Draft:1949 New York's 20th congressional district special election

1949 New York's 20th congressional district special election

Background
Sol Bloom, who represented New York's 20th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives, died on March 7, 1949. A majority of the district's residents were Jewish and a large amount were Irish.

Democratic
Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. announced his campaign at the urging of Alex Rose.

Tammany Hall opposed Roosevelt and had Benjamin Shalleck run against him, believing that a Jew would fare better.

Other
Annette Rubinstein, a member of the Communist Party USA, was nominated by the American Labor Party. She announced her candidacy at a memorial in Madison Square Garden for the fourth anniversary of Roosevelt's death.

The Liberal Party claimed that it gathered 11,000-12,000 of the 26,000 signatures to give Roosevelt the Four Freedoms Party ballot line.