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1880 United States presidential election

The 1880 United States presidential election was the 24th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 1880, in which Republican nominee James A. Garfield defeated Winfield Scott Hancock of the Democratic Party. The voter turnout rate was one of the highest in the nation's history. Garfield was assassinated during his first year in office, and he was succeeded by his vice president, Chester A. Arthur.

Incumbent President Rutherford B. Hayes did not seek re-election. After the longest convention in the party's history, the factionalized Republicans chose Representative Garfield of Ohio as their standard-bearer. The Democratic Party chose General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania as their nominee. The dominance of the two major parties began to fray as an upstart left-wing party, the Greenback Party, nominated another Civil War general for president, Iowa Congressman James B. Weaver. In a campaign fought mainly over issues of Civil War loyalties, tariffs, and Chinese immigration, Garfield narrowly won both the electoral and popular vote. He and Hancock each took just over 48 percent of the popular vote, while Weaver and two other minor candidates, Neal Dow and John W. Phelps, together made up the remainder.

In the end, the popular vote totals of the two main candidates were separated by 1,898 votes (0.11%), the smallest victory in the national popular vote ever recorded. In the electoral college, however, Garfield's victory was much larger; he won the tipping point state of New York by 21,033 votes (1.91%). Hancock's sweep of the Southern states was not enough for victory, but it cemented his party's dominance of the region for generations.

This was the last of six consecutive presidential election victories for the Republican Party. It was also the first in which people in every state were able to vote directly for presidential electors.

Background
The two major parties were the Republicans and the Democrats, and after the end of the Reconstruction Era in 1877, the national electorate was closely divided between them. Party membership was only partly based on ideology; party identification often reflected ethnic and religious background, as well as Civil War loyalties that were still keenly felt by many voters. Most Northern Protestants voted Republican, as did black Southerners. On the other hand, white Southerners and Northern Catholics generally voted Democratic.

Issues
The gold standard and the tariff tax on imports divided the major parties. The monetary debate was over the basis for the value of the United States dollar. Nothing but gold and silver coin had ever been legal tender in the United States until the Civil War, when the mounting costs of the war forced the United States Congress to issue "greenbacks" (dollar bills backed by government bonds). Greenbacks helped pay for the war, but resulted in severe inflation. After the war, bondholders and other creditors (based in the North) wanted to return to a gold standard. At the same time, debtors (especially in the South and West) benefited from the way inflation reduced the real value of their debts, and workers and some businessmen liked the way inflation made for easy credit. The issue cut across parties, producing dissension among Republicans and Democrats alike and spawning a third party, the Greenback Party, in 1876, when both major parties nominated "hard money" candidates (i.e., candidates who favored the gold-backed currency instead of "soft money" greenbacks that generated inflation). Monetary debate intensified as Congress effectively demonetized silver in 1873 and began redeeming greenbacks in gold by 1879, while limiting their circulation. As the 1880 election season began, the nation's money was backed by gold alone, but the issue was far from settled.

Tariff policy was a major source of party conflict in late 19th-century and early 20th century. During the Civil War, Congress raised protective tariffs to new heights. This was done partly to pay for the war, but partly because high tariffs were popular in the North. A high tariff meant that foreign goods were more expensive, which made it easier for American businesses to sell goods domestically. Republicans supported high tariffs as a way to protect American jobs and increase prosperity. Democrats condemned them as a source of higher prices for goods, whereas the higher revenues that they generated for the federal government were not needed after the conclusion of the Civil War. However Northern Democrats from manufacturing districts, especially in Pennsylvania, also supported high tariffs. In the interest of party unity, the leaders of each party often sought to avoid the question as much as possible.

1876 election
In the election of 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio defeated Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York in one of the most hotly contested presidential elections in the nation's history. The early results indicated a Democratic victory, but the electoral votes of several Southern states were disputed bitterly. Both parties in Congress agreed to convene a bipartisan Electoral Commission, which ultimately decided the race for Hayes.

For Democrats, the "stolen election" became a rallying cry, and the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives spent much of 1878 investigating it, although they failed to turn up any new evidence against their Republican foes. At first, Tilden was seen as the front-runner for the 1880 nomination. For leading Republicans, Hayes's inauguration in 1877 signaled the start of backroom maneuverings for the nomination in 1880. Even before his election, Hayes had pledged not to run for a second term, leaving the path to the White House open in 1880. His cabinet selections alienated many party leaders as well, deepening the growing divide within the Republican party between forces loyal to New York Senator Roscoe Conkling and those loyal to Maine Senator James G. Blaine.

Conventions
The parties agreed on their respective platforms and nominees at conventions, which met in the summer before the election.

Republican Party nomination
The Republican convention met first, convening in Chicago, Illinois, on June 2. Of the men vying for the Republican nomination, the three strongest candidates leading up to the convention were former president Ulysses S. Grant, Senator James G. Blaine and Treasury Secretary John Sherman. Grant had been the leading military commander for the Northern forces during the Civil War, and had served two terms as president from 1869 to 1877. He was seeking an unprecedented third term in the office. He was backed by Conkling's faction of the Republican Party, now known as the Stalwarts. They were mainly known for their opposition to the civil service reforms sought by President Hayes. Blaine, a senator and former representative from Maine, was backed by the Half-Breed faction of the party, which did support civil service reform. Sherman, the brother of Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman, was a former senator from Ohio serving in Hayes's cabinet. He was backed by a smaller delegation that supported neither of the major factions.

On the first ballot, Grant and Blaine gleaned 304 and 285 votes, respectively, while Sherman received 93. None of the candidates were close to victory, and the balloting continued in order to determine a winner. Many more ballots were taken, but no candidate prevailed. After the thirty-fifth ballot, Blaine and Sherman delegates switched their support to the new "dark horse" candidate, Representative James A. Garfield from Ohio. On the next ballot, Garfield won the nomination when he received 399 votes, most of them former Blaine and Sherman delegates. To placate the Grant faction, Garfield's Ohio supporters suggested Levi P. Morton for vice president. Morton declined, based on Conkling's advice. They next offered the nomination to Chester A. Arthur, another New York Stalwart. Conkling also advised him to decline, but he accepted. He was nominated, and the longest-ever Republican National Convention was adjourned on June 8, 1880.

Democratic Party nomination
Later that month, the Democrats held their convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. Six men were officially candidates for nomination at the convention, and several others also received votes. Of these, the two leading candidates were Major General Winfield Scott Hancock from Pennsylvania and Senator Thomas F. Bayard from Delaware. Tilden was not officially a candidate, but he wielded a heavy influence over the convention. Tilden was ambiguous about his willingness to participate in another campaign, leading some delegates to defect to other candidates, while others stayed loyal to their old standard-bearer.

As the convention opened, some delegates favored Bayard, a conservative senator, while others supported Hancock, a career soldier and Civil War hero. Still others flocked to men they saw as surrogates for Tilden, including Henry B. Payne from Ohio, an attorney and former congressman, and Samuel J. Randall from Pennsylvania, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. The first round of balloting was inconclusive, with Hancock and Bayard leading the count. Before the second round, Tilden's withdrawal from the campaign became known for certain; delegates then shifted to Hancock, who was nominated. William Hayden English, a conservative politician and businessman from the swing state of Indiana, was nominated for vice president.

Minor parties
The Greenback Party convention gathered in Chicago in mid-June, using the hall recently vacated by the Republicans. The party was a newcomer to the political scene in 1880, having arisen as a response to the economic depression that followed the Panic of 1873, mostly in the nation's West and South. During the Civil War, Congress had authorized "greenbacks", a form of money redeemable in government bonds, rather than in gold, as was traditional. After the war, many Democrats and Republicans in the East sought to return to the gold standard, and the government began to withdraw greenbacks from circulation. The reduction of the money supply, combined with the economic depression, made life harder for debtors, farmers, and industrial laborers; the Greenback Party hoped to draw support from these groups. Beyond their support for a larger money supply, they also favored an eight-hour work day, safety regulations in factories, and an end to child labor.

Six men were candidates for the Greenback nomination. James B. Weaver, an Iowa congressman and Civil War general, was the clear favorite, but two other congressmen, Benjamin F. Butler from Massachusetts and Hendrick B. Wright from Pennsylvania, also commanded considerable followings. Weaver triumphed quickly, winning a majority of the 850 delegates' votes on the first ballot. Barzillai J. Chambers, a Texas businessman and Confederate veteran, was likewise nominated for vice president on the initial vote. More tumultuous was the fight over the platform, as delegates from disparate factions of the left-wing movement clashed over women's suffrage, Chinese immigration, and the extent to which the government should regulate working conditions.

A convention of the Prohibition Party also met that month in Cleveland, Ohio. The Prohibitionists, more of a movement than a party, focused their efforts on banning alcohol. Most party members came from pietist churches, and most were former Republicans. Only twelve states sent delegates to the convention, and the platform they agreed on was silent on most issues of the day, focusing instead on the evils of alcohol. For president, the Prohibitionists nominated Neal Dow, a Civil War general from Maine. As mayor of Portland, Dow helped to pass the "Maine law", which banned the sale of alcohol in the city; it became the model for temperance laws around the country. Finally, a revived Anti-Masonic Party nominated John W. Phelps, another Civil War general, on a platform of opposition to Freemasonry. Political prognosticators gave Weaver little chance of victory, and Dow and Phelps none at all.

