United States Senate elections, 1940 and 1941

← 1938

November 5, 1940

1942 →

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

	Majority party	Minority party

Leader	Alben Barkley	Charles McNary
Party	Democratic	Republican
Leader's seat	Kentucky	Oregon
Seats before	69	24
Seats won	66	27
Seat change	2	3
Popular vote	19,715,831	19,831,926
Percentage	47.5%	47.8%
Seats up	23	7
Races won	21	10

	Third party	Fourth party

Party	Farmer–Labor	Progressive
Seats before	1	1
Seats won	0	1
Seat change	1
Popular vote	310,875	605,609
Percentage	25.7%	1.5%
Seats up	1	1
Races won	0	1

Results including special elections
     Democratic hold      Democratic gain
     Republican hold      Republican 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.

Republicans had a net gain of three seats in the general election, plus one more in a November special election.

Three came from wins over Democrats:

Republicans picked up a seat from Farmer–Labor when an incumbent changed party:

Democrats did win one seat from a Republican:

Also, in a special election, Republicans gained an additional seat from the Democrats:

In these special elections, the winner was seated during 1940 or before January 3, 1941; ordered by election date.

In these general elections, the winners were elected for the term beginning January 3, 1941; ordered by state.

All of the elections involved the Class 1 seats.

In these elections, the winners were elected in 1941 after January 3; sorted by election date.

The whole ticket nominated by Democrats and American Laborites was elected.

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Wikipedia