National Politics: Republican Primaries and Convention 1940

Republican Challengers.

In early 1940 there appeared to be three serious candidates for the Republican nomination. A Gallup poll indicated that Thomas E. Dewey, former district attorney of New York, was the leading contender, favored by 43 percent of party members. Sen. Robert A. Taft of Ohio was the choice of 17 percent of Republicans, while 22 percent liked Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan. Though Dewey was the front-runner, he was young—only thirty-seven—and had never held an important office. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes quipped that Dewey "had thrown his diaper into the ring." Taft, son of former president William Howard Taft, was lacking in personal appeal, and many party leaders did not think Vandenberg was ambitious enough. In 1940 concern over the sudden escalation of the war in Europe turned public focus on the Republican candidates' lack of foreign-policy experience. Outflanked by Roosevelt on foreign...

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