Garfield
James Abram Garfield was raised in humble circumstances on an Ohio farm by his widowed mother. He worked at various jobs, including on a canal boat, in his youth. Beginning at age 17, he studied at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, from which he graduated in 1856. A year later, Garfield entered politics as a Republican. He married Lucretia Rudolph in 1858, and served as a member of the Ohio State Senate (1859–1861). Garfield opposed Confederate secession, served as a major general in the Union Army during the Civil War, and fought in the battles of Middle Creek, Shiloh, and Chickamauga. He was first elected to Congress in 1862 to represent Ohio's 19th District. Throughout Garfield's extended congressional service after the Civil War, he firmly supported the gold standard and gained a reputation as a skilled orator. Garfield initially agreed with Radical Republican views regarding Reconstruction, but later favored a moderate approach for civil rights enforcement for freedmen.

After his nomination, Garfield met with party leaders in an attempt to heal the schism between the Stalwarts and Half-Breeds. In his formal letter to the party accepting his nomination, written with advice from party leaders, he endorsed the ideas of high tariffs and sound money, but drew particular attention to the issues of Chinese immigration and civil service reform. On both, Garfield sought a moderate path. He called for some restrictions on the former, through treaty renegotiation with the Chinese government. He straddled the divide on civil service reform, saying that he agreed with the concept, while promising to make no appointments without consulting party leaders, a position 20th-century biographer Allan Peskin called "inconsistent". As was traditional at the time, Garfield conducted a "front porch campaign", returning to his home for the duration of the contest, and leaving the actual campaigning to surrogates.

Hancock
Winfield Scott Hancock was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He was named for General Winfield Scott, a war hero in the War of 1812 and Whig Party presidential candidate in the 1852 election. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point and served in the Army for four decades, including service in the Mexican–American War and as a Union general in the Civil War. Known to his Army colleagues as "Hancock the Superb", he was noted in particular for his personal leadership at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, where he led the defense of Pickett's Charge, getting wounded in the process. His military service continued after the Civil War, as Hancock participated in the military Reconstruction of the South and the Army's presence at the Western frontier. During Reconstruction, he sided with then-President Andrew Johnson in working for a quick end to military occupation of the South and a return to government by the pre-war establishment. Hancock's reputation as a war hero at Gettysburg, combined with his status as a prominent Democrat with impeccable Unionist credentials and pro-states' rights views, made him a quadrennial presidential possibility.

Hancock was officially notified of his nomination in July, and responded with the traditional letter of acceptance. As Garfield had, the Democratic nominee sought to cause no controversy in his statement, which according to biographer David M. Jordan was "bland and general". After scorning the previous years of Republican rule, Hancock sought to tamp down fears that election of a Democrat would overturn the results of the war and Reconstruction, a common Republican campaign theme. Unlike Garfield, Hancock had no record in elected office, but the acceptance letter gave no further indication of his political preferences. Hancock remained on active duty during the campaign at his post on Governors Island in New York Harbor.

Weaver
James Baird Weaver was born in Ohio, and moved to Iowa as a boy when his family claimed a homestead on the frontier. He became politically active as a young man and was an advocate for farmers and laborers, joining and quitting several political parties in the furtherance of the progressive causes in which he believed. After serving in the Union Army in the Civil War, Weaver returned to Iowa and worked for the election of Republican candidates. After making several unsuccessful attempts at Republican nominations to various offices, and growing dissatisfied with the conservative wing of the party, in 1877 Weaver switched to the Greenback Party, advocating an increased money supply and stricter regulation of big business. As a Greenbacker with Democratic support, Weaver won election to the House of Representatives in 1878.

Unlike the major party candidates, Weaver planned to take the field himself, giving speeches around the country. His running mate, Chambers, was to do the same, until a fall from a train in July disabled him for the duration of the campaign. As the Greenbackers had the only ticket that included a Southerner, he hoped to make inroads in that region. Weaver's path to victory, already unlikely, was made more difficult by his refusal to run a fusion ticket in states where Democratic and Greenbacker strength might have combined to outvote the Republicans. His party's message of racial inclusion also presaged difficulty in the South, as the Greenbackers would face the same obstacles the Republicans did in the face of increasing black disenfranchisement.

Bloody shirt
Hancock and the Democrats expected to carry the Solid South, while much of the North was considered safe territory for Garfield and the Republicans; most of the campaign would involve a handful of close states, including New York and Indiana. National elections were largely decided in close elections in New York and the Midwest. Practical differences between the major party candidates were few, and Republicans began the campaign with the familiar theme of "waving the bloody shirt", reminding Northern voters that the Democratic Party was responsible for secession and four years of civil war, and that if they held power they would reverse the gains of that war, dishonor Union veterans, and pay Confederate soldiers' pensions out of the federal treasury. With fifteen years having passed since the end of the war, and Union generals at the head of all of the major and minor party tickets, the appeal to wartime loyalties was of diminishing value in exciting the voters.

The Democrats, for their part, campaigned on the character of the candidates. They attacked Garfield for his connection with the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal of the early 1870s, in which many members of Congress were bribed by the Crédit Mobilier corporation, a railroad construction company. Garfield's precise involvement was unknown, but modern biographers agree that his account of his dealings with the construction syndicate were less than perfectly honest. Democrats used the incident as a contrast with Hancock who, as a career army officer, stood apart from Congress and lobbyists. Many in the Republican Party were reluctant to directly criticize the "hero of Gettysburg", but they did characterize Hancock as uninformed on the issues, and some of his former comrades-in-arms gave critical speeches regarding his character. Democrats never made clear what about their victory would improve the nation; Jordan later characterized their message as simply "our man is better than your man".

The Greenbackers saw the impact of Civil War loyalties more acutely as they vied for Southern votes. Weaver embarked on a speaking tour of the South in July and August. Although the local Greenback parties had seen some recent success, the national party, with an ex-Republican Union general at the head of the ticket, faced more opposition. The party's courtship of black voters, too, threatened the white Democratic establishment, leading to violent outbursts at Weaver's rallies and threats against his supporters. As Weaver campaigned in the North in September and October, Republicans accused him of purposely dividing the vote to help Democrats win a plurality in marginal states. Weaver refused to cooperate with Democrats in running fusion slates of presidential electors. However, in state-level races, Greenback candidates did often combine with Democrats to defeat Republican candidates. In the September gubernatorial race in Maine, one such fusion ticket nominated Harris M. Plaisted, who narrowly defeated the incumbent Republican in what was thought to be a safe state for that party. The surprise defeat sent a shock through the Garfield campaign, and caused them to rethink their strategy of waving the bloody shirt.

Tariffs and immigration
After their defeat in Maine, the Republicans began to emphasize policy differences more. One significant difference between them and the Democrats was the plank in the Democratic platform endorsing "a tariff for revenue only". That is the tariff would only be used to cover the costs of the federal government, and not be raised higher to help specific industries. Garfield's campaigners used this statement to paint the Democrats as unsympathetic to the plight of industrial laborers, a group that benefited from a high protective tariff. The tariff issue cut Democratic support in industrialized Northern states, which were essential in establishing a Democratic majority. Hancock made the situation worse when, attempting to strike a moderate stance, he said "the tariff question is a local question". While not completely inaccurate—tariff preferences often reflected local concerns—the statement was at odds with the Democrats' platform and suggested that Hancock did not understand the issue.

The change in tactics appeared to be effective, as October state elections in Ohio and Indiana resulted in Republican victories there, discouraging Democrats about their chances the following month. Democratic party leaders had selected English as Hancock's running mate because of his popularity in Indiana. With their state-level defeat there, some talked of dropping English from the ticket, but he convinced them that the October losses owed more to local issues, and that the Democratic ticket could still carry Indiana, if not Ohio, in November.

In the last weeks before the election, the issue of Chinese immigration entered the race. Both major parties (as well as the Greenbackers) pledged in their platforms to limit immigration from China, which native-born workers in the Western states believed was depressing their wages. On October 20, however, a Democratic newspaper published a letter, purportedly from Garfield to a group of businessmen, pledging to keep immigration at the current levels so that industry could keep workers' wages low. Garfield denounced the letter as a ruse, but not before one hundred thousand copies of the newspaper were mailed to California and Oregon. Once the letter was exposed as a forgery, Garfield biographer Peskin believes it may even have gained votes for the Republican in the East, but it likely weakened him in the West.

Results
The extremely close election, with very high turnout, reflected the typical pattern of the Gilded Age. Democrats were assured of a Solid South electoral vote, as well as most of the border states. Republicans captured the Northeast and Midwest, winning the critical swing states of New York, Ohio and Indiana. The Republicans captured the electoral vote 214–155, but the popular vote margin was under 2000 out of over 9 million votes cast. Republicans won the House of Representatives 147–135, but the Senate was evenly split, with the vice president casting the deciding vote.

When all the ballots were counted, fewer than 2,000 votes separated Garfield and Hancock, the closest popular vote of any American presidential election before or since. The voters showed their interest in the election by turning out in record numbers; 78 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot, among largest percentages in American history. Each major party candidate earned just over 48 percent of the vote. Weaver won more than 3 percent, tripling the Greenback total of four years earlier. The other minor party candidates fared far worse, as Dow and Phelps earned 0.1 and 0.01 percent, respectively. Garfield carried the crucial state of New York by 20,000 votes out of 1.1 million cast there. Other states were much closer; Hancock's margin of victory in California was only about 144 votes.

