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1896 United States presidential election

The 1896 United States presidential election was the 28th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1896. Former Governor William McKinley, the Republican nominee, defeated former Representative William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee. The 1896 campaign, which took place during an economic depression known as the Panic of 1893, was a political realignment that ended the old Third Party System and began the Fourth Party System.

Incumbent Democratic President Grover Cleveland did not seek election to a second consecutive term (which would have been his third overall), leaving the Democratic nomination open. An attorney and former congressman, Bryan galvanized support with his Cross of Gold speech, which called for reform of the monetary system and attacked business leaders as the cause of ongoing economic depression. The 1896 Democratic National Convention repudiated the Cleveland administration and nominated Bryan on the fifth presidential ballot. Bryan then won the nomination of the Populist Party, which had won several states in 1892 and shared many of Bryan's policies. In opposition to Bryan, some conservative Bourbon Democrats formed the National Democratic Party and nominated Senator John M. Palmer. McKinley prevailed by a wide margin on the first ballot at the 1896 Republican National Convention.

Since the onset of the Panic of 1893, the nation had been mired in a deep economic depression, marked by low prices, low profits, high unemployment, and violent strikes. Economic issues, especially tariff policy and the question of whether the gold standard should be preserved for the money supply, were central issues. McKinley forged a conservative coalition in which businessmen, professionals, prosperous farmers, and skilled factory workers turned off by Bryan's agrarian policies were heavily represented. He was strongest in cities and in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Pacific Coast. Republican campaign manager Mark Hanna pioneered many modern campaign techniques, facilitated by a $3.5 million budget. Bryan presented his campaign as a crusade of the working man against the rich, who impoverished America by limiting the money supply. Silver, he said, was in ample supply and if coined into money would restore prosperity while undermining the illicit power of the money trust. Bryan was strongest in the South, rural Midwest, and Rocky Mountain states. His moralistic rhetoric and crusade for inflation (to be generated by the institution of bimetallism) alienated conservatives.

Bryan campaigned vigorously throughout the swing states of the Midwest, while McKinley conducted a "front porch" campaign. At the end of an intensely heated contest, McKinley won a majority of the popular and electoral vote. Bryan won 46.7% of the popular vote and Palmer just under 1%. Turnout was very high, passing 90% of the eligible voters in many places. McKinley became the first Republican to ever carry Kentucky in a presidential election, and Bryan the first Democrat to ever carry Nebraska and Kansas (as well as several other western states that had only recently been admitted to the union) in a presidential election. The Democratic Party's repudiation of its Bourbon faction largely gave Bryan and his supporters control of the party until the 1920s, and set the stage for Republican domination of the Fourth Party System.

Other candidates
At their convention in St. Louis, Missouri, held between June 16 and 18, 1896, the Republicans nominated William McKinley for president and New Jersey's Garret Hobart for vice president. McKinley had just vacated the office of governor of Ohio. Both candidates were easily nominated on first ballots.

McKinley's campaign manager, the wealthy and talented Ohio businessman Mark Hanna, visited the leaders of large corporations and major, influential banks after the Republican Convention to raise funds for the campaign. With many businessmen and bankers terrified of Bryan's populist rhetoric and demand for the end of the gold standard, Hanna had little difficulty raising record amounts of money. He raised $3.5 million for the campaign and outspent the Democrats by an estimated 5-to-1 margin. McKinley was the last veteran of the American Civil War to be nominated for president by either major party.

Democratic Party nomination

Other candidates
One month after McKinley's nomination, supporters of silver-backed currency took control of the Democratic convention, held in Chicago on July 7–11. Most of the Southern and Western delegates were committed to implementing the Populist Party's "free silver" ideas. The convention repudiated Cleveland's gold standard policies and Cleveland himself. This left the convention wide open: there was no obvious successor to Cleveland. A two-thirds vote was required for the nomination and the silverites had it in spite of the extreme regional polarization of the delegates. In a test vote on an anti-silver measure, the Eastern states (from Maryland to Maine), with 28% of the delegates, voted 96% in favor. The other delegates voted 91% against, so the silverites could count on a majority of 67% of the delegates.

The attorney, former congressman, and unsuccessful Senate candidate William Jennings Bryan filled the void. A superb orator, Bryan hailed from Nebraska and spoke for farmers suffering from the economic depression following the Panic of 1893. At the convention, he gave what has been considered one of the greatest political speeches in American history, the "Cross of Gold" Speech. Bryan presented a passionate defense of farmers and factory workers struggling to survive the economic depression, and attacked big-city business owners and leaders as the cause of much of their suffering. He called for reform of the monetary system, an end to the gold standard, and government relief efforts for farmers and others hurt by the depression. Bryan's speech was so dramatic that many delegates carried him on their shoulders around the convention hall afterward.

The next day, eight names were placed in nomination: Richard Bland, William J. Bryan, Claude Matthews, Horace Boies, Joseph Blackburn, John R. McLean, Robert E. Pattison, and Sylvester Pennoyer. Despite a strong initial showing by Bland, who led on the first three ballots, Bryan's speech helped him gain the momentum required to win the nomination, which he did on the fifth ballot, after most of the other candidates withdrew in his favor.

After Bland's defeat, his supporters attempted to nominate him as Bryan's running mate, but Bland was more interested in winning back his former seat in the House of Representatives, and so withdrew his name from consideration despite leading the early rounds of voting. Arthur Sewall, a wealthy shipbuilder from Maine, was eventually chosen as the vice-presidential nominee. It was felt that Sewall's wealth might encourage him to help pay some campaign expenses. At just 36, Bryan was only a year older than required by the Constitution to be president. He remains the youngest person ever nominated for president by a major party.

Other candidates
The Prohibition Party went into the convention divided into two factions, each unwilling to give ground or compromise with the other. The "Broad-Gauge" wing, led by Charles Bentley and former Kansas Governor John St. John, demanded the inclusion of planks endorsing the free coinage of silver at 16:1 and of women's suffrage, the former refusing to accept the nomination if such amendments to the party platform were not approved. The "Narrow-Gauge" wing, led by Samuel Dickie of Michigan and rallying around the candidacy of Joshua Levering, demanded that the party platform remain dedicated exclusively to the prohibition of alcohol. Conflict between the two sides soon broke out over the nomination of a permanent chairman, with a number of presented candidates for the position withdrawing before Oliver Stewart of Illinois, a "Broad-Gauger", was nominated. A minority report by St. John supported the free coinage of silver, government control of railroads and telegraphs, an income tax and referendums, and was prevented from being tabled, giving "Broad-Gaugers" confidence, but a number of those who voted for the report were merely undecided or against gagging the report. After a majority of 188 brought the report forward, "Narrow-Gaugers" campaigned among wavering delegates of the Northeast and Midwest to convince them of the electoral consequences should it be adopted: that Party gains in states like New York would reverse overnight in the face of free coinage and populism. When St. John's report was brought up to a formal vote the margins had largely reversed; it was rejected, 492 to 310. With the silver delegates still in shock and St. John attempting to move for a reconsideration, Illinois "Narrow-Gaugers" moved to offer as a substitute to both the minority and majority reports a single-plank platform centered on Prohibition. A rising vote was taken in lieu of a roll call, with the "Narrow-Gauge" Platform winning the vote and being adopted.

In an attempt to mollify suffragists who were incensed at the lack of a plank endorsing women's suffrage, the plank itself was adopted through a resolution by the convention by a near unanimous vote. When it came to the nomination for president, many "Broad-Gaugers" were already openly considering bolting and running their own candidate as it became increasingly apparent that the "Narrow-Gaugers" had brought a majority of the convention under their influence. Formal action was deferred until after the nomination for president was made. With Charles Bentley refusing to be nominated under the single-plank platform, an attempt was made to nominate the recently retired governor of the Arizona Territory, Louis Hughes, but as it became apparent that Levering was set to receive the support of most of the delegates, they opted to withdraw Hughes's name. Once Levering's nomination was confirmed without any visible opposition, around 200 of those who were suffragists, silverites or populists bolted the convention, led by Bentley and St. John, and joined with the National Reform "Party" to create the National Party. Afterward, the convention unanimously nominated Hale Johnson of Illinois for vice president.

National Party nomination
Initially known as the "National Reform Party", the convention itself started only a day before the Prohibition National Convention, also being held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Though initially only a gathering of eight or so delegates, it was hoped that any bolters from the Prohibition Party might find their way there and would support the nomination of Representative Joseph C. Sibley for president. A sizable bolt did indeed occur upon the nomination of Joshua Levering by the Prohibition Party to the presidency, with Charles E. Bentley and former Kansas governor John St. John leading a walkout of "Broad-Gaugers" from their convention, St. John himself exclaiming that the regular convention had been "...bought up by Wall Street." The two groups would reorganize as the "National Party" and swiftly nominated Charles Bentley for the presidency, with James Southgate, the State Chairman for the North Carolina Prohibition Party, as his running mate. The delegates approved the minority report that had been rejected at the Prohibitionist Convention calling for free coinage and greenbacks, government control of railroads and telegraphs, direct election of senators and the president, and an income tax among others.

Socialist Labor Party nomination
The Socialist Labor Convention was held in New York City on July 9, 1896. The convention nominated Charles Matchett of New York and Matthew Maguire of New Jersey. Its platform favored reduction in hours of labor; possession by the federal government of mines, railroads, canals, telegraphs, and telephones; possession by municipalities of water-works, gas-works, and electric plants; the issue of money by the federal government alone; the employment of the unemployed by the public authorities; abolition of the veto power; abolition of the United States Senate; women's suffrage; and uniform criminal law throughout the Union.

