1940 United States presidential election in Tennessee

1940 United States presidential election in Tennessee

← 1936 November 5, 1940[1] 1944 →
All 11 Tennessee votes to the Electoral College
Nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt Wendell Willkie Party Democratic Republican Home state New York New York Running mate Henry A. Wallace Charles L. McNary Electoral vote 11 0 Popular vote 351,601 169,153 Percentage 67.25% 32.35%
County Results Roosevelt   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90%   90-100% Willkie   40-50%   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90%
President before election Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic Elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic

Elections in Tennessee
Federal government U.S. President 1796 1800 1804 1808 1812 1816 1820 1824 1828 1832 1836 1840 1844 1848 1852 1856 1860 1864 1868 1872 1876 1880 1884 1888 1892 1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 1916 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024 Presidential primaries Democratic 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024 Republican 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024 U.S. Senate 1796 1798 1803 1809 1823 1826 1829 1833 1835 1841 1844 1847 1851 1853 1858 1866 1867 1875 1877 1883 1887 1889 1893 1895 1899 1901 1905 1907 1911 1913 1916 1918 1922 1924 1928 1930 1934 1936 1940 1942 1946 1948 1952 1954 1958 1960 1964 1966 1970 1972 1976 1978 1982 1984 1988 1990 1994 1996 2000 2002 2006 2008 2012 2014 2018 2020 2024 2026 U.S. House 1796 1797 1799 1801 1803 1805 1807 1809 1811 1813 1815 1817 1819 1821 1823 1825 1827 1829 1831 1833 1835 1837 1839 1841 1842 1843 1845 1847 1849 1851 1853 1855 1857 1859 1861 1865 1867 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876 1878 1880 1882 1884 1886 1888 1890 1892 1894 1896 1898 1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1914 1916 1918 1920 1922 1924 1926 1928 1930 1932 1934 1936 1938 1940 1942 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 Special elections Senate 1797 1798 1799 1809 1811 1815 1817 1819 1821 1825 1829 1838 1839 1840 1843 1857 1877 1898 1905 1913 1930 1934 1938 1964 1994 House At-large 1797 1801 1st 1910 1961 2nd 1815 1891 1939 1964 1988 3rd 1939 4th 1837 1874 1875 5th 1814 1975 1988 6th 1939 7th 1932 1939 8th 1845 1958 1969 9th 1940
State government State elections 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 Gubernatorial elections 1796 1797 1799 1801 1803 1805 1807 1809 1811 1813 1815 1817 1819 1821 1823 1825 1827 1829 1831 1833 1835 1837 1839 1841 1843 1845 1847 1849 1851 1853 1855 1857 1859 1861 1863 1865 1867 1869 1870 1872 1874 1876 1878 1880 1882 1884 1886 1888 1890 1892 1894 1896 1898 1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1914 1916 1918 1920 1922 1924 1926 1928 1930 1932 1934 1936 1938 1940 1942 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1958 1962 1966 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022 State Senate elections 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 House of Representatives elections 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024
Ballot measures 2006 Amendment 1 2014 Amendment 1 2022 Amendment 1 Amendment 3 Nashville measures Nashville Charter Amendment 1 Let's Move Nashville
Local elections Hamilton County mayoral elections 2018 2022 Chattanooga mayoral elections 2013 2017 2021 2025 Knox County mayoral elections 2010 2014 2018 2022 Knoxville mayoral elections 1983 1987 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023 Shelby County mayoral elections 2010 2014 2018 2022 Memphis mayoral elections 2011 2015 2019 2023 Clarksville Mayoral elections 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022 Jackson Mayoral elections 2015 2019 2023 Murfreesboro Mayoral elections 2014 2018 2022 Nashville Mayoral elections 2007 2011 2015 2018 (sp) 2019 2023
Government
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The 1940 United States presidential election in Tennessee took place on November 5, 1940, as part of the 1940 United States presidential election. Tennessee voters chose 11^[2] representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

