In the 1932 U.S. presidential election, which statement is accurate?

• A. Roosevelt won by a landslide, carrying 48 states to Hoover's 6.
• B. Hoover won the electoral vote by a large margin.
• C. Roosevelt won only a few states but lost the popular vote.
• D. The election resulted in a close contest with no clear landslide.

Answer: (A)

The big idea here is how decisive a landslide victory looks in the electoral landscape. In 1932, amid the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt won by a sweeping margin, capturing the vast majority of states and a huge share of the electoral votes. He carried 42 of the 48 states and won about 472 electoral votes to Hoover’s 59, with a comfortable margin in the popular vote as well. That scale of win is what “landslide” is meant to convey—the winner dominates both the map and the electoral tally. The option describing Roosevelt as winning all but a handful of states (and Hoover only six) exaggerates how many states Roosevelt actually carried, so it isn’t accurate. The other statements contradict what happened, since Hoover didn’t win the electoral vote by a large margin, the winner did not carry only a few states, and it certainly wasn’t a close, evenly matched contest.