Today, November 4, is the 30th anniversary of the election of Ronald Reagan (in a massive landslide--don't anybody forget that; everyone seems to remember the landslide of 1984, but the landslide of 1980 was awesome, too), and tomorrow, November 5, is the 70th anniversary of the election of Franklin Roosevelt to a third term, in 1940.
There's a guy on freerepublic who since August 2009 has been showing copies of the New York Times from 70 years ago on each day (beginning with September 1, 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland); it's mostly for fans of military history or journalism, but some of the side stories are interesting too.
In the New York Times of November 4, 1940, the day before the presidential elections, the Gallup poll read as follows--to get ahead of the story, Gallup generally called this one right.
Percentage (%) for Willkie, the Republican candidate, and then the state:
59 Nebraska
59 South Dakota
58 Vermont
57 Maine
57 Kansas
55 Iowa
55 Indiana
55 Colorado
54 North Dakota
52 Illinois
52 Michigan
52 Wisconsin
51 Ohio
51 New York
51 Pennsylvania
51 Missouri
51 New Hampshire
51 Idaho
-----
49 Minnesota
49 Massachusetts
48 New Jersey
47 Connecticut
47 New Mexico
47 Wyoming
46 Rhode Island
46 Oregon
46 Kentucky
45 Utah
44 Delaware
44 Oklahoma
44 Nevada
43 Washington
43 Montana
42 California
41 West Virginia
41 Maryland
39 Arizona
30 Virginia
28 Florida
28 North Carolina
21 Texas
17 Arkansas
14 Louisiana
14 Alabama
13 Georgia
06 Mississippi
03 South Carolina
That was the poll; I'm going to wait until tomorrow, for the November 5, 1940 issue of the New York Times to come out, to check, but I do believe Gallup generally called this one right.
