The 1936 Republican National Convention was held June 9–12 at the Public Auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio.

Day of Ohio won their respective primaries, the 70-year-old Borah, a well-known progressive and "insurgent," carried the Wisconsin, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Oregon primaries, while also performing quite strongly in Knox's Illinois and Green's South Dakota.

Other potential candidates included Robert A. Taft, New York Representative James W. Wadsworth, Jr., Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg, Iowa Senator Lester Dickinson, New York Representative Hamilton Fish III, New Jersey Governor Harold Hoffman, Delaware Governor C. Douglass Buck, Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, Michigan auto magnate Henry Ford, aviator Charles Lindbergh, former President Herbert Hoover, Oregon Senator Frederick Steiwer, Senate Minority Leader Charles McNary, former Treasury Secretary Ogden L. Mills and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., cousin of Democratic incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Landon people wanted Vandenberg but the Michigan senator refused repeatedly and firmly.

Edge, Little, and Nice withdrew their names and the Chicago publisher became the unanimous choice for second place on the ticket.