1940 United States presidential election

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 5, 1940. The Democratic ticket of incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt and secretary of agriculture Henry Wallace defeated the Republican ticket of businessman Wendell Willkie and senator Charles McNary to be reelected for an unprecedented third term in office. Until 1988, this was the last time in which the incumbent's party won three consecutive presidential elections. It was also the fourth presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1860, 1904, 1920, 1944, and 2016. The election was contested in the shadow of World War II in Europe, as the United States was finally emerging from the Great Depression. Roosevelt did not want to campaign for a third term initially, but was driven by worsening conditions in Europe. He and his allies sought to defuse challenges from other party leaders such as James Farley and Vice President John Nance Garner. The 1940 Democratic National Convention re-nominated Roosevelt on the first ballot, while Garner was replaced on the ticket by Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace. Willkie, a dark horse candidate, unexpectedly defeated conservative Senator Robert A. Taft and Manhattan District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey on the sixth presidential ballot of the 1940 Republican National Convention. Roosevelt, acutely aware of strong isolationist and non-interventionist sentiment, promised there would be no involvement in foreign wars if he were reelected. Willkie, who had not previously run for public office, conducted an energetic campaign, managing to revive Republican strength in areas of the Midwest and Northeast. He criticized perceived incompetence and waste in the New Deal, warned of the dangers of breaking the two-term tradition, and accused Roosevelt of secretly planning to take the country into World War II. However, Willkie's association with big business damaged his cause, as many working class voters blamed corporations and business leaders for the Great Depression. Roosevelt led in all pre-election polls and won a comfortable victory; his margins, though still significant, were less decisive than they had been in 1932 and 1936.