In the electoral college, the vote was more decisive. As expected, Hancock carried the South and border states, but Garfield swept all but one of the Northern states (the exception was New Jersey, which he lost by just two thousand votes). Both candidates carried nineteen states, but Garfield's triumphs in the more populous North translated into a 214–155 electoral college victory. This is one of three times that both candidates won the same number of states, along with 1848 and 2020. The sectional divide of the vote more deeply enforced the Republicans' retreat from the South after Reconstruction and demonstrated that they could win without competing there. Weaver's resistance to fusion had no effect on the result; the combined Democratic and Greenback vote would have carried Indiana, but not any other of the states Garfield won, and the result would still have been a Republican majority in the electoral college. Hancock was convinced that the Republicans won New York by fraud. Lacking evidence, and mindful of the turmoil caused by the disputed election four years earlier, the Democrats did not pursue the matter.

California voted for a losing Democrat for the first time ever, which would not occur again until 2000. Republicans would not win without New Jersey and Delaware until 2000. Nevada also voted for a losing Democrat for the first time.

Irregularities
In Virginia, a split in the Democratic Party over the payment of state debts led to two Democratic electoral slates being nominated, one by the regular debt-paying "Funder" Democrats, the other by the "Readjuster" or anti-debt paying faction of the party. Both slates were pledged to the Hancock ticket. Republicans initially hoped the split could lead Garfield to win the state, but the results were otherwise. The Readjuster ticket received 31,527 votes, but the Funder Democrats took 96,449 votes, enough to defeat the Republicans, whose slate had 84,020.

Although Hancock won Georgia's popular vote easily, there was an irregularity in that state's electoral votes. According to Article II, Section 1, clause 3 of the Constitution, "The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States." In 1792, Congress had set the date for the Electoral College to vote on the first Wednesday in December, which in 1880 fell on December 1. However, Georgia's electors failed to cast their ballots on December 1, instead voting on the following Wednesday, December 8. Congress chose to count Georgia's vote in the official tally anyway; had they not done so, Hancock's electoral vote would have been 144, not 155.

States that flipped from Republican to Democratic

 * California
 * Florida
 * Louisiana
 * Nevada
 * South Carolina

States that flipped from Democratic to Republican

 * Connecticut
 * Indiana
 * New York

Close states
Margin of victory less than 1% (15 electoral votes):
 * 1) California, 0.06% (95 votes)
 * 2) New Jersey, 0.82% (2,010 votes)

Margin of victory between 1% and 5% (131 electoral votes):
 * 1) Indiana, 1.41% (6,642 votes)
 * 2) Oregon, 1.64% (664 votes)
 * 3)  New York, 1.91% (21,033 votes) (tipping point state)
 * 4) Connecticut, 2.00% (2,656 votes)
 * 5) North Carolina, 3.45% (8,334 votes)
 * 6) Delaware, 3.87% (1,142 votes)
 * 7) Pennsylvania, 4.26% (37,276 votes)
 * 8) New Hampshire, 4.70% (4,058 votes)
 * 9) Ohio, 4.72% (34,227 votes)
 * 10) Nevada, 4.80% (881 votes)

Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (58 electoral votes):
 * 1) Colorado, 5.23% (2,803 votes)
 * 2) Maine, 6.14% (8,841 votes)
 * 3) Illinois, 6.54% (40,716 votes)
 * 4) Florida, 8.35% (4,310 votes)
 * 5) Tennessee, 8.48% (21,514 votes)
 * 6) Maryland, 8.78% (15,191 votes)
 * 7) West Virginia, 9.89% (11,148 votes)

Aftermath
As Garfield entered office in March 1881, the Republican party schism that had been patched up for the election tore apart once more. Garfield appointed Blaine to the cabinet, and Conkling's Stalwart faction became irked at their lack of control over patronage, even in Conkling's home state of New York. Garfield appointed William H. Robertson, a civil service reform supporter, to the most lucrative government post in New York, and refused to withdraw the nomination despite Conkling's protests; in response, Conkling and his allies brought all legislative action in the closely divided Senate to a halt. In May, Conkling and fellow New York Senator Thomas C. Platt resigned from the Senate in protest. The two Stalwarts expected the New York legislature to reelect them in triumph; instead, the legislature deadlocked for months, eventually declining to return either man to the Senate. Before that result was known, however, Charles Guiteau, a mentally unstable man angry about not receiving a patronage appointment, shot Garfield in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1881.

Garfield lingered for $2 1/2$ months before dying on September 19, 1881. Vice President Chester A. Arthur, the New York Stalwart, was sworn in as president that night. Garfield's murder by a spoilsman inspired the nation to reform the civil service—and Arthur, erstwhile member of the Conkling machine, joined the cause. In 1883, a bipartisan majority in Congress passed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act to reform the worst of the office-seeking system, and Arthur signed the measure into law.

Congress also settled the issue of Chinese immigration, passing the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Arthur initially vetoed a similar measure, which he believed contradicted the United States' treaty with China, but eventually signed a compromise bill, which banned immigration from China for ten years. Tariffs, a major issue in the campaign, remained largely unchanged in the four years that followed, although Congress did pass a minor revision that reduced them by an average of less than 2 percent. After a half-hearted attempt at the nomination in 1884, Arthur retired and died two years later.


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1884 United States presidential election

The 1884 United States presidential election was the 25th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1884. In the election, Governor Grover Cleveland of New York defeated Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. It was set apart by unpleasant mudslinging and shameful personal allegations that eclipsed substantive issues, such as civil administration change. Cleveland was the first Democrat elected president of the United States since James Buchanan in 1856, the first to hold office since Andrew Johnson left the White House in 1869, and the last to hold office until Woodrow Wilson, who began his first term in 1913. For this reason, 1884 is a significant election in U.S. political history, marking an interruption in the era when Republicans largely controlled the presidency between Reconstruction and the Great Depression.

Cleveland won the presidential nomination on the second ballot of the 1884 Democratic National Convention. President Chester A. Arthur had acceded to the presidency in 1881 following the assassination of James A. Garfield, but he was unsuccessful in his bid for nomination to a full term. Blaine, who had served as Secretary of State under President Garfield, defeated Arthur and other candidates on the fourth ballot of the 1884 Republican National Convention. A group of reformist Republicans known as "Mugwumps" abandoned Blaine's candidacy, viewing him as corrupt. The campaign was marred by exceptional political acrimony and personal invective. Blaine's reputation for public corruption and his inadvertent last-minute alienation of Catholic voters proved decisive.

In the election, Cleveland won 48.8 % of the nationwide popular vote and 219 electoral votes, carrying the Solid South and several key swing states. Blaine won 48.3% of the popular vote and 182 electoral votes. Cleveland won his home state by just 1,149 votes. Two third-party candidates, John St. John of the Prohibition Party and Benjamin Butler of the Greenback Party and the Anti-Monopoly Party, each won less than 2% of the popular vote. Blaine was the last former secretary of state to be nominated by a major political party until the nomination of Hillary Clinton in 2016, while Cleveland became the only Democratic president between the end of the Civil War and the election of Woodrow Wilson in 1912, a span of almost 50 years. Blaine, similarly, also became the only Republican nominee in the 56-year period between 1860 and 1916 never to win a presidential election, and just one of three nominees from that party never to win the presidency in the 80-year span between 1856 and 1936.This election is the only time that both vice presidential candidates would die before the next election.

Democratic Party nomination
The Democrats convened in Chicago on July 8–11, 1884, with New York Governor Grover Cleveland as clear frontrunner, the candidate of northern reformers and sound-money men (as opposed to inflationists). Although Tammany Hall bitterly opposed his nomination, the machine represented a minority of the New York delegation. Its only chance to block Cleveland was to break the unit rule, which mandated that the votes of an entire delegation be cast for only one candidate, and this it failed to do. Daniel N. Lockwood from New York placed Cleveland's name in nomination. But this rather lackluster address was eclipsed by the seconding speech of Edward S. Bragg from Wisconsin, who roused the delegates with a memorable slap at Tammany. "They love him, gentlemen," Bragg said of Cleveland, "and they respect him, not only for himself, for his character, for his integrity and judgment and iron will, but they love him most of all for the enemies he has made." As the convention rocked with cheers, Tammany boss John Kelly lunged at the platform, screaming that he welcomed the compliment.

On the first ballot, Cleveland led the field with 392 votes, more than 150 votes short of the nomination. Trailing him were Thomas F. Bayard from Delaware, 170; Allen G. Thurman from Ohio, 88; Samuel J. Randall from Pennsylvania, 78; and Joseph E. McDonald from Indiana, 56; with the rest scattered. Randall then withdrew in Cleveland's favor. This move, together with the Southern bloc scrambling aboard the Cleveland bandwagon, was enough to put him over the top of the second ballot, with 683 votes to 81.5 for Bayard and 45.5 for Thomas A. Hendricks from Indiana. Hendricks was nominated unanimously for vice president on the first ballot after John C. Black, William Rosecrans, and George Washington Glick withdrew their names from consideration.

Republican Party nomination
The 1884 Republican National Convention was held in Chicago, Illinois, on June 3–6, with former Secretary of State James G. Blaine from Maine, President Arthur, and Senator George F. Edmunds from Vermont as the frontrunners. Though he was still popular, Arthur did not make a serious bid for a full-term nomination, knowing that his increasing health problems meant he would probably not survive a second term (he ultimately died in November 1886). Blaine led on the first ballot, with Arthur second, and Edmunds third. This order did not change on successive ballots as Blaine increased his lead, and he won a majority on the fourth ballot. After nominating Blaine, the convention chose Senator John A. Logan from Illinois as the vice-presidential nominee. Blaine remains the only presidential nominee ever to come from Maine.

Famed Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman was considered a possible Republican candidate, but ruled himself out with what has become known as the Sherman pledge: "If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve." Robert Todd Lincoln, Secretary of War of the United States, and son of the past President Abraham Lincoln, was also strongly courted by politicians and the media of the day to seek the presidential or vice-presidential nomination, but Lincoln was as averse to the nomination as Sherman.

