Election to the United States House of Representatives in 1940
On November 5, 1940, the House of Representatives in the United States was elected. In the state of Maine , the elections took place on September 9th. The election was part of the general election to the 77th United States Congress that year, which also elected a third of US Senators . At the same time, the presidential election of 1940 took place, which the Democratic incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt won for the third time in a row.
At the time of the election, the United States consisted of 48 states. The number of MPs to be elected was 435. The distribution of seats was based on the 1930 census .
The election resulted in only minor shifts compared to the outcome of the election two years earlier. The Democrats gained 5 seats and were able to slightly increase their absolute majority with 267 seats. The Republicans lost 7 seats to 162 congressmen. The slight shift in favor of the Democrats is due to the overcoming of the slight economic crisis of 1937/38.
In the southern states in particular, the right to vote was restricted by laws that linked the right to vote to a certain tax revenue. As a result, poor whites, but above all many African-Americans, were excluded from the right to vote. These restrictions lasted until the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed in 1964.
Election result
- Democratic Party 267 (262) seats
- Republican Party 162 (169) seats
- Farmer Labor Party : 1 (1) seats
- Wisconsin Progressive Party : 3 (2)
- Others: 2 (1)
Total: 435 (435)
The results of the last election two years earlier are in brackets. Changes during the legislative period that do not affect the elections themselves are not included in these figures, but are noted in the article on the 77th Congress in the section on members of the House of Representatives under the relevant names of the representatives. The same applies to elections in states that joined the Union after the beginning of the legislative period. As a result, the sources sometimes contain different information, as changes during the legislative period were sometimes incorporated into the figures and sometimes not.
See also
- 77th United States Congress including a list of all MPs.