1936 Democratic National Convention

U.S. political event held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania February 2026 January 2025 May 2014 1936 Democratic June 23–27, 1936 DP1940.png 125 DPVP36.png 125 Nominees Roosevelt and Garner Convention HallFranklin Field Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Franklin D. Roosevelt New York John N. Garner Texas 1932 1940 The 1936 Democratic National Convention was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from June 23 to 27, 1936. The convention resulted in the nomination of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vice President John N. Garner for reelection. Changes to rules At the 1936 Democratic Convention, the rule requiring candidates for president and vice president to have a majority of two-thirds of the delegates votes to win nomination, which had existed since 1832, was abolished. Roosevelt had long pushed for the rule's abolition, in part due to past deadlocks: for example, the 1924 convention had required 103 ballots over roughly two weeks to nominate John W. Davis. The conventioneers provided that a simple majority of delegates would be required to win nomination, allowing for candidates to more easily be nominated and thus produce less balloting. In this regard, only one Democratic Convention after 1932 has required multiple ballots (that of 1952, which required three). This also began the decline of the South's influence at Democratic conventions, making it easier for the Democrats to begin adopting civil rights and other liberal ideas into their platforms, since the two-thirds rule had long given the South a de facto veto power on presidential nominees. With the rule's abolition, Missouri Senator Bennett Champ Clark noted that "the Democratic Party is no longer a sectional party, it has become a great national party."Schulman Bruce From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, 1938–1980 1994 Duke University Press 44–46 0-8223-1537-8 https://books.google.com/books?id=vwcGbPRuM9oC&q=two+thirds+rule+1936+democratic+convention 8 October 2015 Southern Democrats would continue to decline in power, ultimately leading to the Dixiecrat movement and Nixon's 1968 Southern strategy. South Carolina Senator Ellison D. Smith walked out of the convention once he saw that a black minister, Marshall L. Shepard, was going to deliver the invocation.Curtains for Cotton Ed http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,886159-1,00.html https://web.archive.org/web/20121023005717/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,886159-1,00.html dead October 23, 2012 Time 1944-08-07 2012-05-09 Results The Balloting: Democratic National Convention presidential vote, 1936 Candidates 200x200px Name Franklin D. Roosevelt Certified Votes Voice Vote(100.00%) Margin 0 (0.00%) President Roosevelt and Vice President Garner were renominated by acclamation without need for a roll-call vote. There were concerns that Louisiana senator Huey Long might mount a primary challenge to President Roosevelt, however, this did not occur, due to his assassination by Carl Weiss in 1935. In his acceptance speech on June 27 at the adjacent Franklin Field, Roosevelt remarked, "This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."Shirley C. Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ORD) 2014 978-1-4976-3638-5 https://books.google.com/books?id=qlA6AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA13 2025-03-01 13 See also History of the United States Democratic Party 1936 Democratic Party presidential primaries List of Democratic National Conventions United States presidential nominating convention 1936 Republican National Convention 1936 United States presidential election References External links Democratic Party Platform of 1936 at The American Presidency Project Roosevelt Nomination Acceptance Speech for President at DNC (transcript) at The American Presidency Project 1936-06-24_Democrats_Cheer "Democrats Cheer, 1936/06/24 (1936) 1932Chicago, Illinois Democratic National Conventions 1940Chicago, Illinois Category:1930s political conferences Category:1936 conferences Category:1936 in Philadelphia Democratic Category:Democratic National Conventions Category:June 1936 in the United States Category:Pennsylvania Democratic Party Category:United States presidential nominating conventions in Philadelphia Category:Political events in Pennsylvania