1940 United States presidential election in Florida explained

See main article: 1940 United States presidential election.

Election Name:1940 United States presidential election in Florida
Country:Florida
Flag Year:1900
Type:presidential
Ongoing:no
Previous Election:1936 United States presidential election in Florida
Previous Year:1936
Election Date:November 5, 1940
Next Election:1944 United States presidential election in Florida
Next Year:1944
Image1:FDRoosevelt1938.png
Nominee1:Franklin D. Roosevelt
Party1:Democratic Party (United States)
Home State1:New York
Running Mate1:Henry A. Wallace
Electoral Vote1:7
Popular Vote1:359,334
Percentage1:73.99%
President
Before Election:Franklin D. Roosevelt
Before Party:Democratic Party (United States)
After Election:Franklin D. Roosevelt
After Party:Democratic Party (United States)
Nominee2:Wendell Willkie
Party2:Republican Party (United States)
Home State2:New York
Electoral Vote2:0
Running Mate2:Charles McNary
Popular Vote2:126,158
Percentage2:25.98%
Map Size:400px

The 1940 United States presidential election in Florida was held on November 5, 1940, as part of the concurrent United States presidential election. Florida voters chose seven electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Florida had been one of the most solid members of the "Solid South" ever since the 1889 poll tax disfranchised almost all blacks and most poor whites.[1] Unlike southern states extending into the Appalachian Mountains or Ozarks, or Texas with its German settlements in the Edwards Plateau, Florida completely lacked upland or German "Forty-Eighter" whites opposed to secession.[2] Thus disfranchisement of blacks left the party moribund – fifty years after disfranchisement, half of all Florida's registered Republicans were still black although a negligible number had ever voted.[3]

Immigration of northerners into the previously undeveloped areas of South Florida, along with fierce anti-Catholicism in the northern Piney Woods, did give Herbert Hoover a freakish victory in 1928,[4] but apart from that the Democratic Party had lost only six counties at a presidential level since 1892.[5]

Following FDR's second successive sweep of all sixty-seven counties in 1936, Senator Claude Pepper and Miami politicians led a successful push to abolish the poll tax because of the corruption it was causing.[6] Repeal of the poll tax produced significant increases in the total vote cast vis-à-vis that of 1936: the presidential vote increased by around forty-seven percent, and in gubernatorial primaries the absolute increase in percent turnout was over eleven percent of the total voting age white population.[7]

Nonetheless, almost all of this new electorate remained white due to the white primary. Aided by considerable sympathy amongst Florida's largely English-descended white population for the United Kingdom's cause in ongoing World War II,[8] Roosevelt was to sweep every county in Florida for the third successive election and for the ninth occasion in thirteen elections since the recently abolished poll tax was originally imposed. Willkie, who improved by over eight percent upon Alf Landon's performance in 1936, gained less than half that amount in Florida.[9]

As of 2020, this is the penultimate election that every county in Florida voted Democratic and the last time that every county voted more Democratic than the nation at-large.

