Vote Socialist

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The Socialist Party of America's candidates in the 1940 presidential election were Norman Thomas (president) and Maynard Krueger (vice president). It was the fourth of six consecutive presidential campaigns for Thomas, a Presbyterian minister and pacifist. Krueger, a 34-year-old economics professor at the University of Chicago, was initially considered too young to run for the position, but he successfully pointed out that he would reach constitutional age by Inauguration Day. 

The Socialist Party of America was formed in 1901 as a merger between the Social Democratic Party of America and the Socialist Labor Party. The party initially drew support from trade unionists, social reformers, populist farmers, immigrants and was staunchly opposed to America's involvement in World War I. The Thomas/Krueger ticket won only 0.2% of the votes in the 1940 election, and the party stopped running presidential candidates entirely after 1956. The Socialist Party of America was dissolved in 1972, and internal factions went on to form three separate parties: Social Democrats USA, Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and Socialist Party USA.