Anti-Monopoly Party nomination
Anti-Monopoly candidates:

The Anti-Monopoly National Convention assembled in the Hershey Music Hall in Chicago, Illinois on May 14. The party had been formed to express opposition to the business practices of the emerging nationwide companies. There were around 200 delegates from 16 states, but 61 of them were from Michigan and Illinois.

Alson Streeter was the temporary chairman and John F. Henry was the permanent chairman.

Benjamin F. Butler was nominated for president on the first ballot. Delegates from New York, Washington, D.C., and Maryland bolted the convention when it appeared that no discussion of other candidates would be allowed. Allen G. Thurman and James B. Weaver were put forward as alternatives to Butler, but Weaver declined, not wishing to run another national campaign for political office, and Thurman generated little enthusiasm. Butler, while far from opposed to the nomination, hoped to be nominated by the Democratic or Republican party, or at least in the case of the former, to make its platform more favorable to greenbacks. Ultimately only the Greenback Party endorsed his candidacy.

The convention chose not to nominate a candidate for vice president, hoping that other conventions would endorse a similar platform and name a suitable vice-presidential nominee. The committee ultimately nominated Absolom Madden West as their vice-presidential candidate.

Greenback Party nomination
Greenback candidates:

The 3rd Greenback Party National Convention assembled in English's Opera House in Indianapolis, Indiana. Delegates from 28 states and the District of Columbia attended. The convention nominated Benjamin F. Butler for president over its Party Chairman Jesse Harper on the first ballot. Absolom M. West was nominated unanimously for vice president, and subsequently was also endorsed by the Anti-Monopoly Party.

Butler had initially hoped to form a number of fusion slates with the "minority party" in each state, Democratic or Republican, and for his supporters of various parties to come together under a single "People's Party". But many in the two major parties, while maybe agreeing with Butler's message and platform, were unwilling to place their support beyond the party line. In a number of places, Iowa in particular, fusion slates were nominated; essentially, Butler's and Cleveland's votes would be added together for the total vote of the fusion slate, allowing them to carry the state even if neither won a plurality, with the electoral vote being divided according to the percentage of the vote each party netted.

But even if Fusion had been carried out in every state in which it was considered possible (Indiana, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Illinois), it would not have changed the result, none of the states flipping from Blaine to Cleveland, with Butler winning a single electoral vote from Indiana.

American Prohibition Party nomination
The American Prohibition Party held its national convention in the YMCA building in Chicago, Illinois. There were 150 delegates, including many non-voting delegates. The party sought to merge the reform movements of anti-masonry, prohibition, anti-polygamy, and direct election of the president into a new party. Jonathan Blanchard was a major figure within the party. He traveled throughout northern states in the spring and gave an address entitled "The American Party – Its Principles and Its Claims."

During the convention, the party name was changed from the American Party to the American Prohibition Party. The party had been known as the Anti-Masonic Party in 1880. Many of the delegates at the convention were initially interested in nominating John St. John, the former governor of Kansas, but it was feared that such a nomination might cost him that of the Prohibition Party, which he was actively seeking. Party leaders met with Samuel C. Pomeroy, a former senator from the same state who was the convention's runner-up for the nomination, and at Pomeroy's suggestion they agreed to withdraw the ticket from the race should St. John win the Prohibition Party nomination. Nominated alongside Pomeroy was John A. Conant from Connecticut.

St. John later unanimously won the Prohibition Party nomination, with Pomeroy and Conant withdrawing from the presidential contest and endorsing him. The New York Times speculated that the endorsement would "give him 40,000 votes".

Prohibition Party nomination
The fourth Prohibition Party National Convention assembled in Lafayette Hall, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There were 505 delegates from 31 states and territories at the convention. The national ticket was nominated unanimously: John St. John for president and William Daniel for vice president. The straightforward single-issue Prohibition Party platform advocated the criminalization of alcoholic beverages.

Equal Rights Party nomination
Dissatisfied with resistance by the men of the major parties to women's suffrage, a small group of women announced the formation in 1884 of the Equal Rights Party.

The Equal Rights Party held its national convention in San Francisco, California, on September 20. The convention nominated Belva Ann Lockwood, an attorney in Washington, D.C., for president. Chairman Marietta Stow, the first woman to preside over a national nominating convention, was nominated for vice president.

Lockwood agreed to be the party's presidential candidate even though most women in the United States did not yet have the right to vote. She said, "I cannot vote but I can be voted for." She was the first woman to run a full campaign for the office (Victoria Woodhull conducted a more limited campaign in 1872). The Equal Rights Party had no treasury, but Lockwood gave lectures to pay for campaign travel. She received approximately 4,194 votes nationally.

Campaign

The issue of personal character was paramount in the 1884 campaign. Blaine had been prevented from getting the Republican presidential nomination during the previous two elections because of the stigma of the "Mulligan letters": in 1876, a Boston bookkeeper named James Mulligan had located some letters showing that Blaine had sold his influence in Congress to various businesses. One such letter ended with the phrase "burn this letter", from which a popular chant of the Democrats arose – "Burn, burn, burn this letter!" In just one deal, he had received $110,150 (over $1.5 million in 2010 dollars) from the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad for securing a federal land grant, among other things. Democrats and anti-Blaine Republicans made unrestrained attacks on his integrity as a result. Cleveland, on the other hand, was known as "Grover the Good" for his personal integrity; in the space of the three previous years he had become successively the mayor of Buffalo, New York, and then the governor of the state of New York, cleaning up large amounts of Tammany Hall's graft.

Commentator Jeff Jacoby notes that, "Not since George Washington had a candidate for president been so renowned for his rectitude." In July the Republicans found a refutation buried in Cleveland's past. Aided by sermons from a minister named George H. Ball, they charged that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child while he was a lawyer in Buffalo. When confronted with the scandal, Cleveland immediately instructed his supporters to "Above all, tell the truth." Cleveland admitted to paying child support in 1874 to Maria Crofts Halpin, the woman who claimed he fathered her child, named Oscar Folsom Cleveland after Cleveland's friend and law partner, but asserted that the child's paternity was uncertain. Shortly before election day, the Republican media published an affidavit from Halpin in which she stated that until she met Cleveland her "life was pure and spotless," and "there is not, and never was, a doubt as to the paternity of our child, and the attempt of Grover Cleveland, or his friends, to couple the name of Oscar Folsom, or any one else, with that boy, for that purpose is simply infamous and false." In a supplemental affidavit, Halpin also implied Cleveland had raped her, hence the conception of their child. Republican cartoonists across the land had a field day.

Cleveland's campaign decided that candor was the best approach to this scandal: it admitted that Cleveland had formed an "illicit connection" with the mother and that a child had been born and given the Cleveland surname. They also noted that there was no proof that Cleveland was the father, and claimed that, by assuming responsibility and finding a home for the child, he was merely doing his duty. Finally, they showed that the mother had not been forced into an asylum; her whereabouts were unknown. Blaine's supporters condemned Cleveland in the strongest of terms, singing "Ma, Ma, Where's my Pa?" (After Cleveland's victory, Cleveland supporters would respond to the taunt with: "Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha.") However, the Cleveland campaign's damage control worked well enough and the race remained a tossup through Election Day. The greatest threat to the Republicans came from reformers called "Mugwumps" who were angrier at Blaine's public corruption than at Cleveland's private affairs.

In the final week of the campaign, the Blaine campaign suffered a catastrophe. At a Republican meeting attended by Blaine, a group of New York preachers castigated the Mugwumps. Their spokesman, Reverend Dr. Samuel Burchard, said, "We are Republicans, and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion." Blaine did not notice Burchard's anti-Catholic slur, nor did the assembled newspaper reporters, but a Democratic operative did, and Cleveland's campaign managers made sure it was widely publicized. The statement energized the Irish and Catholic vote in New York City heavily against Blaine, costing him New York state and the election by a narrow margin.

In addition to Burchard's statement, it is also believed that John St. John's campaign was responsible for winning Cleveland the election in New York. Since Prohibitionists tended to ally more with Republicans, the Republican Party attempted to convince St. John to drop out. When they failed, they resorted to slandering him. Because of this, he redoubled his efforts in upstate New York, where Blaine was vulnerable on his prohibition stance, and took votes away from the Republicans.

Results
While the results remained broadly the same as those from 1880, Cleveland won three states (New York, Indiana, and Connecticut) that James A. Garfield had won, while Blaine won two states (California and Nevada) that Winfield Hancock had won. But most of those states had relatively small numbers of electoral votes, and Cleveland's victory in New York was decisive. Cleveland won by a slightly larger margin than Garfield (0.57% compared to 0.11%) in the popular vote, but a slightly smaller margin in the Electoral College (29 votes to 59). Cleveland became the first Democrat to ever win without Pennsylvania, California, Nevada, and Illinois. Pennsylvania voted for the losing candidate for the first time since 1824, and the loser of the popular vote since 1800.

The result marked an electoral breakthrough for the Prohibition Party, who had been little more than a fringe party in the previous three elections. While they never seriously challenged for the presidency and had only limited success in congressional and state-level elections, they regularly earned at least a percentage point of the popular vote (and occasionally finished third in that vote) in presidential elections for the next three decades before declining back to fringe status after the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919. By contrast, Butler earned less than half the popular vote share that James B. Weaver had won in 1880, accelerating the decline of the Greenback Party. This was the last presidential election the party contested; it collapsed after failing to nominate a ticket in 1888.