Other candidates
Of the several third parties active in 1896, by far the most prominent was the People's Party. Formed in 1892, the Populists represented the philosophy of agrarianism (derived from Jeffersonian democracy), which held that farming was a superior way of life that was being exploited by bankers and middlemen. The Populists attracted cotton farmers in the South and wheat farmers in the West, but significantly few farmers in the Northeast and rural Midwest. In the presidential election of 1892, Populist candidate James B. Weaver carried four states, and in 1894, the Populists scored victories in congressional and state legislature races in a number of Southern and Western states. In the Southern states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, the wins were obtained by electoral fusion with the Republicans against the dominant Bourbon Democrats, whereas in the rest of the country, fusion, if practiced, was typically undertaken with the Democrats, as in the state of Washington. By 1896, some Populists believed that they could replace the Democrats as the main opposition party to the Republicans. However, the Democrats' nomination of Bryan, who supported many Populist goals and ideas, placed the party in a dilemma. Torn between choosing their own presidential candidate or supporting Bryan, the party leadership decided that nominating their own candidate would simply divide the forces of reform and hand the election to the more conservative Republicans. At their national convention in 1896, the Populists chose Bryan as their presidential nominee. However, to demonstrate that they were still independent from the Democrats, the Populists also chose former Georgia Representative Thomas E. Watson as their vice-presidential candidate instead of Arthur Sewall. Bryan eagerly accepted the Populist nomination, but was vague as to whether, if elected, he would choose Watson as his vice-president instead of Sewall. With this election, the Populists began to be absorbed into the Democratic Party; within a few elections the party would disappear completely. The 1896 election was particularly detrimental to the Populist Party in the South; the party divided itself between members who favored cooperation with the Democrats to achieve reform at the national level and members who favored cooperation with the Republicans to achieve reform at a state level.

Bryan's Democratic and Populist supporters organized joint "fusion" tickets in several states with pledged electors drawn from both parties. The New York Times counted seventy-one Populist and six Silver Republican electoral candidates pledged to Bryan. In ten states where the fusion ticket was successful, twenty-seven electors voted for Bryan for president and Watson for vice president. (The remainder of Bryan's 176 electors, including the Populist and Silver Republican electors from Colorado and Idaho, voted for Sewall.)

Silver Party nomination
The Silver Party was organized in 1892. Near the beginning of that year, U.S. senators from silver-producing states (Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, and Montana) began objecting to President Benjamin Harrison's economic policies and advocated the free coinage of silver. Senator Henry Teller notified the Senate that if the two major parties did not back down on their financial policies, the four western states would back a third party. The Portland Morning Oregonian reported on June 27, 1892, that a Silver Party was being organized along those lines.

Nevada silverites called a state convention to be held on June 5, 1892, just days following the close of the Democratic National Convention. The convention noted that neither the Republicans or Democrats addressed the silver concerns of western states and officially organized the "Silver Party of Nevada." Proceeding by itself, the Silver Party swept the state in 1892; James Weaver, the People's Party nominee for president running on the Silver ticket, won 66.8% of the vote. Francis Newlands was elected to the U.S. House with 72.5% of the vote. The Silverites took control of the legislature, assuring the election of William Stewart to the U.S. Senate.

The success of the Nevada silverites spurred their brethren in Colorado to action; the Colorado Silver Party never materialized, however.

In the 1894 midterm elections, the Silver Party remained a Nevada party. It swept all statewide offices, formerly held by Republicans. John Edward Jones was elected Governor with 50% of the vote; Newlands was re-elected with 44%.

Following the Democratic Party debacle in 1894, James Weaver began agitating for the creation of a nationwide Silver Party. He altered the People's Party platform from 1892 and eliminated planks he felt would be divisive for a larger party and began to lobby silver men around the nation. The first major statement by the national Silver Party was an address delivered to the American Bimetallic League, printed in the Emporia Daily Gazette on March 6, 1895. Letterhead for the nascent party promoted U.S. Representative Joseph Sibley of Pennsylvania for president, noting that his endorsement by the Prohibitionists would secure that party's support.

Silver leaders met in Washington DC on January 22 to discuss holding a national convention. They decided to wait until after the conventions of the two major parties in case one of them agreed to the 16:1 coinage demands. Just a few days later, however, party regulars convinced the leaders to change course. On January 29, the leaders issued a call for a national convention to be held in St. Louis on July 22. J.J. Mott, the Silver Party National Chairman, went to great lengths to organize state parties, but his efforts did not produce dramatic results. The Silver State convention in Ohio was attended by just 20 people, even though the president of the Bimetallic League, A.J. Warner, lived there.

Although most Silverites had been pushing the nomination of Senator Teller, the situation changed with the Democratic nomination of William Jennings Bryan. Congressman Newlands was in Chicago as the official Silver Party visitor, and he announced on July 10 that the Silver Party should endorse the Democratic ticket. Chairman Mott, who was in St. Louis making final arrangements for the Silver National Convention, told a reporter five days later "All the Silver Party wants is silver, and the Democratic platform will give us that." I.B. Stevens, a member of the executive committee, told a reporter that the Silver Party "will bring to the support of [Bryan] hundreds of thousands who do not wish to vote a Democratic ticket."

On July 25, both Bryan and Arthur Sewall would be nominated by acclamation.

Other candidates
The pro-gold Democrats reacted to Bryan's nomination with a mixture of anger, desperation, and confusion. A number of pro-gold Bourbon Democrats urged a "bolt" and the formation of a third party. In response, a hastily arranged assembly on July 24 organized the National Democratic Party. A follow-up meeting in August scheduled a nominating convention for September in Indianapolis and issued an appeal to fellow Democrats. In this document, the National Democratic Party portrayed itself as the legitimate heir to Presidents Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland.

Delegates from forty-one states gathered at the National Democratic Party's national nominating convention in Indianapolis on September 2. Some delegates planned to nominate Cleveland, but they relented after a telegram arrived stating that he would not accept. Senator William Freeman Vilas from Wisconsin, the main drafter of the National Democratic Party's platform, was a favorite of the delegates. However, Vilas refused to run as the party's sacrificial lamb. The choice instead was John M. Palmer, a 79-year-old former senator from Illinois. Simon Bolivar Buckner, a 73-year-old former governor of Kentucky, was nominated by acclamation for vice-president. The ticket, symbolic of post-Civil War reconciliation, featured the oldest combined age of the candidates in American history.

Despite their advanced ages, Palmer and Buckner embarked on a busy speaking tour, including visits to most major cities in the East. This won them considerable respect from the party faithful, although some found it hard to take the geriatric campaigning seriously. "You would laugh yourself sick could you see old Palmer," wrote lawyer Kenesaw Mountain Landis. "He has actually gotten it into his head he is running for office." The Palmer ticket was considered to be a vehicle to elect McKinley for some Gold Democrats, such as William Collins Whitney and Abram Hewitt, the treasurer of the National Democratic Party, and they received quiet financial support from Mark Hanna. Palmer himself said at a campaign stop that if "this vast crowd casts its vote for William McKinley next Tuesday, I shall charge them with no sin." There was even some cooperation with the Republican Party, especially in finances. The Republicans hoped that Palmer could draw enough Democratic votes from Bryan to tip marginal Midwestern and border states into McKinley's column. In a private letter, Hewitt underscored the "entire harmony of action" between both parties in standing against Bryan.

However, the National Democratic Party was not merely an adjunct to the McKinley campaign. An important goal was to nurture a loyal remnant for future victory. Repeatedly they depicted Bryan's prospective defeat, and a credible showing for Palmer, as paving the way for ultimate recapture of the Democratic Party, and this did indeed happen in 1904.

The Palmer-Buckner ticket remains the only third-party presidential campaign in history to have earned the endorsement of the New York Times.

Campaign strategies
While the Republican Party entered 1896 assuming that the Democrats were in shambles and victory would be easy, especially after the unprecedented Republican landslide in the congressional elections of 1894, the nationwide emotional response to the Bryan candidacy changed everything. By summer, it appeared that Bryan was ahead in the South and West and probably also in the Midwest. An entirely new strategy was called for by the McKinley campaign. It was designed to educate voters in the money issues, to demonstrate silverite fallacies, and to portray Bryan himself as a dangerous crusader. McKinley would be portrayed as the safe and sound champion of jobs and sound money, with his high tariff proposals guaranteed to return prosperity for everyone. The McKinley campaign would be national and centralized, using the Republican National Committee as the tool of the candidate, instead of the state parties' tool. Furthermore, the McKinley campaign stressed his pluralistic commitment to prosperity for all groups (including minorities).

Financing
The McKinley campaign invented a new form of campaign financing that has dominated American politics ever since. Instead of asking office holders to return a cut of their pay, Hanna went to financiers and industrialists and made a business proposition. He explained that Bryan would win if nothing happened, and that the McKinley team had a winning counterattack that would be very expensive. He then would ask them how much it was worth to the business not to have Bryan as president. He suggested an amount and was happy to take a check. Hanna had moved beyond partisanship and campaign rhetoric to a businessman's thinking about how to achieve a desired result. He raised $3.5 million. Hanna brought in banker Charles G. Dawes to run his Chicago office and spend about $2 million in the critical region.

Meanwhile, traditional funders of the Democratic Party (mostly financiers from the Northeast) rejected Bryan, although he did manage to raise about $500,000. Some of it came from businessmen with interests in silver mining.

The financial disparity grew larger and larger as the Republicans funded more and more rallies, speeches, and torchlight parades, as well as hundreds of millions of pamphlets attacking Bryan and praising McKinley. Lacking a systematic fund-raising system, Bryan was unable to tap his potential supporters, and he had to rely on passing the hat at rallies. National Chairman Jones pleaded, "No matter in how small sums, no matter by what humble contributions, let the friends of liberty and national honor contribute all they can."

