Counting the Votes by Thomas G. Scott;

Author:Thomas, G. Scott; [G. Scott Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 2122966
Publisher: ABC-CLIO, LLC

Alfred Landon wouldn’t have been taken seriously as a presidential candidate under normal circumstances. But he did not run in normal times.

Landon was elected governor of Kansas by the tightest of margins in 1932, attracting only 35 percent of the votes in a three-way race. Each of his opponents topped 30 percent. Landon deserved credit for winning, but his level of support was disappointingly small for a Republican candidate in one of the nation’s most solidly Republican states. His reelection two years later came more easily, though he edged his Democratic opponent by only eight percentage points.

Yet Landon soon would be trumpeted as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 1936. The party had few alternatives. Voters had purged Republicans from all levels of government in retribution for the Great Depression. Only 25 Republicans remained in the Senate, where they were vastly outnumbered by 69 Democrats. Landon was the only Republican governor— the only one— to run for reelection in 1934 and win.

Journalists were overly impressed by this feat, somehow believing that it elevated Landon to political equality with President Franklin Roosevelt. Renowned publishers William Randolph Hearst and Cissy Patterson trekked to Topeka to take the measure of the potential Republican nominee. “I think he is marvelous,” Hearst declared. Patterson went one better. “I thought of Lincoln,” she said.36

But the candidate did not share their confi dence. Landon wrote a friend that he doubted the Republican Party was “so hard up as to name a man from Kansas . . . Not that Kansas couldn’t furnish a good president, but the leaders of both parties just don’t think of us that way.”37 There was good reason for skepticism. Landon’s potential index of 4.8 would be the fourth-lowest for any major-party nominee in the 20th century. The difference between his PI and Roosevelt’s perfect 10.0—a margin of 5.2 points— would be the widest ever.

PI gaps larger than four points have occurred in 7 of the 57 presidential elections. The favorites, to nobody’s surprise, won handily all seven times:

Year PI gap Winner Loser

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