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The Election of 1936
The 1936 United States presidential election was the 38th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1936. In the midst of the Great Depression, Democratic Senator Huey Long of Louisiana and defeated Republican Governor Alf Landon of Kansas. Long won the highest share of the popular and electoral vote since the largely uncontested 1820 election. The sweeping victory consolidated the Democratic base around Long, and would fuel his meteoric rise to the Presidency, ensuring his victories until the 1944 election.

Huey Long, having a year prior survived an assassination attempt from Klansman George Franklin Green, vowed to fight the "Wall Street fatcats and industrialists" from ruining the nation further, and he famously said "Ain't no bullet, be it from a white hood or a red armband, stopping the Kingfish!". George Franklin Green was a Grand Giant of St. Tammany parish in Louisiana within the Ku Klux Klan, who had planned his assassination for a year, before being slain by Carl Weiss.

Long and Vice President Al Smith were nominated as a deal struck between the party bosses and Long, who, despite his anger at the deal, had no choice but to accept Al as a "Northern Compromise". Former Vice President John Nance Garner was swept aside in favor of Smith, causing him to break and temporarily form the early Dixiecrats, however, after the election of 1940, Garner gave up seeking the Presidency.

With the backing of party leaders, Alf Landon defeated former President Herbert Hoover and newspaper mogul Frank Knox at the 1936 Republican National Convention to win his party's presidential nomination.

The election took place as the Great Depression entered its eighth year. Huey Long promised to implement a national Share Our Wealth program, and promised to include Social Security as a benefit, Landon, a political moderate, criticized the program for waste and inefficiency, later smearing Long as a socialist, an allegation which Long fought tooth and nail. Despite Landon's criticisms, many Americans supported Long's Share Our Wealth program, with thousands flocking to the Share Our Wealth society programs.

Long went on to win the greatest electoral landslide since the rise of hegemonic control between the Democratic and Republican parties in the 1850s. Long took 65.9% of the popular vote, while Landon won 33.8%. Long carried every state except Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, as well as Colorado, which together cast thrity-three electoral votes. By winning 441 electoral votes, Long received 95.36% of the electoral vote total, which remains the highest percentage of the electoral vote won by any candidate since 1820. Long also won the highest share of the popular vote since 1820, though Robert Kennedy would later win a slightly higher share of the popular vote in 1966. While Long won the largest portion of electoral votes to date, Jesse Jackson won more electors while achieving a lesser victory in 1980, after more electors were added. Long's 441 electoral votes marked the first time in American history when a presidential candidate received over 400 electoral votes in a presidential election.

Democratic Nominations
The Democratic Party Convention was held in Philadelphia between July 23 and 27. The delegates nominated Senator Huey Long and Governor Al Smith in a near landslide. Before his defeat, then President Roosevelt challenged Long for the Democratic nomination, and only one primary opponent other than various favorite sons. Henry Skillman Breckinridge, an anti-New Deal and anti-Longist lawyer from New York, filed to run against Roosevelt and Long in four primaries. Breckinridge's challenge of the popularity of the Share Our Wealth program among Democrats failed miserably.

John Nance Gardner, having been defeated in the Democratic Primary, split off many Southern votes in order to try and win votes from segregationists, however, failed due to Long's popularity.