Republican attacks on Bryan

Increasingly, the Republicans personalized their attacks on Bryan as a dangerous religious fanatic. The counter-crusading rhetoric focused on Bryan as a reckless revolutionary whose policies would destroy the economic system. Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld was running for re-election after having pardoned several of the anarchists convicted in the Haymarket affair. Republican posters and speeches linked Altgeld and Bryan as two dangerous anarchists. The Republican Party tried any number of tactics to ridicule Bryan's economic policies. In one case they printed fake dollar bills which had Bryan's face and read "IN GOD WE TRUST ... FOR THE OTHER 53 CENTS", illustrating their claim that a dollar bill would be worth only 47 cents if it was backed by silver instead of gold.

Ethnic responses
The Democratic Party in Eastern and Midwestern cities had a strong German Catholic base that was alienated by free silver and inflationist panaceas. They showed little enthusiasm for Bryan, although many were worried that a Republican victory would bring prohibition into play. The Irish Catholics disliked Bryan's revivalistic rhetoric and worried about prohibition as well. However their leaders decided to stick with Bryan, since the departure of so many Bourbon businessmen from the party left the Irish increasingly in control.

Labor unions and skilled workers
The Bryan campaign appealed first of all to farmers. It told urban workers that their return to prosperity was possible only if the farmers prospered first. Bryan made the point bluntly in the "Cross of Gold" speech, delivered in Chicago just 25 years after that city had indeed burned down: "Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again; but destroy our farms, and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country." Juxtaposing "our farms" and "your cities" did not go over well in cities; they voted 59% for McKinley. Among the industrial cities, Bryan carried only two (Troy, New York, and Fort Wayne, Indiana).

The main labor unions were reluctant to endorse Bryan because their members feared inflation. Railroad workers especially worried that Bryan's silver programs would bankrupt the railroads, which were in a shaky financial condition in the depression and whose bonds were payable in gold. Factory workers saw no advantage in inflation to help miners and farmers, because their urban cost of living would shoot up and they would be hurt. The McKinley campaign gave special attention to skilled workers, especially in the Midwest and adjacent states. Secret polls show that large majorities of railroad and factory workers voted for McKinley.

The fall campaign
Throughout the campaign the South and Mountain states appeared certain to vote for Bryan, whereas the East was certain for McKinley. In play were the Midwest and the Border States.

The Republican Party amassed an unprecedented war chest at all levels: national, state and local. Outspent and shut out of the party's traditional newspapers, Bryan decided his best chance to win the election was to conduct a vigorous national speaking tour by train. His fiery crusading rhetoric to huge audiences would make his campaign a newsworthy story that the hostile press would have to cover, and he could speak to the voters directly instead of through editorials. He was the first presidential candidate since Stephen Douglas in 1860 to canvass directly, and the first ever to criss-cross the nation and meet voters in person.

The novelty of seeing a visiting presidential candidate, combined with Bryan's spellbinding oratory and the passion of his believers, generated huge crowds. Silverites welcomed their hero with all-day celebrations of parades, band music, picnic meals, endless speeches, and undying demonstrations of support. Bryan focused his efforts on the Midwest, which everyone agreed would be the decisive battleground in the election. In just 100 days, Bryan gave over 500 speeches to several million people. His record was 36 speeches in one day in St. Louis. Relying on just a few hours of sleep a night, he traveled 18,000 miles by rail to address five million people, often in a hoarse voice; he would explain that he left his real voice at the previous stops where it was still rallying the people.

In contrast to Bryan's dramatic efforts, McKinley conducted a "front porch" campaign from his home in Canton, Ohio. Instead of having McKinley travel to see the voters, Mark Hanna brought 500,000 voters by train to McKinley's home. Once there, McKinley would greet the men from his porch. His well-organized staff prepared both the remarks of the visiting delegations and the candidate's responses, focusing the comments on the assigned topic of the day. The remarks were issued to the newsmen and telegraphed nationwide to appear in the next day's papers. Bryan, with practically no staff, gave much the same talk over and over again. McKinley labeled Bryan's proposed social and economic reforms as a serious threat to the national economy. With the depression following the Panic of 1893 coming to an end, support for McKinley's more conservative economic policies increased, while Bryan's more radical policies began to lose support among Midwestern farmers and factory workers.

To ensure victory, Hanna paid large numbers of Republican orators (including Theodore Roosevelt) to travel around the nation denouncing Bryan as a dangerous radical. There were also reports that some potentially Democratic voters were intimidated into voting for McKinley. For example, some factory owners posted signs the day before the election announcing that, if Bryan won the election, the factory would be closed and the workers would lose their jobs.

Bryan's midsummer surge in the Midwest played out as the intense Republican counter-crusade proved effective. Bryan spent most of October in the Midwest, making 160 of his final 250 speeches there. Morgan noted, "full organization, Republican party harmony, a campaign of education with the printed and spoken word would more than counteract" Bryan's speechmaking.

Several of Bryan's advisors recommended additional campaigning in the Upper South States of Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. Another plan called for a coastal tour from Washington State to Southern California. Bryan however, opted to concentrate in the Mid-West and to launch a unity tour into the heavily Republican Northeast. Bryan saw no chance of winning in New England, but felt that he needed to make a truly national appeal. On election day the results from the Pacific Coast and Upper South would be the closest of the election.

Results
McKinley secured a solid victory in the electoral college by carrying the core of the East and Northeast, while Bryan did well among the farmers of the South, West, and rural Midwest. The large German-American voting bloc supported McKinley, who gained large majorities among the middle class, skilled factory workers, railroad workers, and large-scale farmers.

The national popular vote was rather close, as McKinley defeated Bryan by 602,500 votes, receiving 51% to Bryan's 46.7%: a shift of 53,000 votes in California, Kentucky, Ohio and Oregon would have won Bryan the election despite McKinley winning the majority of the popular vote, but due to the joint Democratic-Populist ticket, this also would have left Hobart and Sewell short of the 224 electoral votes required to win the vice-presidency, forcing a contingent election for vice-president in the Senate. This was the first time since 1876 that a candidate won a majority of the popular vote.

The National Democrats did not carry any states, but they did divide the Democratic vote in some states and helped the Republicans flip Kentucky; Gold Democrats made much of the fact that Palmer's small vote in Kentucky was higher than McKinley's very narrow margin in that state. This was the first time a Republican presidential candidate had ever carried Kentucky, but they did not do so again until Calvin Coolidge in 1924. From this, they concluded that Palmer had siphoned off needed Democratic votes and hence thrown the state to McKinley. However, McKinley would have won the overall election even if he had lost Kentucky to Bryan.

Mayor Tom L. Johnson of Cleveland, Ohio, summed up the campaign as the "first great protest of the American people against monopoly – the first great struggle of the masses in our country against the privileged classes." According to a 2017 National Bureau of Economic Research paper, "Bryan did well where mortgage interest rates were high, railroad penetration was low, and crop prices had declined by most over the previous decade. Using our estimates, we show that further declines in crop prices or increases in interest rates would have been enough to tip the Electoral College in Bryan's favor. But to change the outcome, the additional fall in crop prices would have had to be large."

A 2022 study found that campaign visits by Bryan increased his vote share by one percentage point on average. McKinley received a little more than seven million votes, Bryan a little less than six and a half million, about 800,000 in excess of the Democratic vote in 1892. It was larger than the Democratic Party was to poll in 1900, 1904, or 1912. It was somewhat less, however, than the combined vote for the Democratic and Populist nominees had been in 1892. In contrast, McKinley received nearly 2,000,000 more votes than had been cast for Benjamin Harrison, the Republican nominee, in 1892. The Republican vote was to be slightly increased during the next decade. Starr County, Texas has voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in every election since, the longest unbroken Democratic voting streak in the country.

Realignment of 1896
The 1896 presidential election is often seen as a realigning election, in which McKinley's view of a stronger central government building American industry through protective tariffs and a dollar based on gold triumphed. The new Fourth Party System then displaced the near-deadlock in the Third Party System since the Civil War. The Republicans now usually dominated in the major states and nationwide down to the 1932 election, another realigning election with the ascent of Franklin Roosevelt and the Fifth Party System. Phillips argues that McKinley was the only Republican who could have defeated Bryan—he concludes that Eastern candidates would have done badly against the Illinois-born Bryan in the crucial Midwest. Although Bryan was popular among rural voters, "McKinley appealed to a very different industrialized, urbanized America."

Geography of results
One-half of the total vote of the nation was polled in eight states carried by McKinley (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin). In these states, Bryan not only ran far behind the Republican candidate, but also polled considerably less than half of his total vote.

Bryan only won in twelve of the eighty-two cites in the United States with populations above 45,000 with seven of those being in the Solid South. In the states that Bryan won seven of the seventeen cities voted McKinley while in the states that voted for McKinley only three of the sixty-five cities voted for Bryan. Bryan lost in every county in New England and only won one county in New York, with Bryan even losing in traditionally Democratic New York City.

In only one other section, in the six states of New England, was the Republican lead great; the Republican vote (614,972) was more than twice the Democratic vote (242,938), and every county was carried by the Republicans.

The West North Central section gave a slight lead to McKinley, as did the Pacific section. Nevertheless, within these sections, the states of Missouri, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Washington were carried by Bryan.