In Burke County, Georgia, 897 votes were cast for bolting "Whig Republican" electors for president (they were not counted for Blaine). The Republicans won in 20 of the 33 cities with populations over 50,000 outside the southern U.S.

Source (Popular Vote):

Source (Electoral Vote):

Results by state
Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836–1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57.

States that flipped from Democratic to Republican

 * California
 * Nevada

States that flipped from Republican to Democratic

 * Connecticut
 * Indiana
 * New York

Close states
Margin of victory less than 1% (55 electoral votes):
 * 1)  New York, 0.10% (1,149 votes) (tipping point state)
 * 2) Michigan, 0.82% (3,308 votes)
 * 3) Connecticut, 0.94% (1,284 votes)

Margin of victory between 1% and 5% (117 electoral votes):
 * 1) Indiana, 1.32% (6,516 votes)
 * 2) New Jersey, 1.67% (4,358 votes)
 * 3) Virginia, 2.15% (6,135 votes)
 * 4) West Virginia, 3.19% (4,215 votes)
 * 5) Tennessee, 3.72% (9,669 votes)
 * 6) Illinois, 3.73% (25,118 votes)
 * 7) Ohio, 4.05% (31,802 votes)
 * 8) Oregon, 4.28% (2,256 votes)
 * 9) Wisconsin, 4.59% (14,682 votes)
 * 10) New Hampshire, 4.80% (4,056 votes)

Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (104 electoral votes):
 * 1) Iowa, 5.24% (19,773 votes)
 * 2) Maryland, 5.98% (11,118 votes)
 * 3) Florida, 6.23% (3,738 votes)
 * 4) California, 6.64% (13,081 votes)
 * 5) North Carolina, 6.66% (17,884 votes)
 * 6) Missouri, 7.47% (32,942 votes)
 * 7) Massachusetts, 8.03% (24,372 votes)
 * 8) Pennsylvania, 9.52% (86,019 votes)

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text:
1888 United States presidential election

The 1888 United States presidential election was the 26th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1888. Republican nominee Benjamin Harrison, a former U.S. senator from Indiana, defeated incumbent Democratic President Grover Cleveland of New York. It was the third of five U.S. presidential elections (and second within 12 years) in which the winner did not win the national popular vote, which would not occur again until the 2000 US presidential election.

Cleveland, the first Democratic president since the American Civil War, was unanimously re-nominated at the 1888 Democratic National Convention. Harrison, the grandson of former President William Henry Harrison, emerged as the Republican nominee on the eighth ballot of the 1888 Republican National Convention. He defeated other prominent party leaders such as Senator John Sherman and former Governor Russell Alger. This was the first election since 1840 in which an incumbent president lost re-election.

Tariff policy was the principal issue in the election, as Cleveland had proposed a dramatic reduction in tariffs, arguing that high tariffs were unfair to consumers. Harrison took the side of industrialists and factory workers who wanted to keep tariffs high. Cleveland's opposition to American Civil War pensions and inflated currency also made enemies among veterans and farmers. On the other hand, he held a strong hand in the Southern United States and the border states, and appealed to former Republican Mugwumps.

Cleveland won a plurality of the popular vote, but Harrison won the election with a majority in the Electoral College, marking the only time (as of 2024) in which an incumbent president of either party lost a re-election bid despite winning the popular vote. Harrison swept almost the entire North and Midwest, including narrowly carrying the swing states of New York and Indiana. This was the first time that Democrats won the popular vote in consecutive elections since 1856.

Republican Party nomination
The Republican candidates were former Senator Benjamin Harrison from Indiana; Senator John Sherman from Ohio; Russell A. Alger, the former governor of Michigan; Walter Q. Gresham from Indiana, the former Secretary of the Treasury; Senator William B. Allison from Iowa; and Chauncey Depew from New York, the president of the New York Central Railroad.

By the time Republicans met in Chicago on June 19–25, 1888, frontrunner James G. Blaine had withdrawn from the race because he believed that only a harmonious convention would produce a Republican candidate strong enough to upset incumbent President Cleveland. Blaine realized that the party was unlikely to choose him without a bitter struggle. After he withdrew, Blaine expressed confidence in both Benjamin Harrison and John Sherman. Harrison was nominated on the eighth ballot.

The Republicans chose Harrison because of his war record, his popularity with veterans, his ability to express the Republican Party's views, and the fact that he lived in the swing state of Indiana. The Republicans hoped to win Indiana's 15 electoral votes, which had gone to Cleveland in the previous presidential election. Levi P. Morton, a former New York City congressman and ambassador, was nominated for vice-president over William Walter Phelps, his nearest rival.

Democratic Party nomination
Democratic candidates:

The Democratic National Convention held in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 5–7, 1888, was harmonious. Incumbent President Cleveland was re-nominated unanimously without a formal ballot. This was the first time an incumbent Democratic president had been re-nominated since Martin Van Buren in 1840.

After Cleveland was re-nominated, Democrats had to choose a replacement for Thomas A. Hendricks. Hendricks ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic nominee for vice-president in 1876, but won the office when he ran again with Cleveland in 1884. Hendricks served as vice-president for only eight months before he died in office on November 25, 1885. Former Senator Allen G. Thurman from Ohio was nominated for vice-president over Isaac P. Gray, his nearest rival, and John C. Black, who trailed behind. Gray lost the nomination to Thurman primarily because his enemies brought up his actions while a Republican.

The Democratic platform largely confined itself to a defense of the Cleveland administration, supporting reduction in the tariff and taxes generally as well as statehood for the western territories.

Nominees
The 5th Prohibition Party National Convention assembled in Tomlinson Hall in Indianapolis, Indiana. There were 1,029 delegates from all but three states.

Clinton B. Fisk was nominated for president unanimously. John A. Brooks was nominated for vice-president.

Nominees
300 to 600 delegates attended the Industrial Labor Conference in Cincinnati in February 1887, and formed the Union Labor Party. Richard Trevellick, the chair of the conference, was a member of the Knights of Labor and former member of the Greenback Party.

The convention nominated Alson Streeter for president unanimously. He was so widely popular that no ballot was necessary, instead, he was nominated by acclamation. Samuel Evans was nominated for vice president but declined the nomination. Charles E. Cunningham was later selected as the vice-presidential candidate.

The Union Labor Party garnered nearly 150,000 popular votes, but failed to gain widespread national support. The party did, however, win two counties.

United Labor Party nomination
The United Labor Party convention nominated Robert H. Cowdrey for president on the first ballot. W.H.T. Wakefield of Kansas was nominated for vice-president over Victor H. Wilder from New York by a margin of 50–12.

Greenback Party
The Greenback Party was in decline throughout the entire Cleveland administration. In the election of 1884, the party failed to win any House seats outright, although they did win one seat in conjunction with Plains States Democrats (James B. Weaver) and a handful of other seats by endorsing the Democratic nominee. In the election of 1886, only two dozen Greenback candidates ran for the House, apart from another six who ran on fusion tickets. Again, Weaver was the party's only victor. Much of the Greenback news in early 1888 took place in Michigan, where the party remained active.

In early 1888, it was not clear if the Greenback Party would hold another national convention. The fourth Greenback Party National Convention assembled in Cincinnati on May 16, 1888. So few delegates attended that no actions were taken. On August 16, 1888, George O. Jones, chairman of the national committee, called a second session of the national convention. The second session of the national convention met in Cincinnati on September 12, 1888. Only seven delegates attended. Chairman Jones issued an address criticizing the two major parties, and the delegates made no nominations.

With the failure of the convention, the Greenback Party ceased to exist.

American Party nomination
The American Party held its third and last National Convention in Grand Army Hall in Washington, DC. This was an Anti-Masonic party that ran under various party labels in the northern states.

When the convention assembled, there were 126 delegates; among them were 65 from New York and 15 from California. Delegates from the other states bolted the convention when it appeared that New York and California intended to vote together on all matters and control the convention. By the time the presidential balloting began, there were only 64 delegates present.

The convention nominated James L. Curtis from New York for president and James R. Greer from Tennessee for vice-president. Greer declined to run, so Peter D. Wigginton of California was chosen as his replacement.

Equal Rights Party nomination
The second Equal Rights Party National Convention assembled in Des Moines, Iowa. At the convention, mail-in ballots were counted. The delegates cast 310 of their 350 ballots for the following ticket: Belva A. Lockwood for president and Alfred H. Love for vice-president. Love declined the nomination, and was replaced with Charles S. Welles of New York.

Industrial Reform Party nomination
The Industrial Reform Party National Convention assembled in Grand Army Hall, Washington, DC. There were 49 delegates present. Albert Redstone won the endorsement of some leaders of the disintegrating Greenback Party. He told the Montgomery Advertiser that he hoped to carry several states, including Alabama, New York, North Carolina, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri.

Issues
Cleveland set the main issue of the campaign when he proposed a dramatic reduction in tariffs in his annual message to Congress in December 1887. Cleveland contended that the tariff was unnecessarily high and that unnecessary taxation was unjust taxation. The Republicans responded that the high tariff would protect American industry from foreign competition and guarantee high wages, high profits, and high economic growth.

The argument between protectionists and free traders over the size of the tariff was an old one, stretching back to the Tariff of 1816. In practice, the tariff was practically meaningless on industrial products, since the United States was the low-cost producer in most areas (except woolens), and could not be undersold by the less efficient Europeans. Nevertheless, the tariff issue motivated both sides to a remarkable extent.

Besides the obvious economic dimensions, the tariff argument also possessed an ethnic dimension. At the time, the policy of free trade was most strongly promoted by the British Empire, and so any political candidate who ran on free trade instantly was under threat of being labelled pro-British and antagonistic to the Irish-American voting bloc. Cleveland neatly neutralized this threat by pursuing punitive action against Canada (which, although autonomous, was still part of the British Empire) in a fishing rights dispute.

