Election to the United States Senate in 1932

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On November 8, 1932, one-third of the members of the United States Senate were elected in the United States . The election was part of the general election for the 73rd United States Congress that year, in which all members of the House of Representatives were also elected. At the same time, the presidential election of 1932 took place, which the Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won.

Since the adoption of the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913, all US senators in their respective states have been directly elected by the people of their state. Each state has 2 senators. Under the United States Constitution , US Senators are elected for six years. However, all members of the Senate are never elected at the same time. The election follows a scheme according to which a third of the senators are elected every two years at the same time as the election to the US House of Representatives. For this purpose, the Senate is divided into three classes , which determine the election year of the Senators. In 1932, Class III senators stood for election. At that time, the United States consisted of 48 states. This results in a total of 96 senators, 35 of whom stood for election. The election result was a landslide victory for the Democrats, who took 12 seats from the Republicans. There are essentially two reasons for this election result, which was also reflected in the presidential and House elections. On the one hand, the effects of the global economic crisis that had existed since October 1929 became increasingly drastic. The number of firms and bank failures grew, as did the number of unemployed. In 1932 the unemployment rate in the United States was nearly 33 percent. The voters blamed the Republican federal government under President Herbert Hoover for this development . They hoped for an improvement in a Democratic-led federal government under Franklin Roosevelt. The elections to both chambers of Congress were also subject to this trend. The second reason for the election result was the domestic political discussion about prohibition , which had meanwhile led to an enormous increase in crime.

Senate composition after the election

Total: 96

The results of the last elections on November 4, 1930 are in brackets. Changes in the course of the legislative period that do not affect the elections themselves are not taken into account in these figures. But are noted in the article on the 73rd Congress in the section on the members of the Senate by the corresponding names of the senators.

See also