Thread by @Millenarian22

#ElectionTwitter Thread: Map of the county swing from the 1936 to 1940 Presidential Elections. FDR was running for an unprecedented 3rd term & did 14.3 pts worse than in 1936, with big losses in heavily German-American areas like the Midwest & Great Plains, in the run-up to WW2:

Here's the same map in Trend form, so county swings are relative to the 14 pt national swing towards the GOP. Much of the NE & South trended towards FDR. Along with German-Americans, FDR had defections from some Italian & Irish voters, contributing to losses in urban areas (NYC):

Maps of the actual 1936 & 1940 elections from Wikipedia. GOP nominee Alf Landon had been blown out by FDR in 1936, only winning a smattering of counties across the country, but Wendell Wilkie was much more competitive in 1940, winning wide swathes of the rural heartland of the US

The biggest Dem swing was in heavily French/Cajun Assumption Parish LA, which went from a 61-39 Landon (R) win in 1932 to a 71-29 FDR win in 1936. The swing was likely driven by FDR's aid of arms (& even 50 WW1 destroyers) to the allies (France had already fallen by election day)

The biggest swing towards the GOP was in Washington County TX, which went from a 92-8 FDR win in 1936 to a 56-44 Willkie win in 1940. Washington was very anti-New Deal, the only county to be carried by the 3rd-party "Texas Regulars" 4 years later in 1944:

https://twitter.com/Millenarian22/status/1292151688623579140

The 2nd biggest swing towards the Democrats was in McIntosh County North Dakota, which went from a 52-41 FDR win in 1936 to a 92-8 Willkie win in 1940! McIntosh was heavily German (71% German today), & so likely reacted negatively to FDR's opposition to Nazi Germany in WW2.

A 1977 study of the 1940 vote in Iowa suggests that the big GOP swings in the Midwest were due to voters with German ancestry defecting from FDR's coalition (likely over nationalism/foreign policy), rather than an agrarian revolt against the New Deal:
ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewconten…

This despite the fact that Wendell Wilkie, the GOP's outsider nominee, had been nominated precisely because he was pro-internationalist rather than isolationist. Willkie backed FDR's aid for Britain & a peacetime draft, & was considered for his VP in 1944!

https://twitter.com/Millenarian22/status/1312082822157328385

The run-up to the June 1940 GOP convention in Philadelphia coincided with Hitler's advance in Western Europe. Willkie had no elected experience, but was an outspoken critic of the New Deal, & was able to win the convention over isolationist Thomas Dewey (the future 1944 nominee).

Willkie gave a nationwide radio address after his loss to Roosevelt, urging those who had voted for him not to oppose Roosevelt on all issues, but to give support where it was called for. Roosevelt confided to his son James: "I'm happy I've won, but I'm sorry Wendell lost."

Here is the German-American population (not my map) side-by-side with the swing map. Definitely some very strong overlap, for example the southern & very German part of ND swinging over 50 pts GOP, & the divergence between more German North IA & less German South IA: