Election of 1932: Hoover vs Roosevelt in the Midst of Depression

Candidates:
Democratic Party: Franklin Roosevelt (New York) and John Nance Garner (Texas)
Republican Party: Herbert Hoover (California) and Charles Curtis (Kansas)
Socialist Party: Norman Thomas (New York) and James Maurer (Pennsylvania)

Election Results:
Roosevelt and Garner: 22.82 million popular votes, 472 electoral votes.
Hoover and Curtis: 15.76 million popular votes, 59 electoral votes.
Thomas and Maurer: 884,000 popular votes, 0 electoral votes. 

Summary:
The preceding two years of the Hoover administration was disastrous not only for Hoover’s political career but for the American people. Following the 1929 stock market crash (which has been credited to the deregulation of businesses during the Republican administration of the 1920s), the conservative Hoover did little to respond to the needs of the American public, insisting that the best way for Americans to recover was to help themselves. The cold, technocratic side of Hoover that was appealing during the Roaring Twenties was now a huge detriment when the nation was in crisis. Bread lines and “Hoovervilles” (makeshift cities of tents and shanties) popped up throughout the country as the Hoover administration encouraged private charities help ease the pain of economic depression. The hope of Herbert Hoover and his cabinet of wealthy conservatives was that the massive valley of depression would yield soon to a leveling or peaking of economic activity