1932 United States Senate elections

1932 United States Senate elections

← 1930 November 8, 1932 1934 →
← 1931 (VT) 1933 (VA) →
34 of the 96 seats in the United States Senate 49 seats needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party   Leader Joseph Robinson James Watson (Lost re-election) Party Democratic Republican Leader since December 3, 1923 March 4, 1929 Leader's seat Arkansas Indiana Seats before 47[a] 48 Seats after 59[2] 36 Seat change 12 12 Seats up 17 17 Races won 28 6   Third party   Party Farmer–Labor Seats before 1 Seats after 1 Seat change Seats up 0 Races won 0
Clickable imagemap for the 1932 US Senate elections Results of the elections:      Democratic gain      Democratic hold      Republican hold      No election
Majority Leader before election James Watson Republican Elected Majority Leader Joseph Robinson Democratic

The 1932 United States Senate elections coincided with Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt's landslide victory over incumbent Herbert Hoover in the presidential election. The 32 seats of Class 3 were contested in regular elections, and special elections were held to fill vacancies.

With the Hoover administration widely blamed for the Great Depression, Republicans lost twelve seats and control of the chamber to the Democrats, who won 28 of the 34 contested races (two Democratic incumbents, Duncan U. Fletcher of Florida and John H. Overton of Louisiana, were re-elected unopposed). Democrats gained another seat through an appointment in Nebraska, bringing their total number of seats up to 60.

Among the Republican incumbents defeated in 1932 were Senate Majority Leader James Watson and five-term Senator Reed Smoot, an author of the controversial Smoot-Hawley tariff.^[3] This was the first of four elections in which a Senate leader lost re-election, and the only time they were a Republican. This election marked the first time a woman was elected to the Senate, that being Hattie Caraway of Arkansas. As of 2024, this is the last time Democrats won a Senate election in Kansas.

This is also one of only five occasions where 10 or more Senate seats changed hands in an election, with the other occasions being in 1920, 1946, 1958, and 1980.

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