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Republican nomination
The 1940 presidential campaign was conducted against the backdrop of World War II. Although the United States was still neutral, the nation, especially the Republican Party, was deeply divided between isolationists, who felt the nation should avoid any steps that could lead America into the war, and interventionists, who felt that America's survival depended upon helping the Allies defeat Nazi Germany. The three leading candidates for the 1940 Republican nomination were Senators Robert Taft of Ohio and Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, and Thomas E. Dewey, the "gangbusting" District Attorney from New York. These three men had campaigned vigorously, but only 300 of the 1,000 convention delegates were pledged to a candidate before the convention. This left an opening for a dark horse candidate to emerge.
Willkie seemed an unlikely candidate as he was a former Democrat and a Wall Street industrialist who had never before run for public office. He had backing from some media magnates: Ogden Reid of the New York Herald Tribune, Roy W. Howard of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, and John and Gardner Cowles, publishers of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, the Des Moines Register, and Look magazine. Willkie's supporters established a national grassroots network, but his support was thin. His efforts were helped by Eugenie Mary Ladenburg Davie who became an active member of the Republican Party and was the head of the Woman’s Auxiliary during Willkie’s campaign to unseat Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940.[7] A May 8 Gallup poll showed Dewey at 67% support among Republicans, followed by Vandenberg and Taft, with Willkie at a mere 3%.
Campaign pin
Willkie tried to appeal to the powerful isolationist wing of the Republican Party by saying, "No man has the right to use the great powers of the Presidency to lead the people, indirectly, into war." However, Willkie's greatest support came from the party's internationalist wing, which wanted the US to provide all the aid possible to the Allies forces short of a formal declaration of war. Willkie consistently spoke of the need to aid Britain against Germany in contrast with the other leading Republican candidates, who were isolationists.
While Taft stressed that America needed to prevent the New Deal from using the international crisis to extend socialism and dictatorship at home, the German blitzkrieg that quickly defeated France shook public opinion. Sympathy for the embattled British was mounting. In mid-June, little over one week before the convention opened, Gallup reported that Willkie had surged to second place with 17%, and that Dewey was slipping. Willkie stumped the country, seeking the support of liberal and East Coast Republicans worried by German victories.
[edit]Republican convention
Main article: 1940 Republican National Convention
As the convention opened in Philadelphia on June 24, Gallup reported that in a poll taken a few days earlier, Willkie had moved up to 29%, Dewey had slipped 5% to 47%, and Taft, Vandenberg, and former President Hoover trailed at 8%, 8%, and 6% respectively. With the surrender of France to Germany on June 25, 1940, and the belief that Britain was under imminent threat of a Nazi invasion, the convention opened in an atmosphere of great excitement and national stress; this is believed to have boosted Willkie's chances even further.[8]
Hundreds of thousands telegrams urging support for Willkie poured in, many from "Willkie Clubs" that had sprung up across the country. Millions more citizens signed petitions circulating throughout the country. At the convention, Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota, the keynote speaker, announced for Willkie and became his official floor manager. Hundreds of vocal Willkie supporters packed the upper galleries of the convention hall. Willkie's amateur status and fresh face appealed to delegates as well as voters. The delegates were selected not by primaries but by party organizations in each state, and as political veterans, they had a keen sense of how fast public opinion was changing. This change was also reflected in a later poll taken by Gallup but not reported till after the convention: Willkie had pulled ahead among Republican voters by 44% to only 29% for the collapsing Dewey.
Dewey led the first ballot, but was far short of a majority; Taft was second, and Willkie was a surprisingly strong third. On the second and third ballots Dewey's support dwindled, as his delegates went to either Taft or Willkie, with most favoring Willkie. Meanwhile, Willkie's supporters in the galleries chanted "We Want Willkie" over and over. On the fourth ballot Willkie surged into first place, with Taft close behind; other candidates began to drop out in favor of the two frontrunners. As the delegates belonging to "favorite son" candidates were released by their original candidates, Willkie steadily gained more of them than Taft. Finally, on the sixth ballot, Willkie received a majority of the ballots cast and won the nomination. His victory is still considered by most political historians to be one of the most dramatic moments in the history of American presidential conventions.
