United States presidential election in Utah, 1936

United States presidential election in Utah, 1936
November 3, 1936

 
Nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt Alf Landon
Party Democratic Republican
Home state New York Kansas
Running mate John N. Garner Frank Knox
Electoral vote 4 0
Popular vote 150,246 64,555
Percentage 69.34% 29.79%
County Results
President before election

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic

 Elected President

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic

The 1936 United States presidential election in Utah took place on November 3, 1936. All contemporary forty-eight states took part in the national election, and Utah voters selected four voters to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Background

Since its landslide endorsement of "free silver" in its inaugural 1896 election, Utah had been a swing state apart from its support for embattled President William Howard Taft in 1912. Woodrow Wilson had carried the state easily in 1916 due to strong anti-war sentiment,[1] but James Cox, John W. Davis and Robert La Follette senior did not win a single county between them in the 1920 and 1924 Republican landslides.

Vis-à-vis the rest of the nation, the Beehive State had shown only a small anti-Hoover trend in 1932. During Landon's summer campaigning, Utah was targeted strongly as a state the GOP needed to carry to have a chance at the presidency.[2] However, FDR's western public works programs, most notably Boulder Dam,[3] had made him exceptionally popular in the rugged, arid West.[4] Along with the potent campaigning of James Farley meant that, by the last week of October the Republicans were showing no interest in the Beehive State,[5] and this despite the opposition of the leadership of Utah's dominant Mormon Church to Roosevelt's candidacy and policies, chiefly regarding the Church's desire to remove Mormons from welfare rolls.[6]

Vote

Utah, like every other state west of the Appalachian Mountains, voted for Franklin Roosevelt over Alf Landon by a substantial margin, making FDR the first (and only) Democrat to win the state more than once. Roosevelt landslided Utah with 69.34 percent of the vote, which remains the second best Democratic result from the state behind William Jennings Bryan in the state's inaugural election of 1896.

Like Bryan, FDR won every county in the state except strongly Republican Kane County in the far south, which has only voted Democrat for Woodrow Wilson in 1916.[1] Kane County was the westernmost county in the nation to vote for Landon, and one of only three west of the Continental Divide to do so.[lower-alpha 1]

As of the 2016 presidential election, this is the last election in which Iron County, Sanpete County, Sevier County, San Juan County, and Garfield County have voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.[7]

Results

United States presidential election in Utah, 1936[8]
Party Candidate Votes Percentage Electoral votes
Democratic Franklin D. Roosevelt (incumbent) 150,246 69.34% 4
Republican Alf Landon 64,555 29.79% 0
Union William Lemke 1,121 0.52% 0
Socialist Norman Thomas 432 0.20% 0
N/A Write-ins 323 0.15% 0
Totals 216,677 100.00% 4

Results by county

County Roosevelt# Roosevelt% Landon# Landon% Others# Others% Total votes cast[9]
Beaver 1,337 59.01% 913 40.04% 11 0.05% 2,261
Box Elder 5,001 69.02% 2,180 30.01% 50 0.07% 7,231
Cache 8,606 71.97% 3,258 27.02% 93 0.08% 11,957
Carbon 5,140 77.04% 1,348 20.07% 122 1.09% 6,510
Daggett 128 61.05% 78 37.05% 2 1.0% 208
Davis 3,920 67.08% 1,841 31.08% 21 0.04% 5,782
Duchesne 1,970 63.09% 1,070 34.07% 45 1.04% 3.085
Emery 1,909 66.05% 938 32.07% 22 0.08% 2,869
Garfield 928 52.04% 842 47.05% 2 0.01% 1,772
Grand 521 64.40% 272 33.62% 16 1.98% 809
Iron 1,844 56.07% 1,396 42.44% 49 1.49% 3,289
Juab 2,319 68.67% 1,027 30.41% 31 0.92% 3,377
Kane 395 43.03% 519 56.05% 4 0.05% 918
Millard 2,313 60.34% 1,466 38.25% 54 1.41% 3,833
Morgan 739 60.18% 483 39.33% 6 0.49% 1,228
Piute 611 64.25% 339 35.65% 1 0.11% 951
Rich 488 55.45% 388 44.09% 4 0.45% 880
Salt Lake 62,386 71.77% 23,819 27.40% 724 0.83% 86,929
San Juan 520 54.11% 432 44.95% 9 0.94% 961
Sanpete 3,959 58.67% 2,738 40.57% 51 0.76% 6,748
Sevier 2,816 59.07% 1,899 39.84% 52 1.09% 4,767
Summit 2,344 61.95% 1,422 37.58% 18 0.48% 3,784
Tooele 2,361 69.46% 1,029 30.27% 9 0.26% 3,399
Uintah 1,986 60.96% 1,193 36.62% 79 2.42% 3,258
Utah 14,387 69.52% 6,173 29.83% 135 0.65% 20,695
Wasatch 1,299 55.66% 1,029 44.09% 6 0.26% 2,334
Washington 2,005 63.37% 1,145 36.19% 14 0.44% 3,164
Wayne 522 61.12% 329 38.52% 3 0.35% 854
Weber 17,594 77.08% 4,989 21.86% 243 1.06% 22,826
Totals150,24669.34%64,55529.79%1,8760.87%216,677

Notes

  1. ↑ The others were Clark County, Idaho and Rio Blanco County, Colorado

References

  1. 1 2 Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 47 ISBN 0786422173
  2. ↑ Sheppard, Si; The Buying of the Presidency?: Franklin D. Roosevelt, the New Deal, and the Election of 1936 (Praeger Series on American Political Culture) , pp. 52-53 ISBN 144083105X
  3. ↑ Wrobel, David M.; America's West: A History, 1890–1950, p. 139 ISBN 0521150132
  4. ↑ Murrin, John; Johnson, Paul; McPherson, James; Fahs, Alice and Gerstle, Gary; Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People (Enhanced Concise Edition), p. 151 ISBN 9780495565987
  5. ↑ Sheppard; The Buying of the Presidency, pp. 191-192
  6. ↑ Cannon, Brian Q. and Embry, Jessie L. (editors); Utah in the Twentieth Century, pp. 167-169 ISBN 087421744X
  7. ↑ Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016
  8. ↑ "1936 Presidential General Election Results - Utah". Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved 2017-02-13.
  9. ↑ Scammon, Richard M. (compiler); America at the Polls: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics 1920-1964; p. 459 ISBN 0405077114
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