1940 Republican Party presidential primaries

1940 Republican Party presidential primaries

← 1936 March 12 to May 17, 1940 1944 →
1,000 delegates to the 1940 Republican National Convention 501 (majority) votes needed to win
Nominee Thomas E. Dewey Robert A. Taft Wendell Willkie Home state New York Ohio New York Delegate count 371[1] 242[1] 178[1] Contests won 5 1 0 Popular vote 1,605,754 516,428 21,140 Percentage 49.76% 16.00% 0.66%
First place by first-instance vote First place by convention roll call      Dewey      Taft      Willkie      Vandenberg      MacNider      Martin      Bridges      Various[a]
Previous Republican nominee Alfred Landon Republican nominee Wendell Willkie

From March 12 to May 17, 1940, voters of the Republican Party chose delegates to nominate a candidate for president at the 1940 Republican National Convention. The nominee was selected at the convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from June 24–28, 1940.^[2]

The primaries were contested mainly by Manhattan District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey and Senators Robert A. Taft and Arthur Vandenberg, though only a few states' primaries featured two or more of these men.

By the start of the convention, only 300 of the 1,000 convention delegates had been pledged to a candidate, far fewer than was necessary to determine a victor. Estimates of delegate loyalty placed Dewey first, Taft second, and Wendell Willkie, an internationalist businessman, third.^[1] Late momentum following the escalation of World War II allowed Willkie to take the nomination on the sixth ballot at the convention.

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