In the South Atlantic section and in the East South Central section, the Democratic lead was pronounced, and in the West South Central section and in the Mountain section, the vote for Bryan was overwhelming. In these four sections, comprising 21 states, McKinley carried only 322 counties and four states – Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

A striking feature of this examination of the state returns is found in the overwhelming lead for one or the other party in 22 of the 45 states. It was true of the McKinley vote in every New England state and in New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. It was also true of the Bryan vote in eight states of the lower South and five states of the Mountain West. Sectionalism was thus marked in this first election of the Fourth Party System. This was the last election in which the Democrats won South Dakota until 1932, the last in which the Democrats won Utah and Washington until 1916, and the last in which the Democrats won Kansas and Wyoming until 1912. It was also the last time that South Dakota and Washington voted against the Republicans until they voted for the Progressive Party in 1912. This also constitutes the only election since their statehoods when a Republican won the presidency without winning Kansas, South Dakota, Utah, or Wyoming. Today these are solidly Republican states and have not backed a Democratic nominee since Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide over Barry Goldwater. This is one of two occasions where Idaho and Montana backed a losing Democrat (along with 1900), and one of two occasions where Nebraska did so (along with 1908). This is the first occasion where Republicans won without Colorado.

Southern votes
In the South, there were numerous Republican counties, notably in Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, northern Alabama and Virginia, representing a mix of white Southern Unionist counties along with majority black counties in areas where black disenfranchisement was not yet complete (such as North Carolina, where a Republican-Populist fusion ticket had captured the General Assembly in 1894). Even in Georgia, a state in the Deep South, there were counties returning Republican majorities.

(a) Includes 912,241 votes as the People's nominee

(b) Sewall was Bryan's Democratic running mate.

(c) Watson was Bryan's People's running mate.

Source (Popular Vote):

Source (Electoral Vote):

Results by state
Source:

States that flipped from Democratic to Republican

 * California
 * Connecticut
 * Delaware
 * Illinois
 * Indiana
 * Kentucky
 * Maryland
 * New Jersey
 * New York
 * West Virginia
 * Wisconsin

States that flipped from Republican to Democratic

 * Montana
 * Nebraska
 * South Dakota
 * Washington
 * Wyoming

States that flipped from Populist to Democratic

 * Colorado
 * Idaho
 * Kansas
 * Nevada

States that flipped from Populist to Republican

 * North Dakota

Close states
Margin of victory less than 1% (26 electoral votes; 20 won by Republicans; 6 by Democrats):
 * 1) Kentucky, 0.06% (277 votes)
 * 2) South Dakota, 0.22% (183 votes)
 * 3) California, 0.64% (1,922 votes)

Margin of victory less than 5% (55 electoral votes; 42 won by Republicans; 13 by Democrats):
 * 1) Oregon, 2.09% (2,040 votes)
 * 2) Indiana, 2.85% (18,181 votes)
 * 3) Kansas, 3.69% (12,330 votes)
 * 4) Wyoming, 3.74% (789 votes)
 * 5) Ohio, 4.78% (48,494 votes) (tipping point state)

Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (66 electoral votes; 6 won by Republicans; 60 by Democrats):
 * 1) Nebraska, 5.35% (11,943 votes)
 * 2) West Virginia, 5.40% (10,899 votes)
 * 3) Tennessee, 5.76% (18,485 votes)
 * 4) North Carolina, 5.82% (19,286 votes)
 * 5) Virginia, 6.56% (19,329 votes)
 * 6) Missouri, 8.71% (58,727 votes)

Statistics
Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Republican)
 * 1)  Zapata County, Texas 94.34%
 * 2)  Leslie County, Kentucky 91.39%
 * 3)  Addison County, Vermont 89.17%
 * 4)  Unicoi County, Tennessee 89.04%
 * 5)  Keweenaw County, Michigan 88.96%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Democratic)
 * 1)  West Carroll Parish, Louisiana 99.84%
 * 2)  Leflore County, Mississippi 99.68%
 * 3)  Smith County, Mississippi 99.26%
 * 4)  Pitkin County, Colorado 99.21%
 * 5)  Neshoba County, Mississippi 99.15%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Populist)
 * 1)  Madera County, California 62.80%
 * 2)  Lake County, California 61.95%
 * 3)  Stanislaus County, California 59.00%
 * 4)  San Benito County, California 57.59%
 * 5)  San Luis Obispo County, California 56.37%

In popular culture
The election parade for William McKinley is seen on The Little House film in 1952.


text:
1900 United States presidential election

The 1900 United States presidential election was the 29th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1900. In a re-match of the 1896 race, incumbent Republican President William McKinley defeated his Democratic challenger, William Jennings Bryan. McKinley's victory made him the first president to win a consecutive re-election since Ulysses S. Grant accomplished the same feat in 1872. Until 1956, this would be the last time in which an incumbent Republican president would win re-election after serving a full term in office. This election saw the fifth rematch in presidential history but the first to produce the same winner both times; neither would occur again until 1956.

McKinley and Bryan each faced little opposition within their own parties. Although some Gold Democrats explored the possibility of a campaign by Admiral George Dewey, Bryan was easily re-nominated at the 1900 Democratic National Convention after Dewey withdrew from the race. McKinley was unanimously re-nominated at the 1900 Republican National Convention. As Vice President Garret Hobart had died in 1899, the Republican convention chose New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt as McKinley's running mate.

The return of economic prosperity and recent victory in the Spanish–American War helped McKinley score a decisive victory, while Bryan's anti-imperialist stance and continued support for bimetallism attracted only limited support. McKinley carried most states outside of the Solid South and won 51.6% of the popular vote. The election results were similar to those of 1896, though McKinley picked up several Western states and Bryan picked up Kentucky.

Six months into his second term, McKinley was assassinated, and his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt, succeeded him.

Republican Party nomination
The 926 delegates to the Republican convention, which met in Philadelphia on June 19–21, re-nominated President William McKinley by acclamation. Thomas C. Platt, the "boss" of the New York State Republican Party, did not like Theodore Roosevelt, New York's popular governor, even though he was a fellow Republican. Roosevelt's efforts to reform New York politics – including Republican politics – led Platt and other state Republican leaders to pressure President McKinley to accept Roosevelt as his new vice presidential candidate, thus filling the spot left open when Vice President Garret Hobart died in 1899. By electing Roosevelt vice president, Platt would remove Roosevelt from New York state politics. Although Roosevelt was reluctant to accept the nomination for vice president, which he regarded as a relatively trivial and powerless office, his great popularity among most Republican delegates led McKinley to pick him as his new running mate. Quite unexpectedly, Roosevelt would be elevated to the presidency in September 1901, when McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, New York.

Other candidates
After Admiral George Dewey's return from the Spanish–American War, many suggested that he run for president on the Democratic ticket. Dewey, however, had already angered some Protestants by marrying the Catholic Mildred McLean Hazen (the widow of General William Babcock Hazen and daughter of Washington McLean, owner of The Washington Post) in November 1899 and giving her the house that the nation had given him following the war. His candidacy was also almost immediately plagued by a number of public relations gaffes. Newspapers started attacking him as naïve after he was quoted as saying the job of president would be easy, since the chief executive was merely following orders in executing the laws enacted by Congress, and that he would "execute the laws of Congress as faithfully as I have always executed the orders of my superiors." Shortly thereafter, he admitted never having voted in a presidential election before, mentioning that the only man he ever would have voted for, had he voted, would have been Grover Cleveland. He drew even more criticism when he offhandedly (and prophetically) told a newspaper reporter that, "Our next war will be with Germany."

Dewey's campaign was met with pessimism by Gold Democrats on whose support his campaign depended. Some even threw their support to Bryan, believing him to be the stronger candidate. As early as three days into his candidacy, his campaign having been damaged by the aforementioned missteps, rumors abounded regarding Dewey's impending withdrawal which proved false. Further injuries were made, however, when it became clear that the Democratic Party leaders of Vermont, Dewey's home state, were hostile to him and wholly committed to Bryan. Ohio similarly went for Bryan, though with the caveat that some leaders there suggested dropping all mention of silver from the party platform. By May 5, John Roll McLean -- Dewey's brother-in-law and de facto campaign manager -- defected from the campaign and was widely considered to be silently supporting Bryan. Dewey recognized soon afterward that he had very little chance of gathering enough delegates from Western and Southern states to keep Bryan from attaining a two-thirds majority at the convention, publicly commenting on May 17 that he no longer knew why he had even run for president at all. He effectively withdrew at about this time. There was some support in June for his nomination as vice president on the ticket alongside Bryan; however, Dewey resolutely refused to be considered.

Once Dewey withdrew, William Jennings Bryan faced little opposition for the nomination. He won it at the 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri on July 4–6, garnering 936 delegate votes.

Official or speculated candidates for the vice-presidential nomination:

 * Adlai Stevenson I, Former Vice President and former Representative from Illinois
 * Charles A. Towne, Former Representative from Minnesota
 * Elliott Danforth, Former Democratic State Committee Chairman from New York
 * William Sulzer, Representative from New York
 * Joseph C. Sibley, Representative from Pennsylvania
 * Robert E. Pattison, Former Governor of Pennsylvania
 * George F. Williams, Former Representative from Massachusetts
 * James P. Tarvin, Judge from Kentucky
 * George B. McClellan Jr., Representative from New York
 * John W. Daniel, Senator and Former Representative from Virginia
 * John J. Lentz, Representative from Ohio
 * Carter Harrison Jr., Mayor of Chicago, Illinois
 * John W. Keller, Charities Commissioner of New York City, from New York

 * David B. Hill, Former Senator from and former Governor of New York
 * John Walter Smith, Representative from Maryland
 * Jim Hogg, Former Governor of Texas
 * Edward Atkinson, Economist and founding member of the American Anti-Imperialist League from Massachusetts
 * Winfield Scott Schley, Rear Admiral in the United States Navy from Maryland
 * Henry Clay Caldwell, Federal Judge from Arkansas
 * Alton B. Parker, Chief Judge from New York
 * Benjamin F. Shively, Former Representative from Indiana
 * George Dewey, Admiral of the Navy from Vermont
 * William Randolph Hearst, Business magnate from New York
 * William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody, soldier, bison hunter and showman from Colorado
 * Augustus Van Wyck, Former Court Justice from New York

People's Party nomination
As the nation's third-largest party, the Populists had made an organizational decision in 1896 to "fuse" with the Democratic Party on the national level, their identity kept separate by the nomination of two different candidates for vice president. At the state level, local Populist parties were left at liberty to proceed as they saw fit. In the Plains states, the Populists fused with the Democrats and, in some states, replaced them entirely. In the South, the Populists fused with the Republican Party. The result, though Bryan was defeated, was that the Populists greatly enlarged their representation in Congress from 10 to 26. In several southern states, however, the legislatures were still controlled by the Democrats, and they began passing a series of laws to eliminate the franchise for black voters with the intention of undermining a significant bloc of Populist support. The move had its intended consequences; in the 1898 mid-term election, Populist representation in the House of Representatives fell to 9, its lowest level since the party was founded.

