1932 United States Presidential Election

The 1932 United States presidential election was the 37th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1932. The election took place against the backdrop of the Great Depression. Eleanor Butler Roosevelt, Chairwoman of the New York Smash Crime Rings Executive Committee, won in an electoral college landslide against Commonwealther Frances Perkins, the Secretary of State of New York, and Farmer-Laborite Clarence Dill, Speaker of the House of Representatives. Roosevelt was the first woman to be elected President, 40 years after Mary Elizabeth Lease's 1892 run as the first woman nominated by a major U.S. political party.

Roosevelt won by a landslide in the electoral vote, despite winning by a close margin of 1.2% in the popular vote. Candidates from parties that formed the People's Ownership Smash Crime Rings Party had won nearly 63% of the popular vote in the 1928 presidential election, but their share of the popular vote declined by 23.3% in 1932. Royal Oak nominee John R. Brinkley won 1.1% of the popular vote. Roosevelt's election ended the eight years of Farmer-Labor control over the presidency that lasted since the end of the Second Civil War in 1924.

Background
While William Randolph Hearst won a plurality of electoral votes and the popular vote in the election of 1928, he lost to Alf Landon as the election was deferred to the House of Representatives (by the terms of the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a presidential election in which no candidate wins a majority of the electoral vote is decided by a contingent election in the House of Representatives). The Tokyo Stock Exchange Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression set the stage for Landon's presidency, which would end in his failure to be renominated by his party.

In response to Chicago's 1929 St. Valentine's Day bombings and Al Capone's subsequent rise to the Chicago mayoralty, Ruth Hanna McCormick would hold the murders up as a lightning rod for a new political movement that swept the nation. The movement would be formally crystallized into the People's Ownership Smash Crime Rings Party a single, loose-knit political party formed following the Little Rock Compact. With a party platform simply committing to "the constitution of the country and the enforcement of the laws," the Smash Crime Rings effort would focus on widespread opposition to the Landon Administration and organized crime in the 1930 Midterm elections.

People's Ownership Smash Crime Rings Party nomination
Main article: 1932 People's Ownership Smash Crime Rings Party presidential primaries

Commonwealth Party nomination
Main article: 1932 Commonwealth Party presidential primaries

Farmer-Labor Party nomination
Main article: 1932 Farmer-Labor Party presidential primaries

Campaign
Campaigning upon a conciliatory foreign policy, Dill promoted isolationism, demilitarization beyond treaty limits, continued friendship with the Soviet Union, a plethora of government agencies to battle the Depression in a plan reminiscent of the New Deal, and a single tax upon the Georgist model, the latter of which would coax several state Commonwealth Land parties into abandoning Perkins for the Washingtonian. Dill's refusal to disclose his tax returns amidst accusations of financial misconduct further fueled an attack campaign against the man who was widely considered the most important political player in the nation since 1925. Roosevelt rallied her candidacy around opposition to Farmer-Labor regardless of party affiliation, while harkening to the party's intent with stringent promises of "law and order" and the prosecution of political corruption. However, the eclectic nature of the bizarre coalition shone through the bipolar nature of the ticket. Although both McAdoo and Roosevelt committed to expanding veterans' benefits and promoted an "America First" foreign policy emphasizing remilitarization, the nominees' stances on economic issues provided a juxtaposition. On one hand, while fashioning herself a progressive and adhering to “a more abundant life for all who merit it by their industry, thrift, and initiative", Roosevelt called for the privatization of railroads, telegraph lines, grain silos, natural gas, and other government-owned industries while promising to further lower taxes and decrease regulation on large businesses. McAdoo, meanwhile, called for federal crop management, a moderate approach to nationalization, tax increases, expanded federal business aid, and a 30-hour work week. Perkins campaigned upon a continuation of former President Lejeune's New Deal, declaring "a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life" and promising greater spending and federal programs akin to those proposed by Dill, while nonetheless suggesting the privatization of some government-owned industries and concurring with the Speaker in the need for an increased land value tax. However, the taint of the bossism endemic to the Commonwealth Party damaged its reputation despite Perkins' best efforts, with Taylor himself widely accused of condoning corruption in the local police department and exploiting Chinese immigrant communities.

Results
Roosevelt significantly underperformed with historically Federal Republican black voters, despite winning roughly 60% of the black vote overall. The rapid rise of Perkins' campaign and her success in the election has been attributed to typically Farmer-Labor voters crossing the aisle. Perkins' popular vote performance in the election was the highest of any solo Commonwealth nominee in terms of popular vote percentage, surpassing Lejeune's 1924 record of 35.2%. Dill's popular vote performance was the second lowest of any Farmer-Labor nominee in terms of popular vote percentage, only outperforming William Randolph Hearst's 1908 run. Roosevelt's strongest state would be Mississippi, winning with 49.3% of the vote to 26.1% for Perkins and 23.9% for Dill. Perkins' strongest state would be Kentucky, winning with 56.6% of the vote to 20.1% for Roosevelt and 21.9% for Dill. Dill's strongest state would be Shoshone, winning with 39.9% of the vote to 35.3% for Eleanor Butler Roosevelt, in addition to 9.2% for Perkins and 14.1% for Brinkley. Brinkley would successfully carry 1.1% of the vote, in addition to the vote of faithless elector Albert Lester Blue of Nebraska. In Cuba, the Hurricane of Santa Cruz del Sur, the largest on record in the history of the United States, would kill thousands, cause millions in damages, and leave Cuba without concrete election results. With ballots lost amidst the farrago, Speaker Eduardo Chibás of the Cuban Assembly, would convene the legislature to allocate Cuba's 23 electoral votes to Roosevelt, a move widely denounced on the mainland, with Dill going so far as to suggest decertifying the electoral votes of Cuba. However, with Roosevelt's victory assured, Dill would stand down.

Close states
Margin of victory less than 5% (162 electoral votes):
 * 1) Shoshone, 4.60% – 4 electoral votes
 * 2) Florida – 7 electoral votes
 * 3) Illinois – 29 electoral votes
 * 4) Nebraska – 16 electoral votes
 * 5) New York – 47 electoral votes
 * 6) North Carolina – 13 electoral votes
 * 7) Oregon – 5 electoral votes
 * 8) Tennessee – 11 electoral votes
 * 9) Texas – 35 electoral votes
 * 10) Virginia – 11 electoral votes