United States Senate elections, 1940

1938 ←

November 5, 1940

→ 1942

36 of the 96 seats in the United States Senate 49 seats were needed for a majority

	Majority party	Minority party

Leader	Alben Barkley	Charles McNary
Party	Democratic	Republican
Leader's seat	Kentucky	Oregon
Last election	69 seats	23 seats
Seats before	69	25
Seats won	66	28
Seat change	3	4
Popular vote	19,715,831	19,831,926
Percentage	47.5%	47.8%

	Third party

Party	Progressive
Last election	1 seat
Seats before	1
Seats won	1
Seat change
Popular vote	605,609
Percentage	1.5%

Republican hold

Republican gain

Democratic hold

Democratic gain

Progressive hold

Majority Leader before election

Alben Barkley
Democratic

Elected Majority Leader

Alben Barkley
Democratic

The United States Senate elections of 1940 coincided with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt to his third term as President.

Although Roosevelt was re-elected, support for his administration had dropped somewhat after eight years, and the Republican opposition gained three seats from the Democrats. However, the New Dealers regained firm control of both the US House of Representative and US Senate because Progressives dominated the election. The Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party also disappeared from the Senate, as Henrik Shipstead joined the Republican party and Ernest Lundeen had died during the preceding term.

Incumbent John G. Townsend, Jr. (R-DE) was defeated by a Democrat, but Republicans defeated two incumbents James M. Slattery (D-IL) and Sherman Minton (D-IN), and took two open seats in Nebraska and Ohio.

...
Wikipedia