1936
The 1936 U.S. presidential election was won by Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic) with 523 of 531 electoral votes, defeating Alf Landon (Republican). Electoral-vote margin: 515 (523 to 8). Popular-vote margin: 24.3 percentage points. Turnout was 61.0%. The cycle falls in the New Deal Coalition era of American electoral history.
Open the what-if calculator → — flip states and re-count. A toy, not history.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 1936 map
Roosevelt won the greatest Electoral College landslide of the 20th century, carrying 46 of 48 states against Kansas Governor Alf Landon. FDR's New Deal coalition was at its peak, with massive support from labor, ethnic communities, and the poor. The Literary Digest's infamous poll had wrongly predicted a Landon victory, based on a biased sample of telephone and automobile owners (the affluent), leading to the poll's demise and the rise of scientific polling. Only Maine and Vermont voted for Landon.
New Deal defense; Supreme Court battles; economic recovery
Greatest 20th-century EC landslide; only Maine and Vermont voted Republican; Literary Digest poll famously wrong
This summary was drafted with AI tools and has not yet been checked sentence by sentence. The vote table and the National Archives note on this page come from named sources; where they differ from the summary, rely on them. Tell us about an error.
States · 48 reporting
State results · 1936
- New Hampshire Roosevelt by 3,818 · 1.8 pts
- Kansas Roosevelt by 66,793 · 7.7 pts
- Massachusetts Roosevelt by 174,103 · 9.5 pts
- South Dakota Roosevelt by 34,160 · 11.5 pts
- Iowa Roosevelt by 133,779 · 11.7 pts
OhioRoosevelt won it by 20.6 points; its electoral votes took the total to 284, past the 266 needed.
Line up the states the winner carried from widest margin to narrowest and add up their electoral votes: the tipping point is the state that takes the total past a majority.
Scroll the table sideways for every column.
| State | Electoral votes | Franklin D. Roosevelt Dem | Alf Landon Rep | William Lemke Union | Also named | Margin | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 11 EV | 238,196 86.4% | 35,358 12.8% | Not named | None | 202,838 73.6 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Arizona | 3 EV | 86,722 69.8% | 33,433 26.9% | 3,307 2.7% | None | 53,289 42.9 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Arkansas | 9 EV | 146,765 81.8% | 32,039 17.9% | Not named | None | 114,726 63.9 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| California | 22 EV | 1,766,836 67.0% | 836,431 31.7% | Not named | None | 930,405 35.3 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Colorado | 6 EV | 295,021 60.4% | 181,267 37.1% | 9,962 2.0% | None | 113,754 23.3 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Connecticut | 8 EV | 382,189 55.3% | 278,685 40.3% | 21,805 3.2% | None | 103,504 15.0 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Delaware | 3 EV | 69,702 54.6% | 54,014 42.3% | Not named | None | 15,688 12.3 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Florida | 7 EV | 249,117 76.1% | 78,248 23.9% | Not named | None | 170,869 52.2 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Georgia | 12 EV | 255,364 87.1% | 36,942 12.6% | Not named | None | 218,422 74.5 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Idaho | 4 EV | 125,683 63.0% | 66,256 33.2% | 7,684 3.8% | None | 59,427 29.8 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Illinois | 29 EV | 2,282,999 57.7% | 1,570,393 39.7% | 89,439 2.3% | None | 712,606 18.0 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Indiana | 14 EV | 934,974 56.6% | 691,570 41.9% | 19,407 1.2% | None | 243,404 14.7 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Iowa | 11 EV | 621,756 54.4% | 487,977 42.7% | 29,687 2.6% | None | 133,779 11.7 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Kansas | 9 EV | 464,520 53.7% | 397,727 46.0% | Not named | None | 66,793 7.7 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Kentucky | 11 EV | 541,944 58.5% | 369,702 39.9% | 12,501 1.4% | None | 172,242 18.6 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Louisiana | 10 EV | 292,894 88.8% | 36,791 11.2% | Not named | None | 256,103 77.7 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Maine | 5 EV | 126,333 41.5% | 168,823 55.5% | 7,581 2.5% | None | 42,490 14.0 pts | Landon Rep |