The treatment of Populists by Democrats led to a division within the party. On May 17, 1899, Populist leaders met in St. Louis and issued an address calling for a "Middle of the Road" policy in which the party would decline future fusion efforts. The statement was primarily aimed at the party's national chairman, U.S. Senator Marion Butler of North Carolina, who had been elected to the Senate through fusion with North Carolina Republicans and was already working for the renomination of William Jennings Bryan on the 1900 Populist ticket. The pro-fusion leaders of the Populists fought back in early 1900. The first state party known to have split was the Nebraska party, which divided during its state convention on March 19. Both factions appointed delegates to the national convention, scheduled for Cincinnati. Ultimately, the Fusion Populists decided to hold a separate national convention when it became apparent that the Ohio Populists did not favor fusion and were working to organize a convention which would not nominate Bryan.

"Fusion" Populist nomination
The "Fusion" Populist National Convention assembled in a large tent just west of Sioux Falls, South Dakota on May 9 and unanimously nominated Bryan for the presidency. Charles Towne, the leader of the Silver Republican Party, was almost unanimously nominated as his running mate, facing only weak opposition from Representative John Lentz from Ohio. When Adlai Stevenson won the Democratic vice-presidential nomination over Towne, Towne withdrew from the race and the Fusion Populists endorsed Stevenson.

"Middle of the Road" Populist nomination
Meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, the "Middle of the Road" faction adopted a platform that called for the creation of fiat money, government ownership of key industries and the opening of conservation lands for economic development. Businessman Wharton Barker was nominated for the presidency, while Representative Ignatius Donnelly was chosen as his running mate.

Social Democratic Party nomination
Social Democracy of America was founded by in June 1897, and was later reformed as the Social Democratic Party of America in 1898 while the Socialist Labor Party of America was having internal struggles. James F. Carey, who had been elected to the city council in Haverhill, Massachusetts, was expelled from the Socialist Labor Party. Eugene V. Debs, Carey, and Sylvester Keliher founded the Social Democratic Party. Carey and Louis M. Scates were elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives while John C. Chase was elected as mayor of Haverhill. Victor L. Berger led the party in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a slate of candidates received almost six percent of the vote in the 1898 election. Twenty members had been elected to office by 1900.

Morris Hillquit and members of his faction, the Kangaroos, in the Socialist Labor Party attempted to oust Daniel De Leon from the party's leadership at the 1899 convention. The Kangaroo faction was removed from the party and formed their own Socialist Labor Party. The Kangaroo faction lost a court case against De Leon for control of the party. They nominated Job Harriman for president and Max S. Hayes for vice president although they were not meant to run in the 1900 election and were instead used for a compromise with the Social Democratic Party of America.

The Social Democrats had been invited to the Kangaroos' convention, but declined although the Social Democrats supported unity between the parties. The Social Democratic National Executive Board allowed for the Kangaroo faction to send delegates to its national convention. The Kangaroos passed a resolution supporting unity and created a unity committee. Sixty-seven delegates from thirty-two states attuned the 1900 convention and voted by acclamation to give their presidential nomination to Debs. Hayes and Harriman were both nominated for the vice-presidential nomination and Harriman won it.

The executive board announced on May 12, 1900, that they would not support unity with the Kangaroos after accusing them of being too dogmatic and impeding a unity referendum. The Kangaroo unity committee sent out sent out ballots to members of both groups and both voted in favor of unity. The Kangaroos nominated Debs and Harriman as their presidential ticket which Debs accepted on July 31. Debs and George D. Herron started the party's campaign on September 29, at Chicago's Music Hall. Debs received 87,945 votes with his largest amount of support coming from New York and Illinois. Debs received over ten times the number of votes in Chicago that the Socialist Labor Party had in the 1896 election. Debs received more votes than any presidential ticket from the Socialist Labor Party. The Kangaroo faction and the Social Democrats later merged into the Socialist Party of America in 1901.

Other candidates
The Prohibition Party met in Chicago, Illinois on June 28 to nominate their presidential ticket. Hale Johnson, who had been their vice-presidential nominee in 1896, withdrew his name immediately before the balloting was to begin. John G. Woolley was nominated on the first ballot, with Henry B. Metcalf of Rhode Island nominated to be his running mate in short order.

Lincoln Republican nomination
The Lincoln Republican Party, formerly the Silver Republican Party, had by 1900 come to recognize that the issue of bimetallism had been superseded by that of imperialism, and it was hoped that a broader platform in line with the perceived values of Abraham Lincoln would allow the Party to evolve beyond its singular issue of free silver.

The Lincoln Republicans assembled in Kansas City, Missouri, at the same time as the Democratic National Convention held in the same city. Committed to endorsing William Jennings Bryan for the presidency, the primary aim of many of those attending was to promote the nomination of national chairman Charles Towne for the vice presidency by the Democratic Party, an effort endorsed by Fusionist Populists who had nominated Towne to the same position two months earlier. Unfortunately for those who boomed Towne these efforts may have backfired, pushing away Democratic delegates who might have otherwise been favorable to Towne by presenting the ticket of Bryan and Towne as a fait accompli, with Southern Democratic delegates themselves preferring a vice-presidential nominee who'd appeal to voters the Democratic Party lost in the Northeast and Midwest four years prior. Hopes for a personal endorsement of Towne by Bryan were also dashed when Bryan, who personally preferred Towne of those candidates in running and was expected to make mention of this in an acceptance, decided against going to the convention or involving himself in the vice-presidential contest. Ultimately, Towne was a distant third, with Adlai Stevenson winning the nod.

The nomination of Stevenson, who'd previously served as Grover Cleveland's vice president, outraged many of the Lincoln Republicans still in attendance, and in the ensuing pandemonium attempts were made to nominate Charles Towne for the vice presidency. Only when Charles Towne himself addressed the convention did the anger settle. Declining the efforts to nominate him, Towne pleaded with the delegates present to accept and support the Democratic ticket as it was, noting that Bryan was at the head of it and much of the Democratic Platform was aligned with that of the Lincoln Republicans. Others, such as Senator Fred Dubois, Senator Henry Teller, and John Shafroth made similar speeches calling for support for Bryan and Stevenson. It was eventually decided that the question of the vice presidential nomination would be handled by the National Committee. They would formalize and endorsement of Adlai Stevenson for the vice presidency the following day, in deference to Towne's wishes.

Anti-Imperialist League nomination
The American Anti-Imperialist League had been formed in 1898 in opposition to the acquisition of the Philippine Islands, considering its annexation violating the concept of "consent of the governed". While not formalized as a political party, there existed a movement within the League that sought to nominate an independent ticket to run solely on the platform of anti-imperialism or, barring that, to endorse whichever Republican or Democratic presidential nominee that was themselves anti-imperialist. Upon the nominations of McKinley and Bryan however, there were immediate divisions on whether to endorse Bryan and the Democratic Platform, many sympathizing Republicans and Gold Democrats finding it anathema to their own political philosophies beyond its denouncement of imperialism; already by July some were considering supporting McKinley in November. Later that same month a call was made for a National Convention to meet in Indianapolis on August 15 with the intention of either endorsing or nominating a ticket for the general election. Discussions were held with remnants of National Democratic Party about the possibility of a fusion ticket, but this was voted down by their national committee. Then discussed names for possible presidential candidates were former Speaker Thomas Reed, former Secretary of State Richard Olney, former Massachusetts Governor George Boutwell, and former Senator John Henderson

From the beginning the headwinds were in Bryan's favor, with permanent President George Boutwell addressing the convention and calling for the endorsement of the Democratic ticket, this followed in speeches by former General John Beatty, Edgar Bancroft, and Gamaliel Bradford. The resolution to endorse Bryan however was subject to prolonged debate, its principal opponents being representatives of the "third-ticket" movement led by Thomas Osborne. Osborne and those who followed him theorized that many anti-imperialists would not be willing to vote for Bryan or in favor of the Democratic Platform, and would be better served by a candidate of their own. Charles Codman, the author of the resolution, and Edwin Burritt Smith countered that all issues were secondary to the issue of imperialism, and that the most effective means by which to put an anti-imperialist in office should be used. In a voice vote, the Platform of the "Liberty Congress" as it was then known as adopted overwhelmingly, with all amendments to strike the endorsement of the Bryan/Stevenson ticket being voted down. Osborne and other "third-ticketers" would then bolt to the then nearby organizing National Party.

National Party nomination
The National Party was an outgrowth of the "third-ticket" movement that existed within the Anti-Imperialist League. The first steps towards its formation were taken after the failure of a number of anti-imperialists, among them Thomas Osborne and John Jay Chapman, to convince the National Democratic Party to either nominate or endorse a third party ticket. A statement was then released by the attending League delegates from New York, denouncing both the Republican and Democratic parties, advocating for the independence of the Philippines and Porto Rico [sic], supporting gold standard and a sound banking system, calling for the abolition of special privileges, and demanding a public service based on merit exclusively. They also called for a national convention to be held from August 14 to 15, which would have placed it alongside the "national" League Convention that was being held from August 15 to August 16.