Harrison was well-funded by party activists and mounted an energetic campaign by the standards of the day, giving many speeches from his front porch in Indianapolis that were covered by the newspapers. Cleveland adhered to the tradition of presidential candidates not campaigning, and forbade his cabinet from campaigning as well, leaving his 75-year-old vice-presidential candidate Thurman as the spearhead of his campaign.

Blocks of Five
William Wade Dudley (1842–1909), an Indianapolis lawyer, was a tireless campaigner and prosecutor of Democratic election frauds. In 1888, Benjamin Harrison made Dudley Treasurer of the Republican National Committee. The campaign was the most intense in decades, with Indiana dead even. Although the National Committee had no business meddling in state politics, Dudley wrote a circular letter to Indiana's county chairmen, telling them to "divide the floaters into Blocks of Five, and put a trusted man with the necessary funds in charge of these five, and make them responsible that none get away and that all vote our ticket." Dudley promised adequate funding. His pre-emptive strike backfired when Democrats obtained the letter and distributed hundreds of thousands of copies nationwide in the last days of the campaign. Given Dudley's unsavory reputation, few people believed his denials. A few thousand "floaters" did exist in Indiana—men who would sell their vote for $2. They always divided 50-50 (or perhaps, $5,000-$5,000) and had no visible impact on the vote. The attack on "blocks of five" with the suggestion that pious General Harrison was trying to buy the election did enliven the Democratic campaign, and it stimulated the nationwide movement to replace ballots printed and distributed by the parties with secret ballots.

Murchison letter
A California Republican named George Osgoodby wrote a letter to Sir Lionel Sackville-West, the British ambassador to the United States, under the assumed name of "Charles F. Murchison," describing himself as a former Englishman who was now a California citizen and asked how he should vote in the upcoming presidential election. Sir Lionel wrote back and in the "Murchison letter" indiscreetly suggested that Cleveland was probably the best man from the British point of view.

The Republicans published this letter just two weeks before the election, where it had an effect on Irish-American voters exactly comparable to the "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" blunder of the previous election: Cleveland lost New York and Indiana (and as a result, the presidency). Sackville-West was removed as British ambassador.

Results
The election focused on the swing states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Harrison's home state of Indiana. Harrison and Cleveland split these four states, with Harrison winning by means of notoriously fraudulent balloting in New York and Indiana. The Republicans won in twenty-six of the forty-four largest cities outside of the Southern United States.

Had Cleveland won his home state, he would have won the electoral vote by an electoral count of 204-197 (201 electoral votes were needed for victory in 1888). Instead, Cleveland became the third of only five candidates to obtain a plurality or majority of the popular vote but lose their respective presidential elections (Andrew Jackson in 1824, Samuel J. Tilden in 1876, Al Gore in 2000, and Hillary Clinton in 2016).

Cleveland bested Harrison in the popular vote by slightly more than ninety thousand votes (0.8%), though that margin was only made possible by massive disenfranchisement and voter suppression of hundreds of thousands of Republican blacks in the South. Harrison won the Electoral College by a 233-168 margin, largely by virtue of his 1.09% win in Cleveland's home state of New York.

Four states returned results where the winner won by less than 1 percent of the popular vote. Cleveland earned 24 of his electoral votes from states he won by less than one percent: Connecticut, Virginia, and West Virginia. Harrison earned fifteen of his electoral votes from a state he won by less than 1 percent: Indiana. Harrison won New York (36 electoral votes) by a margin of 1.09%. Despite the narrow margins in several states, only two states switched sides in comparison to Cleveland's first presidential election (New York and Indiana).

Of the 2,450 counties/independent cities making returns, Cleveland led in 1,290 (52.65%) while Harrison led in 1,157 (47.22%). Two counties (0.08%) recorded a Streeter plurality while one county (0.04%) in California split evenly between Cleveland and Harrison.

Upon leaving the White House at the end of her husband's first term, First Lady Frances Cleveland is reported to have told the White House staff to take care of the building since the Clevelands would be returning in four years. She proved correct, becoming the only First Lady to preside at two nonconsecutive administrations.

This was the last election in which the Republicans won Colorado and Nevada until 1904. It was also the last election until 1968 when bellwether Coös County, New Hampshire, did not support the winning candidate. This was the first time in American history that a party lost re-election after a single four-year term; this would occur again in 1892, but not for Democrats until 1980.

Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote):

Results by state
Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836–1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57.

States that flipped from Democratic to Republican

 * Indiana
 * New York

Close states
Margin of victory less than 1% (39 electoral votes):
 * 1) Connecticut, 0.22% (336 votes)
 * 2) West Virginia, 0.32% (506 votes)
 * 3) Indiana, 0.44% (2,348 votes)
 * 4) Virginia, 0.53% (1,605 votes)

Margin of victory between 1% and 5% (150 electoral votes):
 * 1)  New York, 1.09% (14,373 votes) (tipping point state)
 * 2) Ohio, 2.33% (19,599 votes)
 * 3) New Jersey, 2.35% (7,148 votes)
 * 4) New Hampshire, 2.50% (2,272 votes)
 * 5) California, 2.82% (7,087 votes)
 * 6) Maryland, 2.94% (6,202 votes)
 * 7) Illinois, 2.96% (22,124 votes)
 * 8) North Carolina, 4.59% (13,118 votes)
 * 9) Michigan, 4.82% (22,918 votes)
 * 10) Missouri, 4.93% (25,691 votes)

Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (93 electoral votes):
 * 1) Wisconsin, 6.01% (21,321 votes)
 * 2) Tennessee, 6.49% (19,721 votes)
 * 3) Iowa, 7.85% (31,726 votes)
 * 4) Pennsylvania, 7.97% (79,458 votes)
 * 5) Kentucky, 8.32% (28,692 votes)
 * 6) Massachusetts, 9.38% (32,302 votes)

In popular culture
In 1968 the Michael P. Antoine Company produced the Walt Disney Company musical film The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band which centers on the election of 1888 and the annexing and subdividing of the Dakota Territory into states (which was a major issue of the election).


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1892 United States presidential election

The 1892 United States presidential election was the 27th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1892. In the fourth rematch in American history, the Democratic nominee, former president Grover Cleveland, defeated the Republican incumbent, President Benjamin Harrison. Cleveland's victory made him the first and, to date, the only person in American history to be elected to a non-consecutive second presidential term. It was also the first of two occasions that incumbents were defeated in consecutive elections—the second being Gerald Ford's loss to Jimmy Carter in 1976, followed by Carter's loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

This was the first time a Republican president lost reelection. Harrison's loss was also the second time an elected president lost the popular vote twice, the first being John Quincy Adams in the 1820s. This feat was not repeated until Donald Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020.

Though some Republicans opposed Harrison's renomination, he defeated James G. Blaine and William McKinley on the first presidential ballot of the 1892 Republican National Convention. Cleveland defeated challenges by David B. Hill and Horace Boies on the first presidential ballot of the 1892 Democratic National Convention, becoming both the first presidential candidate and the first Democrat to win his party's presidential nomination in three elections. Groups from The Grange and the Knights of Labor joined to form a new party called the Populist Party. It had a ticket led by former congressman James B. Weaver of Iowa.

The campaign centered mainly on economic issues, especially the protectionist 1890 McKinley Tariff. Cleveland ran on a platform of lowering the tariff and opposed the Republicans' 1890 voting rights proposal. He was also a proponent of the gold standard, while the Republicans and Populists both supported bimetalism.

Cleveland swept the Solid South and won several important swing states, taking a majority of the electoral vote and a plurality of the popular vote. Weaver won 8.5% of the popular vote and carried several Western states, while John Bidwell of the Prohibition Party won 2.2% of the popular vote. The Democrats did not win another presidential election until 1912.

Democratic Party nomination
By the beginning of 1892, many Americans were ready to return to Cleveland's policies. Although he was the clear front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, he was far from the universal choice of the party's supporters; many, such as the journalists Henry Watterson and Charles Anderson Dana, thought that if nominated, he would lose in November, but few could challenge him effectively. Though he had remained relatively quiet on the issue of silver versus gold, often deferring to bimetalism, Senate Democrats in January 1891 voted for free coinage of silver. Furious, he sent a letter to Ellery Anderson, who headed the New York Reform Club, to condemn the party's apparent drift towards inflation and agrarian control, the "dangerous and reckless experiment of free, unlimited coinage of silver at our mints." Advisors warned that such statements might alienate potential supporters in the South and West and risk his chances for the nomination, but Cleveland felt that being right on the issue was more important than the nomination. After making his position clear, he worked to focus his campaign on tariff reform, hoping that the silver issue would dissipate.

A challenger emerged in the form of David B. Hill, former governor of and incumbent senator from New York. In favor of bimetalism and tariff reform, Hill hoped to make inroads with Cleveland's supporters while appealing to those in the South and Midwest who were not keen on nominating Cleveland for a third consecutive time. Hill had unofficially begun to run for president as early as 1890, and even offered former Postmaster General Donald M. Dickinson his support for the vice-presidential nomination. But he was not able to escape his past association with Tammany Hall, and lack of confidence in his ability to defeat Cleveland for the nomination kept Hill from attaining the support he needed. By the time of the convention, Cleveland could count on the support of a majority of the state Democratic parties, though his native New York remained pledged to Hill.

