Roosevelt's most formidable challengers were his former campaign manager James Farley and Vice President John Nance Garner.

A Republican leader told H. V. Kaltenborn in September 1939, for example, that congressional distrust of the president was a cause of the controversy over revising the Neutrality Acts of 1930s.

The politician, who supported selling weapons to Britain and France, claimed that Roosevelt could "regain the complete confidence of Congress and the country" by announcing that he would not run for a third term.

[4] Millard Tydings also announced his candidacy; the Maryland senator and member of the anti-Roosevelt conservative coalition would likely be a favorite son at the convention, but was also a possible compromise candidate for an anti-New Deal Democratic Party after Roosevelt's presidency.

[4] He was aided by the party's political bosses, who feared that no Democrat except Roosevelt could defeat the charismatic Wendell Willkie, the Republican candidate.

Kelly had posted hundreds of Chicago city workers and precinct captains around the hall; other Democratic bosses had brought followers from their home territories.

Whenever the chant began to die down, state chairmen, who also had microphones connected to the speakers, added their own endorsements: "New Jersey wants Roosevelt!

"[7][8] Life wrote the following week that "the shabby pretense ... fooled nobody", describing it as a "cynical, end-justifies-the-means alliance of New Deal reformers with self-seeking city bosses to engineer the 'draft'" and "one of the shoddiest and most hypocritical spectacles in [US] history".

[12] Roosevelt's aides also strongly considered South Carolina Senator James F. Byrnes, but the president settled on Secretary of Agriculture Henry A.

[15] Some women delegates also sought to put forward a female candidate, and offered the name of U.S. Representative Mary Teresa Norton.

[12] Eleanor Roosevelt had flown to Chicago to campaign;[17] after her husband's nomination, she gave what came to be known as her "No Ordinary Time" speech in support of Wallace.

Shortly after midnight Eastern time on July 19, 1940, Roosevelt delivered his acceptance speech from the White House in front of news radio microphones and newsreel cameras.