Results

Results by county

CountyFranklin Delano Roosevelt
Democratic
Wendell Lewis Willkie
Republican
MarginTotal votes cast[10]
%%%
Alachua6,71483.03%1,37216.97%5,34266.06%8,086
Baker1,35292.22%1147.78%1,23884.44%1,466
Bay5,15388.28%68411.72%4,46976.56%5,837
Bradford1,58885.88%26114.12%1,32771.76%1,849
Brevard2,99560.15%1,98439.85%1,01120.30%4,979
Broward6,42261.69%3,98838.31%2,43423.38%10,410
Calhoun1,72290.97%1719.03%1,55181.94%1,893
Charlotte91069.10%40730.90%50338.20%1,317
Citrus1,56188.95%19411.05%1,36777.90%1,755
Clay1,48874.92%49825.08%99049.84%1,986
Collier80983.83%15616.17%65367.66%965
Columbia2,88886.70%44313.30%2,44573.40%3,331
Dade51,92167.30%25,22432.70%26,69734.60%77,145
De Soto1,88878.21%52621.79%1,36256.42%2,414
Dixie1,42094.41%845.59%1,33688.82%1,504
Duval41,00381.71%9,17718.29%31,82663.42%50,180
Escambia16,20187.81%2,24912.19%13,95275.62%18,450
Flagler55380.26%13619.74%41760.52%689
Franklin1,40093.21%1026.79%1,29886.42%1,502
Gadsden3,21888.53%41711.47%2,80177.06%3,635
Gilchrist1,01191.99%888.01%92383.98%1,099
Glades46472.05%18027.95%28444.10%644
Gulf1,64293.99%1056.01%1,53787.98%1,747
Hamilton1,42488.50%18511.50%1,23977.00%1,609
Hardee2,55978.67%69421.33%1,86557.34%3,253
Hendry1,04076.64%31723.36%72353.28%1,357
Hernando1,15175.13%38124.87%77050.26%1,532
Highlands2,21571.61%87828.39%1,33743.22%3,093
Hillsborough30,73879.75%7,80520.25%22,93359.50%38,543
Holmes2,68475.16%88724.84%1,79750.32%3,571
Indian River1,48762.19%90437.81%58324.38%2,391
Jackson5,60786.62%86613.38%4,74173.24%6,473
Jefferson1,41286.79%21513.21%1,19773.58%1,627
Lafayette1,09089.93%12210.07%96879.86%1,212
Lake5,32266.68%2,65933.32%2,66333.36%7,981
Lee3,53168.52%1,62231.48%1,90937.04%5,153
Leon5,45990.35%5839.65%4,87680.70%6,042
Levy2,52790.48%2669.52%2,26180.96%2,793
Liberty94788.84%11911.16%82877.68%1,066
Madison2,42184.62%44015.38%1,98169.24%2,861
Manatee5,13172.13%1,98327.87%3,14844.26%7,114
Marion6,12782.53%1,29717.47%4,83065.06%7,424
Martin1,01863.07%59636.93%42226.14%1,614
Monroe4,10289.86%46310.14%3,63979.72%4,565
Nassau1,88881.77%42118.23%1,46763.54%2,309
Okaloosa3,00381.32%69018.68%2,31362.64%3,693
Okeechobee82287.08%12212.92%70074.16%944
Orange12,82161.00%8,19839.00%4,62322.00%21,019
Osceola2,01558.52%1,42841.48%58717.04%3,443
Palm Beach11,88461.72%7,37138.28%4,51323.44%19,255
Pasco3,09169.41%1,36230.59%1,72938.82%4,453
Pinellas18,94158.70%13,32741.30%5,61417.40%32,268
Polk17,69076.07%5,56423.93%12,12652.14%23,254
Putnam3,47777.53%1,00822.47%2,46955.06%4,485
St. John's4,12275.98%1,30324.02%2,81951.96%5,425
St. Lucie2,16969.27%96230.73%1,20738.54%3,131
Santa Rosa2,91081.60%65618.40%2,25463.20%3,566
Sarasota3,77369.29%1,67230.71%2,10138.58%5,445
Seminole3,15069.71%1,36930.29%1,78139.42%4,519
Sumter2,38290.40%2539.60%2,12980.80%2,635
Suwannee2,86687.73%40112.27%2,46575.46%3,267
Taylor2,49992.66%1987.34%2,30185.32%2,697
Union1,02491.51%958.49%92983.02%1,119
Volusia10,02460.63%6,50939.37%3,51521.26%16,533
Wakulla1,33695.02%704.98%1,26690.04%1,406
Walton3,21782.26%69417.74%2,52364.52%3,911
Washington1,91574.86%64325.14%1,27249.72%2,558
Totals359,33473.99%126,15825.98%233,17648.01%485,640

Notes and References

  1. [Joel H. Silbey|Silbey, Joel H.]
  2. Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 208, 210
  3. See Price, Hugh Douglas; 'The Negro and Florida Politics, 1944-1954'; The Journal of Politics, Vol. 17, No. 2 (May, 1955), pp. 198-220
  4. Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority; pp. 212-214
  5. Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 164-165
  6. Keyssar, Alexander; The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States, p. 183
  7. Teeples, Ronald K. (1970); The Economics of Voter Turnout, p. 111 Published by University of California Press, Los Angeles
  8. Menendez; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, pp. 67-68
  9. Web site: 1940 Presidential General Election Results – Florida. Leip. David. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. 2018-02-02.
  10. Scammon, Richard M. (compiler); America at the Polls: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics 1920-1964; pp. 87-88