In a narrow first-ballot victory, Cleveland received 617.33 votes, barely 10 more than needed, to 114 for Hill, 103 for Governor Horace Boies of Iowa, a populist and former Republican, and the rest scattered. Although the Cleveland forces preferred Isaac P. Gray of Indiana for vice president, Cleveland directed his own support to the convention favorite, Adlai E. Stevenson I of Illinois. As a supporter of using paper greenbacks and free silver to inflate the currency and alleviate economic distress in rural districts, Stevenson balanced the ticket, as Cleveland supported hard money and the gold standard. At the same time, it was hoped that his nomination represented a promise not to ignore regulars, and so potentially get Hill and Tammany Hall to support the Democratic ticket to their fullest in the election.

Republican Party nomination
Harrison's administration was widely viewed as unsuccessful, and as a result, Thomas C. Platt (a political boss in New York) and other disaffected party leaders mounted a dump-Harrison movement coalescing around veteran candidate James G. Blaine from Maine, a favorite of Republican party regulars. Blaine had been the Republican nominee in 1884, losing to Cleveland.

Privately, Harrison did not want to be renominated for the presidency, but he remained opposed to the nomination of Blaine, who he was convinced intended to run, and thought himself the only candidate capable of preventing that. But Blaine did not want another fight for the nomination and rematch against Cleveland in the general election. His health had begun to fail, and three of his children had recently died (Walker and Alice in 1890, and Emmons in 1892). Blaine refused to run actively, but the cryptic nature of his responses to a draft effort fueled speculation that he was not averse to such a movement. For his part, Harrison curtly demanded that he either renounce his supporters or resign as secretary of state, with Blaine doing the latter a scant three days before the National Convention. A boom began to build around the "draft Blaine" effort, with supporters hoping to cause a break toward their candidate.

Senator John Sherman of Ohio, who had been the leading candidate for the nomination at the 1888 Republican Convention before Harrison won it, was also brought up as a possible challenger. But like Blaine, he was averse to another bitter battle for the nomination and "like the rebels down South, [I] want to be let alone." This inevitably turned attention to Ohio Governor William McKinley, who was indecisive about his intentions despite his ill feeling toward Harrison and popularity among the Republican base. Although not averse to receiving the nomination, he did not expect to win it either. But should Blaine and Harrison fail to win the nomination after a number of ballots, he felt he could be brought forth as a harmony candidate. Despite the urging of Republican power broker Mark Hanna, McKinley did not put himself forward as a candidate, afraid of offending Harrison's and Blaine's supporters, while also feeling that the coming election would not favor the Republicans.

In any case, Harrison's forces had the nomination locked up by the time delegates met in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 7–10, 1892. Richard Thomas of Indiana delivered Harrison's nominating speech. Harrison was nominated on the first ballot with 535.17 votes to 182 for McKinley, 181.83 for Blaine, and the rest scattered. McKinley protested when the Ohio delegation threw its entire vote in his name, despite not being formally nominated, but Joseph B. Foraker, who headed the delegation, managed to silence him on a point of order. With the ballots counted, many observers were surprised at the strength of the McKinley vote, which almost overtook Blaine's. Whitelaw Reid of New York, editor of the New York Tribune and recent United States Ambassador to France, was nominated for vice president. The incumbent vice president, Levi P. Morton, was supported by many at the convention, including Reid himself, but Morton did not wish to serve another term, as he was more interested in positioning himself to run for governor of New York in 1894. Harrison did not want Morton on the ticket either.

People's Party nomination
Populist candidates:
 * James B. Weaver, former U.S. representative from Iowa
 * James H. Kyle, U.S. senator from South Dakota
 * Leonidas L. Polk, former representative from North Carolina (died)
 * Walter Q. Gresham, Appellate judge from Indiana

On May 19, 1891, the National Union Conference was held in Cincinnati, Ohio, to discuss the formation of a new political party. The conference held another meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 22, 1892. Mary Elizabeth Lease, William A. Peffer, Jerry Simpson, and James B. Weaver toured the south in support of the agrarian third party. The Supreme Council of the Farmers' Alliance met in November and said it would support whatever the St. Louis convention did. 860 delegates, 246 from the Farmers' Alliance and 82 from the Knights of Labor, attended the convention. It adopted a declaration of union and independence, but did not form a new party due to opposition from Leonidas F. Livingston and southern southerners.

Another convention was held in Omaha, Nebraska, on July 4, with 1,366 in attendance despite initially planning for 1,776. Alva Adams, Edward Bellamy, Robert Beverly, Marion Cannon, Ignatius L. Donnelly, James G. Field, Walter Q. Gresham, James H. Kyle, C. W. Macune, Mann Page, Leonidas L. Polk, Terence V. Powderly, Leland Stanford, William M. Stewart, Alson Streeter, Ben Terrell, Thomas E. Watson, Weaver, and Charles Van Wyck were speculated as possible presidential candidates.

Polk was the initial front-runner for the presidential nomination. He had been instrumental in the party's formation and greatly appealed to its agrarian base, but unexpectedly died in Washington, D.C., on June 11. Gresham, an appellate judge, had made a number of rulings against the railroads that made him a favorite of some farmer and labor groups, and it was felt that his rather dignified image would make the Populists appear as more than minor contenders. He had been considered for the Republican presidential nomination in 1884 and 1888. Both Democrats and Republicans feared his nomination for this reason, and while Gresham toyed with the idea, he ultimately was not ready to make a complete break with the two parties, declining petitions for his nomination up to and during the Populist Convention. Gresham later endorsed Grover Cleveland for president.

Weaver, the Greenback Party's 1880 presidential nominee, was nominated for president on the first ballot, now lacking any serious opposition. While his nomination brought with it significant campaigning experience from over several decades, he also had a longer track record that Republicans and Democrats could criticize, and alienated many potential supporters in the South, having participated in Sherman's March to the Sea. James G. Field of Virginia was nominated for vice president in an attempt to rectify this problem while also attaining the regional balance often seen in Republican and Democratic tickets.

The Populist platform called for nationalization of the telegraph, telephone, and railroads, free coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, and creation of postal savings banks.

Prohibition Party nomination
Prohibition candidates:
 * John Bidwell, former U.S. representative from California
 * Gideon T. Stewart, Prohibition Party Chairman from Ohio
 * William Jennings Demorest, magazine publisher from New York

Candidates gallery
The sixth Prohibition Party National Convention assembled in Music Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio from June 29 to 30, 1892. There were 972 delegates present from all states except Louisiana and South Carolina.

Two major stories about the convention loomed before it assembled. In the first place, some members of the national committee sought to merge the Prohibition and Populist parties. While there appeared a likelihood that the merger would materialize, it was clear that it was not going to happen by the time that the convention convened. Secondly, the southern states sent a number of black delegates. Cincinnati hotels refused to serve meals to blacks and whites at the same time, and several hotels refused service to the black delegates altogether.

John Bidwell, Gideon T. Stewart, and William Jennings Demorest sought the party's presidential nomination and a poll of delegates by the New York Herald showed Bidwell with the most support. John St. John, the party's 1884 nominee, nominated Bidwell. Bidwell won the nomination on the first ballot. Prior to the convention, the race was thought to be close between Bidwell and Demorest, but the New York delegation became irritated with Demorest and voted for Bidwell 73–7. James B. Cranfill from Texas was nominated for vice-president on the first ballot with 417 votes to 351 for Joshua Levering from Maryland and 45 for others.

Socialist Labor Party nomination
The Socialist Labor national convention was held in New York City on August 28, 1892. Despite running on a platform that called for the abolition of the positions of president and vice-president, decided to nominate candidates for those positions. Simon Wing and Charles Matchett were selected as the party's presidential and vice presidential nominees. They were on the ballot in five states: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Woman suffrage
Wyoming had become a state in 1890 and had included woman suffrage in its state constitution. Thus, Wyoming women were able to vote in the 1892 presidential election, the first time that any American women were able to do so. Wyoming's African American women became the first Black women in the nation to vote in a presidential election in 1892.

A "national nominating convention of woman suffragists" met on September 21, 1892, and nominated notorious suffrage and former free-love advocate Victoria Woodhull for president and Marietta Stow for vice president. Both had been nominated for these positions before, Woodhull in 1872 and Stow in 1884. Both had been nominated by the National Equal Rights Party, which did not nominate a ballot in 1892; instead, the woman suffrage nominating convention, headed by Anna M. Parker and consisting of 50 delegates from 29 states, stepped in.

Women were in most states were not yet allowed to vote in 1892, but the convention's platform urged "election officers throughout the country to allow them to cast a ballot this fall." They were not successful in this, and it was almost 30 more years until the Nineteenth Amendment prohibited discrimination in voting on the basis of sex.

Campaign

On July 27, James S. Clarkson, who opposed Harrison's renomination, was replaced as chair of the Republican National Committee by William James Campbell. Campbell resigned on July 6, and Thomas H. Carter was selected to replace him on July 16. It was believed that Calvin S. Brice, the current chair of the Democratic National Committee, would seek reelection, but he declined and William F. Harrity was selected without opposition. Donald M. Dickinson was selected to chair the DNC's campaign committee.

Campbell, J.N. Huston, E. Rosewater, R.G. Evans, and Henry Clay Payne managed Harrison's campaign in the west. William Brookfield and Charles W. Hacket led his campaign in New York. Edward Murphy and William F. Sheehan were selected to lead Cleveland's campaign in New York despite Cleveland's opposition. Murphy and Sheehan were opponents of Cleveland, but William Collins Whitney argued that they should be given the positions for party unity.

The Republicans launched their national campaign on June 21, in New York City at Carnegie Hall. The Democrats launched their campaign at two meetings. Tammany Hall held one on July 4, and the Democrats held another one at Madison Square Garden on July 20. The Prohibitionists launched their campaign in San Francisco on August 4.