As the delegates arrived in Indianapolis, it was hoped that the League could be convinced to nominate a third party ticket, with the National Party then offering its endorsement. It swiftly became clear however that the majority of the delegates to the Anti-Imperialist League Convention were in sympathy with Bryan and prepared to endorse him, and attempts on the part of anti-Bryan delegates to kept the platform at least non-committal on the subject of the presidential race were unsuccessful. Those League delegates that were associated with the National Party then left and proceeded to elect Thomas Osborne as Permanent Chairman, calling for a new national convention to be held on September 5. It is claimed that at the time the National Party presidential nomination was offered to Moorfield Storey, but Storey declined and ultimately opted to run as an Anti-Imperialist Independent in the 11th District of Massachusetts; William Jackson Palmer was suggested as a vice-presidential nominee to run alongside him.

Meeting in Carnegie Hall (then Chamber Music Hall) on 5 September, the National Party was formalized, nominating Senator Donelson Caffery of Louisiana for the presidency, and historian Archibald Howe of Massachusetts for the vice presidency. Though there was some concern over whether Caffery would accept the nomination if offered, Osborne claimed that he had been communicating with Caffrey and that he was both sympathetic to the National Party and willing to be their candidate for the presidency. The party platform was virtually identical to the one offered by the League committee back in July, though the definition of "special privileges was defined as "subsidies, bounties, undeserved pensions, or trust-busting tariffs." A strategy was also adopted where, in those States where it was impractical to nominate a full slate of electors, a single elector would be nominated instead, allowing for voters to vote the Nationalist ticket as well as one other of their choice; it was hoped that this might avail concerns that the Nationalists would take votes away from either Bryan or McKinley, depending on the voters' sympathies.

Unfortunately for the Nationalist Party Senator Cafferty declined the nomination some weeks later, resulting in a scramble where Arthur Briggs Farquhar, owner of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Works, was considered as a possible replacement. A day later, on September 21, the Massachusetts branch of the Party voted to disband. It was then hoped that unpledged electors could be nominated, but papers were only ever taken out for one, Edward Waldo Emerson of Massachusetts.

Other nominations
The Union Reform Party nominated Seth H. Ellis of Ohio for president and Samuel T. Nicholson for vice president.

The United Christian Party nominated Jonah F. R. Leonard for president, and David H. Martin for vice president. Initially, the party had nominated Silas C. Swallow for president and John G. Woolley for vice president, but both men refused, choosing instead to contest the Prohibition Party nomination (of which Woolley would emerge the victor).

Campaign
The economy was booming in 1900, so the Republican slogan of "Four More Years of the Full Dinner Pail," combined with victory in the brief Spanish–American War in 1898, had a powerful electoral appeal. Teddy Roosevelt had become a national hero fighting in Cuba during the war, and as such he was a popular spokesman for the Republican ticket. Roosevelt proved highly energetic, and an equal match for William Jennings Bryan's famous barnstorming style of campaigning. Roosevelt's theme was that McKinley had brought America peace and prosperity and deserved re-election. In a whirlwind campaign, Roosevelt made 480 stops in 23 states. In his speeches, he repeatedly argued that the war had been just and had liberated the Cubans and Filipinos from Spanish tyranny:

"Four years ago the nation was uneasy because at our very doors an American island was writhing in hideous agony under a worse than medieval despotism. We had our Armenia at our threshold. The situation in Cuba had become such that we could no longer stand quiet and retain one shred of self-respect.... We drew the sword and waged the most righteous and brilliantly successful foreign war that this generation has seen."

Bryan's campaign was built around a reprise of his major issue from the 1896 campaign: Free Silver. It was not as successful in 1900, because prosperity had replaced severe depression and McKinley claimed credit. Advocates of enlarging the money supply to raise prices had to admit that a great deal of new gold was flowing into the world economy, and deflation (i.e. falling prices) was no longer a threat. Bryan's second major campaign theme attacked McKinley's imperialism; Bryan had supported the war, but opposed the annexation of the Philippines. He said McKinley had simply replaced a cruel Spanish tyranny with a cruel American one. Bryan was especially harsh in his criticisms of the American military effort to suppress a bloody rebellion by Filipino guerillas. This theme won over some previous opponents, especially "hard money" Germans, former Gold Democrats, and anti-imperialists such as Andrew Carnegie.

Both candidates repeated their 1896 campaign techniques, with McKinley campaigning again from the front porch of his home in Canton, Ohio. At the peak of the campaign, he greeted sixteen delegations and 30,000 cheering supporters in one day. Meanwhile, Bryan took to the rails again, traveling 18,000 miles to hundreds of rallies across the Midwest and East. This time, he was matched by Theodore Roosevelt, who campaigned just as energetically in 24 states, covering 21,000 miles by train.

The triumph of the American army and navy in the war against Spain was a decisive factor in building Republican support. Democrats tried to argue that the war was not over because of the insurgency in the Philippines; this became their major issue. A perception that the Philippine–American War was coming to an end would be an electoral asset for the Republicans, and the McKinley administration stated that there were reductions of troops there. Republicans pledged that the fighting in the Philippines would die down of its own accord within sixty days of McKinley's re-election. However, as one lieutenant explained in a letter to his wife, "It looks good on paper, but there really has been no reduction of the force here. These battalions [being sent home] are made up on men...about to be discharged."

In addition, Secretary of War Elihu Root had a report from MacArthur of September 1900 that he did not release until after the election. General Arthur MacArthur, Jr., had been in command of the Philippines for four months, warning Washington that the war was not lessening and that the end was not even in sight. MacArthur believed that the guerrilla stage of the war was just beginning and that Filipinos were refining their techniques through experience. Furthermore, Philippine leader Emilio Aguinaldo's strategy had popular support. MacArthur wrote:

"The success of this unique system of war depends upon almost complete unity of action of the entire native population. That such unity is a fact is too obvious to admit of discussion; how it is brought about and maintained is not so plain. Intimidation has undoubtedly accomplished much to this end, but fear as the only motive is hardly sufficient to account for the united and apparently spontaneous action of several millions of people. One traitor in each town would eventually destroy such a complex organization. It is more probable that the adhesive principle comes from ethological homogeneity, which induces men to respond for a time to the appeals of consanguineous leadership even when such action is opposed to their interests and convictions of expediency."

Nonetheless, the majority of soldiers in the Philippines did not support Bryan. Any mention of the election of 1900 in the soldiers' letters and diaries indicated overwhelming support for the Republican ticket of McKinley and Roosevelt. According to Sergeant Beverly Daley, even the "howling Democrats" favored McKinley. Private Hambleton wrote, "Of course, there are some boys who think Bryan is the whole cheese, but they don't say too much."

Despite Bryan's energetic efforts, the renewed prosperity under McKinley, combined with the public's approval of the Spanish–American War, allowed McKinley to gain a comfortable victory.

Results
Theodore Roosevelt, the vice-presidential candidate on the Republican ticket, attracted unusual attention in the campaign, and it has been commonly asserted that he brought a considerable number of votes to the Republican ticket.

McKinley polled roughly 7,200,000 votes. He carried 28 states with a combined 292 electoral votes (65.32%). He slightly increased his national percentage (51.60%) with 120,000 more votes than in 1896. This change is reflected in the gains made in number of counties carried; McKinley had 222 more counties than he had carried in 1896, thus gaining a slight majority of the total number of counties making returns in 1900.

Of the 2,729 counties making returns, McKinley won in 1,385 (50.75%) while Bryan carried 1,340 (49.10%). Two counties (0.07%) were split evenly between McKinley and Bryan, while two counties (0.07%) in Texas recorded more votes cast for "Other(s)" than either of the two-party candidates. McKinley had a majority in 1,288 counties while Bryan had a majority in 1,253 counties.

Further examination reveals that changes in counties were even more impressive. Of the 2,729 counties making returns, 2,286 were identical in these two elections; 113 changed from Republican to Democratic; and 328 changed from Democratic to Republican.

A notable feature was the gains Bryan made in the New England and (Northeastern) Mid-Atlantic sections, with also a slight gain in the East North Central section. Bryan even managed to win New York City by almost 30,000 votes when he had lost it by more than 60,000 votes just 4 years earlier. In all other sections, Bryan's vote was less than in 1896, and in the nation his total vote was 23,000 less than in 1896. The percentage of total was 45.52, a slight loss. Kentucky, which he carried this time, showed an increase of 17,005. In 16 states, the Democratic vote increased, but in 29 states it was less than in 1896. Bryan carried only 17 states. This was the only one of his three runs in which he failed to carry his home state of Nebraska.

This was the last election in which the Republicans won the majority of electoral votes in Maryland until 1920. It is also the last election in which a Republican won the presidency without winning Idaho and Montana. In addition, this would also be the last election in 100 years when the Republican candidate would win without earning a minimum of 300 electoral votes. That did not occur again until George W. Bush narrowly defeated Al Gore in the 2000 United States presidential election. This was the first election since 1880 where any party won consecutive elections. This was the first time since 1872 that the winning candidate won by a margin of more than 5 points.