| Maryland | 8 EV | 389,612 62.3% | 231,435 37.0% | Not named | None | 158,177 25.3 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Massachusetts | 17 EV | 942,716 51.2% | 768,613 41.8% | 118,639 6.4% | None | 174,103 9.5 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Michigan1 | 19 EV | 1,016,7941 56.3% | 699,7331 38.8% | 75,7951 4.2% | None | 317,061 17.6 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Minnesota | 11 EV | 698,811 61.8% | 350,461 31.0% | 74,296 6.6% | None | 348,350 30.8 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Mississippi | 9 EV | 157,318 97.1% | 4,443 2.7% | Not named | None | 152,875 94.3 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Missouri | 15 EV | 1,111,043 60.8% | 697,891 38.2% | Not named | None | 413,152 22.6 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Montana | 4 EV | 159,690 69.3% | 63,598 27.6% | 5,549 2.4% | None | 96,092 41.7 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Nebraska | 7 EV | 347,454 57.1% | 247,731 40.7% | 12,847 2.1% | None | 99,723 16.4 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Nevada | 3 EV | 31,925 72.8% | 11,923 27.2% | Not named | None | 20,002 45.6 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| New Hampshire | 4 EV | 108,460 49.7% | 104,642 48.0% | 4,819 2.2% | None | 3,818 1.8 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| New Jersey | 16 EV | 1,083,850 59.5% | 720,322 39.6% | Not named | None | 363,528 20.0 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| New Mexico | 3 EV | 105,838 62.7% | 61,710 36.5% | Not named | None | 44,128 26.1 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| New York2,3 | 47 EV | 3,293,2222 58.8% | 2,180,6702 39.0% | Not named | Norman Thomas 86,897 · 1.6%2 | 1,112,552 19.9 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| North Carolina | 13 EV | 616,141 73.4% | 223,283 26.6% | Not named | None | 392,858 46.8 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| North Dakota | 4 EV | 163,148 59.6% | 72,751 26.6% | 36,708 13.4% | None | 90,397 33.0 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Ohio | 26 EV | 1,747,122 58.0% | 1,127,709 37.4% | 132,212 4.4% | None | 619,413 20.6 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Oklahoma | 11 EV | 501,069 66.8% | 245,122 32.7% | Not named | None | 255,947 34.1 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Oregon | 5 EV | 266,733 64.4% | 122,706 29.6% | 21,831 5.3% | None | 144,027 34.8 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Pennsylvania4 | 36 EV | 2,353,7884 56.9% | 1,690,3004 40.8% | 67,4674 1.6% | None | 663,488 16.0 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Rhode Island | 4 EV | 165,233 53.1% | 125,012 40.2% | 19,569 6.3% | None | 40,221 12.9 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| South Carolina | 8 EV | 113,791 98.6% | 1,646 1.4% | Not named | None | 112,145 97.1 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| South Dakota5 | 4 EV | 160,1375 54.0% | 125,9775 42.5% | 10,3385 3.5% | None | 34,160 11.5 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Tennessee | 11 EV | 327,083 68.8% | 146,516 30.8% | Not named | None | 180,567 38.0 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Texas | 23 EV | 734,485 87.1% | 103,874 12.3% | Not named | None | 630,611 74.8 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Utah | 4 EV | 150,246 69.3% | 64,555 29.8% | Not named | None | 85,691 39.5 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Vermont | 3 EV | 62,124 43.2% | 81,023 56.4% | Not named | None | 18,899 13.2 pts | Landon Rep |
| Virginia | 11 EV | 234,980 70.2% | 98,336 29.4% | Not named | None | 136,644 40.8 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Washington | 8 EV | 459,579 66.4% | 206,892 29.9% | 17,463 2.5% | None | 252,687 36.5 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| West Virginia | 8 EV | 502,582 60.5% | 325,486 39.2% | Not named | None | 177,096 21.3 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Wisconsin | 12 EV | 802,984 63.8% | 380,828 30.3% | 60,297 4.8% | None | 422,156 33.5 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
| Wyoming | 3 EV | 62,624 60.6% | 38,739 37.5% | 1,653 1.6% | None | 23,885 23.1 pts | Roosevelt Dem |
Shares are of each state’s total vote for president. “Not named”: the figures do not give that candidate a line of their own in that state — for example under 1% of the vote, not on the ballot there, or counted on an unnamed line (see the state’s note). Margin is the leader’s lead over the second-placed candidate.
Notes on the figures
- Michigan The official table notes: Lemke's figure is marked with footnote 1: 'The Third Party'.
- New York Franklin D. Roosevelt's figure is the sum of the lines the official table prints separately (Roosevelt (Democrat) 3,018,298; American Labor 274,924).
- New York The official table notes: The Other figure, 274,924, is marked with footnote 2: 'American Labor Party.' The American Labor Party's electors were Roosevelt's, so it is stored here in its own column ALP with candidate Roosevelt.
- Pennsylvania The official table notes: Lemke's figure is marked with footnote 3: 'Independent Labor Party.'
- South Dakota The official table notes: Lemke's figure is marked with footnote 3: 'Independent Labor Party.'
SourceStatistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 3, 1936 . How these figures were compiled
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