The tariff issue dominated this rather lackluster campaign. Harrison defended the protectionist McKinley Tariff passed during his term. For his part, Cleveland assured voters that he opposed absolute free trade and would continue his campaign for a reduction in the tariff. Cleveland also denounced the Lodge Bill, a voting rights bill that sought to protect the rights of African American voters in the South.

Harrison initially planned on conducting a speaking tour in New York, but chose to care for his ill wife Caroline Harrison. Reid conducted tours of Illinois, Ohio, and New York. McKinley extensively campaigned for Harrison from Iowa to Maine. Stevenson launched his campaign activities in his hometown of Bloomington, Illinois, and traveled across Delaware, North Carolina, and Virginia for sixteen days. Weaver started campaigning in July and conducted a tour of the western and southern United States.

The campaign took a somber turn when, in October, Caroline died. Despite the ill health that had plagued Mrs. Harrison since her youth and had worsened in the last decade, she often accompanied Mr. Harrison on official travels. On one such trip, to California in the spring of 1891, she caught a cold. It quickly deepened into her chest, and she was eventually diagnosed with tuberculosis. A summer in the Adirondack Mountains failed to restore her to health. An invalid the last six months of her life, she died in the White House on October 25, 1892, just two weeks before the national election. As a result, all of the candidates ceased campaigning.

Fusion
The Democrats and Populists conducted a partial fusion campaign in Oregon by having Democratic elector Robert A. Miller drop out and the Democratic Party of Oregon endorsed Populist elector I. Nathan Pierce in his place. The Democrats believed that the Populists would do the same for two electors, but the Populists refused. The Minnesota Democratic Party initially announced that it would not conduct a fusion campaign, but later withdrew four of its electors in favor of Populist electors.

The Nevada Democratic Party passed a resolution at its convention stating that it would not support the party's presidential nominee if they did not support free silver. A majority of the party supported Weaver while a minority ran electors pledged to Cleveland. The Silver Party voted to have its Nevada presidential electors support the Populists. The Nevada Republican Party held a convention to select its presidential electors, but party chair Enoch Strother and 49 delegates left the convention after a caucus showed free silver delegates held a majority. These delegates nominated electors pledged to Harrison while the 85 silver delegates endorsed the Silver Party's electors.

The Wyoming Democratic Party endorsed the Populist electors in exchange for the Populists supporting the Democratic state candidates. The North Dakota Democratic Party endorsed the Independent Party's electors, who were pledged to Weaver, in exchange for the Independent Party supporting its state candidates. The Kansas Democratic Party made an agreement with the Populists in which the Democrats would run candidates for some state and federal offices while leaving the rest, including presidential electors, to the Populists.

The Republican Party of Louisiana agreed to divide the electors between five for Harrison and three for Weaver. The Republican Party of Florida did not nominate any electors and its members supported Weaver.

Results
The margin in the popular vote for Cleveland was 400,000, the largest since Grant's re-election in 1872. The Democrats won the presidency and both houses of Congress for the first time since 1856. President Harrison's re-election bid was a decisive loss in both the popular and electoral count, unlike President Cleveland's re-election bid four years earlier, in which he won the popular vote, but lost the electoral vote.

This was the second time that a party lost re-election after a single four-year term, which would not occur again until 1980, and for Republicans until 2020. At the county level, Cleveland fared much better than Harrison. The Republicans' vote was not nearly as widespread as the Democrats'. In 1892, it was still a sectionally based party mainly situated in the East, Midwest, and West and was barely visible south of the Mason–Dixon line. In the South, the party was holding on in only a few counties. In East Tennessee and tidewater Virginia, the vote at the county level showed some strength, but it barely existed in Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.

Additionally, Cleveland was the third of only five presidents to win re-election with a smaller percentage of the popular vote than in prior elections. The other four are Andrew Jackson in 1832, James Madison in 1812, Franklin Roosevelt in 1940 and 1944, and Barack Obama in 2012. As of 2020, Cleveland was the fourth of seven presidential nominees to win a significant number of electoral votes in at least three elections, the others being Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, William Jennings Bryan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Richard Nixon. Of these, Jackson, Cleveland, and Roosevelt also won the popular vote in at least three elections. Jefferson, Cleveland, and Roosevelt were also their respective party's nominees for three consecutive elections.

In a continuation of its collapse there during the 1890 congressional elections, the Republican Party even struggled in its Midwestern strongholds, where general electoral troubles from economic woes were acutely exacerbated by the promotion of temperance laws and, in Wisconsin and Illinois, the aggressive support of state politicians for English-only compulsory education laws. Such policies, which particularly in the case of the latter were associated with an upwelling of nativist and anti-Catholic attitudes amongst their supporters, resulted in the defection of large sections of immigrant communities, especially Germans, to the Democratic Party. Cleveland carried Wisconsin and Illinois with their 36 combined electoral votes, a Democratic victory not seen in those states since 1852 and 1856 respectively, and which would not be repeated until Woodrow Wilson's election in 1912. While not as dramatic a loss as in 1890, it would take until the next election cycle for more moderate Republican leaders to pick up the pieces left by the reformist crusaders and bring alienated immigrants back to the fold.

Of the 2,683 counties making returns, Cleveland won in 1,389 (51.77%), Harrison carried 1,017 (37.91%), while Weaver placed first in 276 (10.29%). One county (0.04%) split evenly between Cleveland and Harrison.

Populist James B. Weaver, calling for free coinage of silver and an inflationary monetary policy, received such strong support in the West that he became the only third-party nominee between 1860 and 1912 to carry a single state. The Democratic Party did not have a presidential ticket on the ballot in the states of Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, or Wyoming, and Weaver won the first four of these states. Weaver also performed well in the South as he won counties in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas. Populists did best in Alabama, where electoral chicanery probably carried the day for the Democrats.

The Prohibition ticket received 270,879 votes, or 2.2% nationwide. It was the largest total vote and the highest percentage of the vote received by any Prohibition presidential candidate.

Wyoming, having attained statehood two years earlier, became the first state to allow women to vote in a presidential election since 1804. (Women in New Jersey had the right to vote under the state's original constitution, but this right was rescinded in 1807.) Wyoming was also one of six states (along with North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Idaho) participating in their first presidential election. This was the most new states voting since the first election.

The election witnessed many states splitting their electoral votes. Electors from the state of Michigan were selected using the congressional district method (the winner in each congressional district wins one electoral vote, the winner of the state wins two electoral votes). This resulted in a split between the Republican and Democratic electors: nine for Harrison and five for Cleveland. In California, the direct election of presidential electors combined with the close race resulted in a split between the Republican and Democratic electors: eight for Cleveland and one for Harrison. In Ohio, the direct election of presidential electors combined with the close race resulted in a split between the Republican and Democratic electors: 22 for Harrison and one for Cleveland.

Cleveland was the first Democratic presidential nominee to win Illinois since 1856 and Wisconsin since 1852.

61 of 67 counties in New England, where Connecticut was the only state won by Cleveland, supported Harrison. Weaver placed fourth, behind the Prohibitionists, in every New England state. 3% of the vote in New England went to third parties, with the Prohibitionists accounting for 70% of it. 343 of the counties in the upper south supported Cleveland, 165 supported Harrison, and 2 supported Weaver. 619 counties in the deep south supported Cleveland, 47 supported Weaver, 32 supported Harrison, and 8 supported fusion electors. Harrison won 226 counties, Cleveland won 206, and Weaver won 1 in the midwestern states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Source (Popular Vote):

Source (Electoral Vote):

Results by state
Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836–1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57.

States that flipped from Republican to Democratic

 * California
 * Illinois
 * Indiana
 * New York
 * Wisconsin

States that flipped from Republican to Populist

 * Colorado
 * Kansas
 * Nevada

Close states
Margin of victory less than 1% (35 electoral votes):
 * 1) California, 0.05% (147 votes)
 * 2) Ohio, 0.13% (1,072 votes)
 * 3) North Dakota, 0.50% (181 votes)

Margin of victory between 1% and 5% (158 electoral votes):
 * 1) Indiana, 1.29% (7,125 votes)
 * 2) Delaware, 1.35% (504 votes)
 * 3) Wisconsin, 1.68% (6,224 votes)
 * 4) Kansas, 1.81% (5,870 votes)
 * 5) Nebraska, 2.04% (4,079 votes)
 * 6) West Virginia, 2.44% (4,175 votes)
 * 7) Montana, 2.66% (1,181 votes)
 * 8) Illinois, 3.09% (26,993 votes) (tipping point state)
 * 9) Connecticut, 3.26% (5,363 votes)
 * 10) New York, 3.41% (45,518 votes)
 * 11) New Hampshire, 4.00% (3,577 votes)
 * 12) Wyoming, 4.37% (732 votes) (margin over James Weaver)
 * 13) New Jersey, 4.43% (14,965 votes)
 * 14) Michigan, 4.52% (21,084 votes)
 * 15) Rhode Island, 4.96% (2,639 votes)

Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (101 electoral votes):
 * 1) Iowa, 5.29% (23,428 votes)
 * 2) Pennsylvania, 6.36% (63,747 votes)
 * 3) Massachusetts, 6.65% (26,001 votes)
 * 4) Missouri, 7.52% (40,754 votes)
 * 5) Washington, 7.57% (6,658 votes)
 * 6) Minnesota, 8.20% (21,903 votes)
 * 7) Idaho, 9.90% (1,921 votes)
 * 8) Maryland, 9.91% (21,130 votes)