Source (popular vote):

Source (electoral vote):

Results by state
Source:

States that flipped from Democratic to Republican

 * Nebraska
 * South Dakota
 * Utah
 * Washington
 * Wyoming
 * Kansas

States that flipped from Republican to Democratic

 * Kentucky

Close states
Margin of victory less than 5% (42 electoral votes):
 * 1) Kentucky, 1.71% (7,994 votes)
 * 2) Utah, 2.29% (2,133 votes)
 * 3) Nebraska, 3.24% (7,822 votes)
 * 4) Idaho, 3.83% (2,216 votes)
 * 5) Indiana, 3.99% (26,479 votes)

Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (150 electoral votes):
 * 1) Maryland, 5.27% (13,947 votes)
 * 2) Missouri, 5.53% (37,830 votes)
 * 3) Kansas, 6.60% (23,354 votes)
 * 4) Ohio, 6.64% (69,036 votes)
 * 5) Tennessee, 8.08% (22,132 votes)
 * 6) Illinois, 8.39% (94,924 votes) (tipping point state)
 * 7) North Carolina, 8.46% (24,736 votes)
 * 8) Delaware, 8.77% (3,683 votes)
 * 9) New York, 9.27% (143,551 votes)
 * 10) West Virginia, 9.52% (21,022 votes)

Statistics
Counties with highest percent of vote (Republican)
 * 1) Keweenaw County, Michigan 92.24%
 * 2) Leslie County, Kentucky 91.23%
 * 3) Unicoi County, Tennessee 89.64%
 * 4) Scott County, Tennessee 89.59%
 * 5) Johnson County, Tennessee 89.20%

Counties with highest percent of vote (Democratic)
 * 1) Irion County, Texas 100.00%
 * 2) Hampton County, South Carolina 99.89%
 * 3) Greenwood County, South Carolina 99.73%
 * 4) Saluda County, South Carolina 99.45%
 * 5) Abbeville County, South Carolina 99.42%

Counties with highest percent of vote (Other)
 * 1) Carson County, Texas 78.71%
 * 2) Chambers County, Texas 44.50%
 * 3) Comanche County, Texas 32.82%
 * 4) Franklin County, Georgia 30.92%
 * 5) Scurry County, Texas 28.69%

Counties with lowest percent of vote (Republican)
 * 1) Randall County, Texas 00.00%
 * 2) Irion County, Texas 00.00%
 * 3) Hampton County, South Carolina 00.11%
 * 4) Greenwood County, South Carolina 00.27%
 * 5) Dooly County, Georgia 00.35%

Counties with lowest percent of vote (Democratic)
 * 1) Keweenaw County, Michigan 06.33%
 * 2) Unicoi County, Tennessee 08.29%
 * 3) Leslie County, Kentucky 08.46%
 * 4) Scott County, Tennessee 10.23%
 * 5) Johnson County, Tennessee 10.42%

Counties with most votes (Republican)
 * 1) Cook County, Illinois 203,760
 * 2) Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania 173,657
 * 3) New York County, New York 153,001
 * 4) Kings County, New York 108,977
 * 5) Allegheny County, Pennsylvania 71,780

Counties with most votes (Democratic)
 * 1) Cook County, Illinois 186,193
 * 2) New York County, New York 181,786
 * 3) Kings County, New York 106,232
 * 4) Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania 58,179
 * 5) Suffolk County, Massachusetts 47,534

Counties with most votes (Other)
 * 1) New York County, New York 11,700
 * 2) Cook County, Illinois 10,242
 * 3) Milwaukee County, Wisconsin 5,857
 * 4) Kings County, New York 4,639
 * 5) Essex County, Massachusetts 4,242

Counties with lowest percent of vote and win (Republican)
 * 1) Cherokee County, Alabama 41.94%
 * 2) Paulding County, Georgia 46.00%
 * 3) Logan County, Colorado 46.59%
 * 4) Chattahoochee County, Georgia 47.18%
 * 5) Otter Tail County, Minnesota 47.19%

Counties with lowest percent of vote and win (Democratic)
 * 1) Murray County, Georgia 45.18%
 * 2) Geneva County, Alabama 46.48%
 * 3) Douglas County, Georgia 46.75%
 * 4) Linn County, Oregon 46.77%
 * 5) Fresno County, California 47.41%

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
1904 United States presidential election

The 1904 United States presidential election was the 30th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1904. Incumbent Republican President Theodore Roosevelt defeated the conservative Democratic nominee, Alton B. Parker. Roosevelt's victory made him the first president who ascended to the presidency upon the death of his predecessor to win a full term in his own right. This was also the second presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1860, 1920, 1940, 1944, and 2016.

Roosevelt took office in September 1901 following the assassination of his predecessor, William McKinley. After the February 1904 death of McKinley's ally, Senator Mark Hanna, Roosevelt faced little opposition at the 1904 Republican National Convention. The conservative Bourbon Democrat allies of former President Grover Cleveland temporarily regained control of the Democratic Party from the followers of William Jennings Bryan, and the 1904 Democratic National Convention nominated Alton B. Parker, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. Parker triumphed on the first ballot of the convention, defeating newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.

As there was little difference between the candidates' positions, the race was largely based on their personalities; the Democrats argued that the Roosevelt presidency was "arbitrary" and "erratic". Republicans emphasized Roosevelt's success in foreign affairs and his record of firmness against monopolies. Roosevelt easily defeated Parker, sweeping every US region except the South, while Parker lost multiple states won by Bryan in 1900, as well as his home state of New York. Roosevelt's popular vote margin of 18.8% was the largest since James Monroe's victory in the 1820 presidential election, and would be the biggest popular vote victory in the century between 1820 and Warren Harding's 1920 landslide. With Roosevelt's landslide, he became the first presidential candidate to receive over 300 electoral votes in a presidential election. This was the first time since 1868 that Missouri voted for the Republican candidate.

Republican Party nomination
Republican candidates:

As Republicans convened in Chicago on June 21–23, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt's nomination was assured. He had effectively maneuvered throughout 1902 and 1903 to gain control of the party to ensure it. A dump-Roosevelt movement had centered on the candidacy of conservative Senator Mark Hanna from Ohio, but Hanna's death in February 1904 had removed this obstacle. Roosevelt's nomination speech was delivered by former governor Frank S. Black of New York and seconded by Senator Albert J. Beveridge from Indiana. Roosevelt was nominated unanimously on the first ballot with 994 votes.

Since conservatives in the Republican Party denounced Theodore Roosevelt as a radical, they were allowed to choose the vice-presidential candidate. Senator Charles W. Fairbanks from Indiana was the obvious choice, since conservatives thought highly of him, yet he managed not to offend the party's more progressive elements. Roosevelt was far from pleased with the idea of Fairbanks for vice-president. He would have preferred Representative Robert R. Hitt from Illinois, but he did not consider the vice-presidential nomination worth a fight. With solid support from New York, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, Fairbanks was easily placed on the 1904 Republican ticket in order to appease the Old Guard.

The Republican platform insisted on maintenance of the protective tariff, called for increased foreign trade, pledged to uphold the gold standard, favored expansion of the merchant marine, promoted a strong navy, and praised in detail Roosevelt's foreign and domestic policy.

Democratic Party nomination
Democratic candidates:

In 1904, both William Jennings Bryan and former President Grover Cleveland declined to run for president. Since the two Democratic nominees from the past did not seek the presidential nomination, Alton B. Parker, a Bourbon Democrat from New York, emerged as the frontrunner.

Parker was the Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals and was respected by both Democrats and Republicans in his state. On several occasions, the Republicans paid Parker the honor of running no one against him when he ran for various political positions. Parker refused to work actively for the nomination, but did nothing to restrain his conservative supporters, among them the sachems of Tammany Hall. Former President Grover Cleveland endorsed Parker.

The delegates from Florida were selected through a primary which was the first time a primary was utilized to select the delegates for a presidential convention.

The Democratic Convention that met in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 6–9, 1904, has been called "one of the most exciting and sensational in the history of the Democratic Party." The struggle inside the Democratic Party over the nomination was to prove as contentious as the election itself. Though Parker, out of active politics for twenty years, had neither enemies nor errors to make him unavailable, a bitter battle was waged against Parker by the more liberal wing of the party in the months before the convention.

Despite the fact that Parker had supported Bryan in 1896 and 1900, Bryan hated him for being a Gold Democrat. Bryan wanted the weakest man nominated, one who could not take the control of the party away from him. He denounced Judge Parker as a tool of Wall Street before he was nominated and declared that no self-respecting Democrat could vote for him.

Inheriting Bryan's support was publisher, now congressman, William Randolph Hearst of New York. Hearst owned eight newspapers, all of them friendly to labor, vigorous in their trust-busting activities, fighting the cause of "the people who worked for a living." Because of this liberalism, Hearst had the Illinois delegation pledged to him and the promise of several other states. Although Hearst's newspaper was the only major publication in the East to support William Jennings Bryan and Bimetallism in 1896, he found that his support for Bryan was not reciprocated. Instead, Bryan seconded the nomination of Francis Cockrell.

The prospect of having Hearst for a candidate frightened conservative Democrats so much that they renewed their efforts to get Parker nominated on the first ballot. Parker received 658 votes on the first roll call, 9 short of the necessary two-thirds. Before the result could be announced, 21 more votes were transferred to Parker. As a result, Parker handily won the nomination on the first ballot with 679 votes to 181 for Hearst and the rest scattered.

After Parker's nomination, Bryan charged that it had been dictated by the trusts and secured by "crooked and indefensible methods." Bryan also said that labor had been betrayed in the convention and could look for nothing from the Democratic Party. Indeed, Parker was one of the judges on the New York Court of Appeals who declared the eight-hour law unconstitutional.

Before a vice-presidential candidate could be nominated, Parker sprang into action when he learned that the Democratic platform pointedly omitted reference to the monetary issue. To make his position clear, Parker, after his nomination, informed the convention by letter that he supported the gold standard. The letter read, "I regard the gold standard as firmly and irrevocably established and shall act accordingly if the action of the convention today shall be ratified by the people. As the platform is silent on the subject, my view should be made known to the convention, and if it is proved to be unsatisfactory to the majority, I request you to decline the nomination for me at once, so that another may be nominated before adjournment."

