosevelt was the third of just four presidents in United States history to win re-election with a lower percentage of the electoral vote than in their prior elections; the other three are James Madison in 1812, Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and Barack Obama in 2012. Additionally, Roosevelt was the fourth of only five presidents to win re-election with a smaller percentage of the popular vote than in prior elections; the other four are Madison in 1812, Andrew Jackson in 1832, Grover Cleveland in 1892, and Obama in 2012.

This is the last election in which New Hampshire and Oregon voted Democratic until 1964 and the last in which Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania did so until 1960.

The 432 electoral votes received by Roosevelt, added to the 449 electoral votes he received in 1940, and the 523 electoral votes he received in 1936, and the 472 electoral votes he received in 1932, gave him the most total electoral votes received by any candidate who was elected to the office of president since he is the only president to serve more than two terms (1,876).

Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote):

Results by state
Source:

States that flipped from Republican to Democratic

 * Michigan

States that flipped from Democratic to Republican

 * Ohio
 * Wisconsin
 * Wyoming

Close states
Margin of victory less than 1% (25 electoral votes):
 * 1) Ohio, 0.37% (11,530 votes)

Margin of victory less than 5% (165 electoral votes):
 * 1) Michigan, 1.02% (22,476 votes)
 * 2) New Jersey, 1.35% (26,539 votes)
 * 3) Wisconsin, 1.80% (24,119 votes)
 * 4) Wyoming, 2.47% (2,502 votes)
 * 5) Pennsylvania, 2.78% (105,425 votes)
 * 6) Missouri, 2.94% (46,280 votes)
 * 7) Illinois, 3.47% (140,165 votes)
 * 8) Idaho, 3.49% (7,262 votes)
 * 9) Maryland, 3.70% (22,541 votes)
 * 10) New Hampshire, 4.24% (9,747 votes)
 * 11) Iowa, 4.50% (47,391 votes)
 * 12) Oregon, 4.85% (23,270 votes)
 * 13) Maine, 4.99% (14,803 votes)

Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (138 electoral votes):
 * 1) New York, 5.01% (316,591 votes) (tipping point state)
 * 2) Connecticut, 5.36% (44,619 votes)
 * 3) Minnesota, 5.55% (62,448 votes)
 * 4) Indiana, 5.65% (94,488 votes)
 * 5) Massachusetts, 5.81% (113,946 votes)
 * 6) Colorado, 6.81% (34,400 votes)
 * 7) New Mexico, 7.03% (10,701 votes)
 * 8) North Dakota, 8.35% (18,391 votes)
 * 9) Delaware, 9.11% (11,419 votes)
 * 10) Kentucky, 9.23% (80,141 votes)
 * 11) Nevada, 9.24% (5,012 votes)
 * 12) Montana, 9.35% (19,393 votes)
 * 13) West Virginia, 9.78% (69,958 votes)

Statistics
Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Democratic)
 * 1)  Armstrong County, South Dakota 100.00%
 * 2)  Leake County, Mississippi 99.15%
 * 3)  Chesterfield County, South Carolina 98.77%
 * 4)  Taliaferro County, Georgia 98.48%
 * 5)  Barnwell County, South Carolina 98.41%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Republican)
 * 1)  McIntosh County, North Dakota 91.98%
 * 2)  Jackson County, Kentucky 91.56%
 * 3)  Sevier County, Tennessee 87.24%
 * 4)  Logan County, North Dakota 86.47%
 * 5)  Owsley County, Kentucky 86.11%