1940 United States presidential election in New Hampshire

1940 United States presidential election in New Hampshire

November 5, 1940
 
Nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt Wendell Willkie
Party Democratic Republican
Home state New York New York
Running mate Henry A. Wallace Charles L. McNary
Electoral vote 4 0
Popular vote 125,292 110,127
Percentage 53.22% 46.78%


President before election

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic

Elected President

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic

The 1940 United States presidential election in New Hampshire took place on November 5, 1940. All contemporary 48 states were part of the 1940 United States presidential election. State voters chose four electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.

New Hampshire was won by incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York, who was running against Republican businessman Wendell Willkie of New York. Roosevelt ran with Henry A. Wallace of Iowa as his running mate, and Willkie ran with Senator Charles L. McNary of Oregon.

Roosevelt won New Hampshire by 6.44%, at the time the best performance by a Democratic presidential candidate in this traditionally Republican state since the latter party was founded and the first time since Franklin Pierce in 1852 that a Democrat won the state with an absolute majority of the vote. (It had been won with a plurality by Roosevelt four years earlier and by Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and 1916.)

Roosevelt's gain in New Hampshire and other New England states, in an election when Willkie carried almost seven hundred counties that the President had won during his landslide four years beforehand, was due to support in the region for helping Britain and France during World War II. New Hampshire was one of five states that swung more Democratic compared to 1936, alongside Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, and North Carolina.