1932 United States presidential election in Nebraska

1932 United States presidential election in Nebraska

← 1928 November 8, 1932[1] 1936 →

All 7 Nebraska votes to the Electoral College
 
Nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt Herbert Hoover
Party Democratic Republican
Home state New York California
Running mate John Nance Garner Charles Curtis
Electoral vote 7 0
Popular vote 359,082 201,177
Percentage 62.98% 35.29%

County Results

President before election

Herbert Hoover
Republican

Elected President

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic

The 1932 United States presidential election in Nebraska took place on November 8, 1932, as part of the 1932 United States presidential election. Voters chose seven[2] representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Nebraska was won by the Democratic nominee, former Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt from New York), running with Speaker John Nance Garner, with 62.98% of the popular vote, against incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover, running with Vice President Charles Curtis, with 35.29% of the popular vote.[3]

Though he had decisively won Nebraska just 4 years earlier in 1932 by 27%, with the onset of The Great Depression in 1929, by 1932 Hoover had little appeal to the largely rural communities of the Great Plains, as most voters viewed him as not doing enough to lessen the impact of the Depression, with Hoovervilles springing up throughout the country. Additionally, the Dust Bowl, which was a series of droughts and dust storms that hit Nebraska especially hard, decimated the already struggling agriculture-reliant economy of the state.

In contrast, Roosevelt conducted an energetic campaign that appealed to farmers, suburbanites, and urbanites alike. He promised to implement a series of government funded relief programs, collectively known as The New Deal, that would provide economic relief through programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, which gave jobs to unemployed Americans by conducting projects such as building national parks and dams. As the Hoover campaign didn't appear to have any substantive policies to ease the economic burden, Nebraskans came out in large numbers to support Roosevelt, winning the state by a decisive 27.1% margin, a complete reversal of 1928, when Hoover won the state by almost the exact same margin.

Roosevelt carried 91 out of 93 of the state's counties, with Hoover only managing to win Keya Paha and Lancaster, the former of which was decided by a margin of just 2%, or 32 votes (the latter was decided by a more comfortable 6.5%).

With every county in the state trending Democratic, as of the 2020 presidential election, this election marks the best ever Democratic presidential performance in Nebraska and the only time in history the state has given more than sixty percent of its vote to a Democrat in a presidential election.[4] 1932 constitutes the last occasion that Antelope, Arthur, Brown, Furnas, Garden, Garfield, Hamilton, Hooker, Loup, McPherson, Otoe, Rock, Valley, or York counties have voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.[5][6] This was also the last time that Nebraska voted more Democratic than the nation overall.

  1. ^ "United States Presidential election of 1932 – Encyclopædia Britannica". Retrieved January 25, 2019.
  2. ^ "1932 Election for the Thirty-seventh Term (1933-37)". Retrieved January 25, 2019.
  3. ^ "1932 Presidential General Election Results – Nebraska". Retrieved January 25, 2019.
  4. ^ "Presidential General Election Results Comparison – Nebraska". Dave Leip’s U.S. Election Atlas.
  5. ^ Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016
  6. ^ Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, pp. 252-255 ISBN 0786422173