1932 United States elections

The 1932 United States general election, held on November 8 of that year, were the 37th and final elections to be held in the Old United States. Held during the turmoil and severe hardships of the Great Depression, the election produced a landslide victory for the parties of the Popular Front - the Workers' Communist Party and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Their jointly-endorsed presidential candidate, Norman Thomas, won well over 50% of the popular vote against the divided candidates of the Democratic and Republican parties, and the Popular Front won a combined 336 of the 471 seats in the House of Representatives. However, the new government would ultimately never take office, as the shock results prompted reactionary members of the American establishment to plot a successful coup d'etat on the day the Popular Front government was to be sworn-in. The coup, known as the MacArthur Putsch after its leader, General Douglas MacArthur, resulted in the assassination of much of the WCP leadership (including President-Elect Thomas) and culminated in mass popular uprisings across vast swathes of the country, sparking the Second American Civil War and the eventual establishment of the Union of American Socialist Republics.

Workers' Communist Party/Popular Front
The WCP's final Party Congress before the Civil War began on 29 April 1932, and was held in New York City. The party had grown significantly since the onset of the economic crisis, and the mood was increasingly militant. In spite of growing rifts betwen the party's right and left wings, they managed to endorse a program calling for direct power to be taken by worker councils. In a surprise result, Congressman Norman Thomas, who had come to prominence following his his arrest and subsequent release, was successfully voted for as candidate. He stood out as an atypical candidate for the party, as a Presbyterian minister in an increasingly atheist party and as a broad non-factionalist, able to appeal to vast strains of thought within the party itself, while also being able to appeal to disaffected members of the centre-left at the same time. Along with this, the party would successfully form an electoral alliance with the increasingly left-wing DFLP, known as the Popular Front. Selecting Upton Sinclair, a key figure of the party's left as his running mate, the Popular Front presidential ticket would prove to be a powerful force of unity.

Republican Party
The Republican Party Convention, on the other hand, proved bitter and vitriolic. The wealthy, business-minded delegates who made up much of the party's traditional base had moved towards increasingly reactionary positions in light of the Depression, attempting to scapegoat immigrants, minority groups and Communists in response to the economic woes. The incumbent Hoover would find himself under attack from this wing of the party, who viewed him as too moderate in his stances. His greatest challenger was Hamilton Fish III, well-known for his hardline anti-communist stance in the wake of the Mejer Affair. Hoover criticized Fish for his ties to far-right groups such as the Silver Legion (as part of his campaign, he had produced a list of "communist sympathizers" in public life with a heavy focus on Jews), but dissatisfaction with Hoover was rife throughout the political spectrum. In spite of this, he would narrowly win the nomination, in part due to a divided opposition and a lack of Progressive challengers.

Democratic Party
The Democratic Party, by this point, was in a state of deep decline, having lost most of its ballot access outside of the South, and being rivalled even on its traditional home territory by the DFL and Workers' Party. The party found itself split between three options for the presidential elections - to endorse Hoover as part of a united anti-communist front, to nominate John Nance Garner, a traditional conservative representative of the party's Old Guard, or the controversial populist and Governor of Lousiana Huey Long. His policies of wealth distribution had proven effective at slowing the growth of the WCP in his home state, in spite of his government's corruption and authoritarianism. He was able to win a shock victory as nominee at the Party Convention, before making concessions to appeal to his angered rivals.

William Pelley candidacy (America First)
William Pelley would once again run as an independent fascist candidate, increasingly inspired by German "National Socialism". While his support base remained small, he managed to find a level of renwed support from the middle and upper classes in response to the Depression. Other than his own group, the Silver Legion, he would also find support from organizations such as Charles Coughlin's Unity Party, the ailing Ku Klux Klan, the German-American Bund and the American Legion.