For over a century after the Civil War, Tennessee was divided according to political loyalties established in that war. Unionist regions covering almost all of East Tennessee, Kentucky Pennyroyal-allied Macon County, and the five West Tennessee Highland Rim counties of Carroll, Henderson, McNairy, Hardin and Wayne^[3] voted Republican – generally by landslide margins – as they saw the Democratic Party as the "war party" who had forced them into a war they did not wish to fight.^[4] Contrariwise, the rest of Middle and West Tennessee who had supported and driven the state's secession was equally fiercely Democratic as it associated the Republicans with Reconstruction.^[5] After the disfranchisement of the state's African-American population by a poll tax was largely complete in the 1890s,^[6] the Democratic Party was certain of winning statewide elections if united,^[7] although unlike the Deep South Republicans would almost always gain thirty to forty percent of the statewide vote from mountain and Highland Rim support.

In 1920 by moving into a small number of traditionally Democratic areas in Middle Tennessee^[8] and expanding turnout due to the Nineteenth Amendment and powerful isolationist sentiment,^[9] the Republican Party captured Tennessee's presidential electoral votes and won the governorship and three congressional seats in addition to the rock-ribbed GOP First and Second Districts. In 1922 and 1924, with the ebbing of isolationist sympathy and a consequent decline in turnout,^[10] the Democratic Party regained Tennessee's governorship and presidential electoral votes; however, in 1928 anti-Catholicism against Democratic nominee Al Smith in this powerfully fundamentalist state^[11] meant that Herbert Hoover bettered Harding’s performance without however gaining the down-ballot coattails of 1920.

These Republican gains would be completely reversed in the 1930s due to the impact of the Great Depression, which was generally blamed upon the Republican Party’s policies during the 1920s. Internal divisions prevented the Republicans taking advantage of a disputed Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1932 between Lewis Pope and Hill McAlister,^[12] and for the next third of a century the Republicans would rarely contest statewide offices seriously despite their continuing dominance of East Tennessee and half a dozen Unionist counties in the middle and west of the state.^[13] Statewide politics for the decade and a half after the beginning of the Depression would be dominated by Edward Hull “Boss” Crump, whose Memphis political machine would consistently provide decisive votes in statewide Democratic primaries — aided by cross-party voting by Republicans in eastern mountain counties.^[13] Crump would be supported during this era by long-serving Senator Kenneth Douglas McKellar, and in 1938 when several statewide candidates allied themselves with Tennessee’s other Senator, Gordon Browning, the Crump/McKellar machine not merely defeated the collaboration, but even unseated Senator Browning.^[14]

Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was now running with Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace in place of incumbent Vice President John Nance Garner, would visit Tennessee at the beginning of September.^[15] In his visit he defended his accomplishment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson administration, and the work of the Tennessee Valley Authority which the New Deal had created. Republican nominee Wendell Willkie and running mate Minority Leader and Oregon senior Senator Charles L. McNary did not comment^[16] or visit the state. A Gallup poll in mid-october showed Roosevelt maintaining his 1936 68 percent vote percentage,^[17] and in the end Roosevelt carried Tennessee with 67.25 percent of the popular vote to 32.35 percent for Willkie.^[18]

• Bradley
• Claiborne
• Cumberland
• Greene
• Hardin
• McNairy

• McMinn
• Roane

Roosevelt’s 67.25 percent vote share was slightly below what he managed in 1936, but slightly greater than what he gained in Tennessee in 1932. Nationally Willkie won eight states and almost 700 counties that had supported Roosevelt four years earlier, mostly because of Midwestern German-American opposition to increasing "tension" with Nazi Germany.^[21] However, in heavily Anglophile Tennessee, support for aid to the United Kingdom in World War II turned substantial numbers of normally rock-ribbed GOP voters to Roosevelt.^[22] Although FDR lost five normally Republican counties which he had carried in 1936 in Bradley, Claiborne, Cumberland, Greene and Hardin, he won two counties that had backed Hoover and Landon in his first two runs. FDR was the first Democrat to ever carry Roane County.^[23]

As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last occasion when Knox County has voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.^[24]

• 1940 United States Senate election in Tennessee
• 1940 Tennessee gubernatorial election