Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, well, this day here in the United States is Election Day, November 3rd.

So you are likely listening to this on Election Day and hopefully you have voted or are planning

to vote. Thank you for your service.

Look, we're not a news podcast here.

We are a history podcast and we tend to take one story each episode.

So in trying to think about what kind of story might be useful on this election day.

We settled on election day 1936, November 3rd, in the midst of the Great Depression, the day the

FDR won his second election, a sweeping victory over

Republican Al-Flandon, who many people don't talk about for good reason.

Alf-Landon got eight electoral votes. He carried two states, Vermont and Maine Maine if you're going to win only

two states maybe pick bigger ones but anyway the real reason that we want to talk

about this it is rightly seen as a blowout but there are some very interesting trends within that blowout in

1936 and in many ways a consolidation of what we think of as the voters who make up

the modern Democratic Party in particular 1936 was the first election since the Civil

War in which black Americans voted Democrat instead of Republican. And that is our topic today when

the black vote switched from red to blue even though if you heard

in our last episode those colors didn't exist as states back then. Here to discuss as

always is Nicole Hammer of Columbia. Hello Nicky. Hey Jody. And our special guest this episode,

Leah Wright, Rager, Harry Truman Professor of American History at Brandeis University. You may have

seen her as a contributor on ABC News from time to time and noted alf Landon expert.

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