1940 Republican Party presidential primaries
Selection of the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States in 1940
From March 12 to May 17, 1940, voters of the Republican Party chose delegates to nominate a candidate for president at the 1940 Republican National Convention. The nominee was selected at the convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from June 24–28, 1940.
The primaries were contested mainly by Manhattan District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey and Senators Robert A. Taft and Arthur Vandenberg, though only a few states' primaries featured two or more of these men.
By the start of the convention, only 300 of the 1,000 convention delegates had been pledged to a candidate, far fewer than was necessary to determine a victor. Estimates of delegate loyalty placed Dewey first, Taft second, and Wendell Willkie, an internationalist businessman, third. Late momentum following the escalation of World War II allowed Willkie to take the nomination on the sixth ballot at the convention.
Background
1936 presidential election
In 1936, Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Alf Landon in a historic landslide; his party expanded its majority in both houses of Congress. The result left the Republican Party at its lowest point since its founding: diminished, leaderless, and unpopular. Following two successive landslide defeats, the party was bereft of potential candidates for president in 1940.
1938 midterms
In the wake of his historic victory, Roosevelt overplayed his hand.
“1940 Republican Party presidential primaries” enters the record as selection of the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States in 1940. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Republican, Party and presidential can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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