Upper New England, 1940

[TDAS04]

Why did FDR do better in Upper New England in 1940 than he did in 1936?  Why did those three states swing Democratic?

Maine
1936: Landon +14
1940: Willkie +2

Vermont
1936: Landon: +13
1940: Willkie +10

New Hampshire
1936: FDR +2
1936: FDR +6

[DPKdebator]

Upper New England has a large English and French(-Canadian) population, two groups who reacted positively to Roosevelt's overtures to the Allies.

[Intell]

WWII and FDR's support for allies against Wilke's more isolationism resulted in a WASP yankee swing to FDR

[Podgy the Bear]

Willkie did play the opportunist in the 1940 campaign.  He was more of an interventionalist than his opponents for the Republican nomination. 

But Willkie was losing badly by September 1940 and had to shift his views to recapture the more isolationist Republican base in the Midwest.  The strategy was to combine this with the general Republican advantage in the Northeast.     It fell far short, but Willkie did hold VT and ME with a reduced margin.  And he came close in NY (the best Republican performance against FDR), IL, and NJ--which would have brought close to 100 additional EV for the Republicans.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Wilkie though similar to Trump in terms of being a former Democrat and a business guy with no political experience, actually had a lot in common with Romney 2012.

They both were based out of the NE (Romney-MA, Wilkie-NY), though originally were from the Midwest (Romney - MI and Wilkie - IN).
They both had reputations of being more liberal Republicans relative to the base, but wound up campaigning more in line with the base in the general.
They both ran against powerful incumbent Democrats, who had struggled in their previous term.
They both faced Democrats who won several close states on the backs of narrow margins.
They both were boxed out demographically

The reason why Romney did so much better than Wilkie, is becasue of the presence of the south and racial inelastic voting for Romney, which Wilkie did not have. Wilkie's base of Northern "metro and small town professionals" + softened Yankee rural support (as described above) and augmented with large numbers of Germans (hence the isolationism) was enough to come close but no cigar in a series of large industrial states, but without actually winning them left him with a lopsided EC defeat.

1940 was the first in a series of elections that paved the way for the modern demographic alignment with Republicans becoming more and more reliant on first German and Irish and later Italian and Southern support, while perpetually dropping ground with Yankees.

[mianfei]

WWII and FDR's support for Allies against Wilkie's more isolationism resulted in a WASP Yankee swing to FDR.

Undoubtedly correct. FDR’s support for the Allies had the same effect in parts of Appalachia. In Unionist northwestern North Carolina, FDR is the only Democrat to win a majority in Davie County since 1900, and he did better than any Democrat in Wilkes County (ironic given the name of his opponent?) since Winfield Hancock reached 48 percent in 1880, and better than any Democrat ever in Yadkin County. In arch-Republican Avery County, Willkie lost seven percent on Alf Landon. In East Tennessee, FDR won Roane County, which had previously never voted for a Democrat since the Civil War, and was the first to win a majority in nearby McMinn County since then.

People probably overlook that Obama’s two elections, and to some extent the 2000 election, are exceptions to the tendency of Yankee and Appalachian counties to move in tandem with each other. Common enemies – planters historically, now Latinos and immigrant welfare – have linked these two regions ever since the Civil War and even beforehand.