The 1940 Montana gubernatorial election took place on November 5, 1940. Incumbent governor of Montana Roy E. Ayers, who was first elected governor in 1936, ran for re-election. He narrowly won the Democratic primary by just over a thousand votes to win renomination, and advanced to the general election, where he was opposed by Sam C. Ford, a former Associate Justice of the Montana Supreme Court and the Republican nominee. Ultimately, in spite of the fact that then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt comfortably won the state in that year's presidential election, Ford narrowly defeated Ayers to win his first of two terms as governor.
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