I don't think Landon would win election. Sorry if that's the point of this thread, but the Republicans have been in office since 1920 and FDR is going to be able to blame them for the situation. I recognize that FDR would preside over the economy hitting bottom, but that's a far different matter than being able to point at the Republicans and tie them to economic policies that created the depression in the first place.
How would FDR prove that the Republicans caused the Great Depression, what is he going to say to the down on his luck guy who says he'd had a job in 1932, and since the crash, he was laid off, and hasn't found a decent job since. He would point out that jobs were alot easier to find during the Hoover Administration than it is now with unemployment hovering close to 20%, now he never owned any stock, so he lost no money during the crash, but jobs sure got a whole lot harder to find when FDR took office.
FDR could say it was all Hoover's falt.
The unemployed man could say, how do I know your policies didn't make it worse?
FDR did raise taxes on the rich, and some rich man could helpfully point out he was going to hire some more people until the government took a greater percentage of his income in taxes.
The entire arguement seems to be that FDR hasn't gotten the American people out of the depression. Frankly, I think his ideas would start to have had some success--and really, would FDR do what Hoover did? Would he allow banks to go out of business and create a chain reaction to wipe each other out? Would he try to force a gold standard which would cause economic hardship?
How in 1932 are the American People supposed to know that the Stock Market Crash was going to turn into the Great Depression, for all they know, if they reelected Hoover, the economy would have gotten better all by itself?
FDR can say all he wants that the economy would have been a whole lot worse without his programs, but how do the people know? All they know is that most of their lives are worse than before he got elected and Hoover was only President for about 3 months after the crash, Unemployment might have been rising during those three months, but then it kept on rising after FDR took office, and then stabilized at around 20%, sometimes going down, but never quite reaching the level it had when Hoover was in office.
There are economic forces at work that the President has no control over, a lot of the blame Hoover got in 1929 OTU was just a matter of poor timing.
FDR is going to be able to mitigate the decline in the first place. The Dust Bowl will have started and be thrown against Hoover, as will Hoover's reluctance to do anything about it.
If Hoover were alive, he'd probably sarcastically appologize for not having a "weather machine" that he could control the weather with. Blaming the President of the United States for bad weather is just plain ridiculous, what next, is he supposed to appologize because your toilet won't flush?
So, FDR wins in 1936. It isn't a blowout, the margins are narrower, but Landon is a very poor campaigner who rarely travels against the first president to use the radio effectively. And, of course, FDR would have to campaign harder, but he could.
He doesn't need to be an excellent campaigner, as most of the people will be voting against FDR for the lousy economy, and Landon simply is the "other guy" that they would end up voting for.
Historically this was a blowout; with a later depression, FDR is going to have a thinner margin of victory.
He would get reelected for doing what? Running high deficits, raising taxes, and waisting taxpayer's money. The standard set by Hoover is the one they are going to measure FDR by, in OTU, Hoover had 3 years of Depression under his belt, and compared to that, FDR was at least trying, but in a world where Hoover didn't have those 3 years of Depression, people are going to expect better from FDR, perhaps better than anyone can deliver, but the people don't know that, all they know is that their lives are worse than they were under Hoover.
My question stands: Who goes autocratic and who stays democratic with this shift in timing? Japan is probably going to fall into Millitarism, Romania, France, Belgium, Germany and Spain are all vulnerable.
That said, FDR will probably not run for re-election in 1940. The world isn't in a state of world war at this point, so here's where a strong Republician Candidate might have a shot.
I just think its a matter of timing, Hoover had nothing to do with causing the Great Depression, he was just unlucky enough to be President at the time, and he did not view it as his responsiblity to interfere with the market to bring about a solution.