It was the first time a candidate had made such a move. It was an act of daring that might have lost him the nomination and made him an outcast from the party he had served and believed in all his life.

Former Senator Henry G. Davis from West Virginia was nominated for vice president; at 80, he was the oldest major party candidate ever nominated for national office, until the presumptive renomination of 81 year old President Joe Biden in 2024. Davis received the nomination because party leaders believed that as a millionaire mine owner, railroad magnate, and banker, he could be counted on to help finance the campaign. Their hopes were unrealized, as Davis did not substantially contribute to the party coffers.

Parker protested against "the rule of individual caprice," the presidential "usurpation of authority," and the "aggrandizement of personal power." But his more positive proposals were so backward-looking, such as his proposal to let state legislatures and the common law develop a remedy for the trust problem, that the New York World characterized the campaign as a struggle of "conservative and constitutional Democracy against radical and arbitrary Republicanism."

The Democratic platform called for reduction in government expenditures and a congressional investigation of the executive departments "already known to teem with corruption"; condemned monopolies; pledged an end to government contracts with companies violating antitrust laws; opposed imperialism; insisted upon independence for the Philippines; and opposed the protective tariff. It favored strict enforcement of the eight-hour work day; construction of a Panama Canal; the direct election of senators; statehood for the Western territories; the extermination of polygamy; reciprocal trade agreements; cuts in the army; and enforcement of the civil service laws. It condemned the Roosevelt administration in general as "spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular, and arbitrary."

Socialist Party nomination

The Socialist Party of America was formed from the Social Democratic Party of America and the Kangaroo faction of the Socialist Labor Party of America at a 1901 convention in Indianapolis. The Socialists received over 227,000 votes in the 1902 United States House of Representatives elections, which was twice the number of votes that Eugene V. Debs had received in 1900. Nine Socialists were elected to the city council in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the 1904 election.

On May 5, 1904, George D. Herron nominated Debs for the presidential nomination while Hermon F. Titus nominated Ben Hanford for the vice-presidential nomination. The 183 delegates who attended the convention voted unanimously to give the presidential and vice-presidential nominations to Debs and Hanford. Debs accepted the nomination on May 6, and chair Seymour Stedman referred to Debs as the "Ferdinand Lassalle of the twentieth century".

The Socialists raised $32,700 during the campaign. Debs received 402,810 votes, which was over four times the number that he had received in 1900, and he received his largest amount of support from Illinois. Debs received more votes than Parker in counties such as Rock Island in Illinois and Skamania in Washington, and outpolled Roosevelt in some Southern counties.

Continental Party
The Continental Party met in Chicago on August 31, 1904. They nominated Austin Holcomb as their presidential candidate. Initially, George H. Shibley was nominated for vice-president. He turned down the nomination, however, and A. King was nominated in his stead.

Populist Party
The Populist Party held their national convention in Springfield, Illinois from July 4 to 6, 1904. Unsatisfied with the Democratic Party's nomination of Alton Parker for president, they chose to nominate their own candidates to contest the office. After two ballots, Thomas Watson was selected as the party's presidential candidate and Thomas Tibbles was selected as his running mate.

Prohibition Party
The Prohibition Party met in Indianapolis from June 29 to July 1. The convention was attended by 758 delegates representing 39 states. Silas C. Swallow was selected as the party's presidential candidate and George W. Carrol was selected as the vice-presidential candidate.

Socialist Labor Party
The Socialist Labor Party met at the Grand Central Palace in New York City from July 2 to July 8. Their convention was attended by 38 delegates representing 18 states. Those delegates nominated Charles H. Corregan and William W. Cox for president and vice-president respectively.

National Liberty Party
The National Liberty Party met in St. Louis, Missouri from July 5 to 6 to nominate a presidential slate. While 28 delegates attended the convention and elected to nominate Stanley P. Mitchell and William C. Payne as their candidates, the party ultimately did not contest the election after Mitchell declined the nomination.

Campaign
The campaigning done by both parties was much less vigorous than it had been in 1896 and 1900. The campaign season was pervaded by goodwill, and it went a long way toward mending the damage done by the previous class-war elections. This was due to the fact that Parker and Roosevelt, with the exception of charisma, were so similar in political outlook.

So close were the two candidates that few differences could be detected. Both men were for the gold standard; though the Democrats were more outspokenly against imperialism, both believed in fair treatment for the Filipinos and eventual liberation; and both believed that labor unions had the same rights as individuals before the courts. The radicals in the Democratic Party denounced Parker as a conservative; the conservatives in the Republican Party denounced Theodore Roosevelt as a radical.

During the campaign, there were a couple of instances in which Roosevelt was seen as vulnerable. In the first place, Joseph Pulitzer's New York World carried a full-page story about alleged corruption in the Bureau of Corporations. President Roosevelt admitted certain payments had been made, but denied any "blackmail." Secondly, in appointing George B. Cortelyou as his campaign manager, Roosevelt had purposely used his former Secretary of Commerce and Labor. This was of importance because Cortelyou, knowing the secrets of the corporations, could extract large contributions from them. The charge created quite a stir and in later years was proven to be sound. In 1907, it was disclosed that the insurance companies had contributed rather too heavily to the Roosevelt campaign. Only a week before the election, Roosevelt himself called E. H. Harriman, the railroad king, to Washington, D.C., for the purpose of raising funds to carry New York.

Insider money, however, was spent on both candidates. Parker received financial support from the Morgan banking interests, just as Bourbon Democrat Cleveland had before him. Thomas W. Lawson, the Boston millionaire, charged that New York state Senator Patrick Henry McCarren, a prominent Parker backer, was on the payroll of Standard Oil at the rate of twenty thousand dollars a year. Lawson offered Senator McCarren $100,000 (equivalent to $ million today) if he would disprove the charge. According to one account, "No denial of the charge was ever made by the Senator." One paper even referred to McCarren as "the Standard Oil serpent of Brooklyn politics."

Results
Theodore Roosevelt won a landslide victory, taking every Northern and Western state. He was the first Republican to carry the state of Missouri since Ulysses S. Grant in 1868. In voting Republican, Missouri repositioned itself from being associated with the Solid South to being seen as a bellwether swing state throughout the 20th century. The vote in Maryland was extremely close. For the first time in that state's history, secret paper ballots, supplied at public expense, and without political symbols of any kind, were issued to each voter. Candidates for electors were listed under the presidential and vice presidential candidates for each party; there were four parties recognized in the election: Democratic, Republican, Prohibition, and Socialist. Voters were free to mark their ballots for up to eight candidates of any party. While Roosevelt's victory nationally was quickly determined, the election in Maryland remained in doubt for several weeks. On November 30, Roosevelt was declared the statewide victor by just 51 votes. However, as voters had voted for individual presidential electors, only one Republican elector, Charles Bonaparte, survived the tally. The other seven top vote recipients were Democrats.

Roosevelt won the election by more than 2.5 million popular votes, making him the first president to win a primarily two-man race by more than a million votes. Roosevelt won 56.4% of the popular vote; that, along with his popular vote margin of 18.8%, was the largest recorded between James Monroe's uncontested re-election in 1820 and the election of Warren G. Harding in 1920. Of the 2,754 counties making returns, Roosevelt carried 1,611 (58.50%) and won a majority of votes in 1,538; he and Parker were tied in one county (0.04%).

Thomas Watson, the Populist candidate, received 117,183 votes and won nine counties (0.33%) in his home state of Georgia. He had a majority in five of the counties, and his vote total was double the Populist showing in 1900 but less than one eighth of the party's total in 1892.

Parker carried 1,133 counties (41.14%) and won a majority in 1,057. The distribution of the vote by counties reveals him to have been a weaker candidate than William Jennings Bryan, the party's nominee four years earlier, in every section of the nation, except for the deep South, where Democratic dominance remained strong, due in large part to pervasive disfranchisement of blacks. In 17 states, the Parker–Davis ticket failed to carry a single county, and outside the South carried only 84.

This was the last election in which the Republicans won Colorado, Nebraska, and Nevada until 1920.

Source (popular vote):

Source (electoral vote):

Results by state
Source:

States that flipped from Democratic to Republican

 * Colorado
 * Idaho
 * Missouri
 * Montana
 * Nevada

Close states
Margin of victory less than 1% (8 electoral votes):
 * 1) Maryland, 0.02% (51 votes)

Margin of victory less than 5% (31 electoral votes):
 * 1) Kentucky, 2.69% (11,713 votes)
 * 2) Missouri, 3.90% (25,137 votes)

Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (3 electoral votes):
 * 1) Delaware, 9.94% (4,358 votes)

Tipping point state:
 * 1) New Jersey, 18.63% (80,598 votes)

Statistics
Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Republican)
 * 1)  Keweenaw County, Michigan 94.55%
 * 2)  Mercer County, North Dakota 93.68%
 * 3)  Logan County, North Dakota 93.61%
 * 4)  McIntosh County, North Dakota 92.70%
 * 5)  Zapata County, Texas 92.48%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Democratic)
 * 1)  Horry County, South Carolina 100.00%
 * 2)  Georgetown County, South Carolina 100.00%
 * 3)  Fairfield County, South Carolina 100.00%
 * 4)  Madison Parish, Louisiana 100.00%
 * 5)  Potter County, Texas 100.00%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Populist)
 * 1)  Glascock County, Georgia 69.38%
 * 2)  McDuffie County, Georgia 58.59%
 * 3)  McIntosh County, Georgia 56.55%
 * 4)  Jackson County, Georgia 55.29%
 * 5)  Johnson County, Georgia 53.05%