United States presidential election, 1912

United States presidential election, 1912
United States
November 5, 1912
All 531 electoral votes of the Electoral College
266 electoral votes needed to win
 
Nominee Woodrow Wilson Theodore Roosevelt
Party Democratic Progressive
Home state New Jersey New York
Running mate Thomas R. Marshall Hiram Johnson
Electoral vote 435 88
States carried 40 6
Popular vote 6,296,284 4,122,721
Percentage 41.8% 27.4%
 
Nominee William Howard Taft Eugene V. Debs
Party Republican Socialist
Home state Ohio Indiana
Running mate Nicholas M. Butler
(replacing James S. Sherman)		 Emil Seidel
Electoral vote 8 0
States carried 2 0
Popular vote 3,486,242 901,551
Percentage 23.2% 6.0%

Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Taft/Butler, Blue denotes those won by Wilson/Marshall, Green denotes those won by Roosevelt/Johnson. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
President before election

William Howard Taft
Republican

 Elected President

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic

The United States presidential election of 1912 was the 32nd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1912. The election was a rare four-way contest.[1] Incumbent President William Howard Taft was renominated by the Republican Party with the support of its conservative wing. After former President Theodore Roosevelt failed to receive the Republican nomination, he called his own convention and created the Progressive Party (nicknamed the "Bull Moose Party"). It nominated Roosevelt and ran candidates for other offices in major states. Democrat Woodrow Wilson was finally nominated on the 46th ballot of a contentious convention, thanks to the support of William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate who still had a large and loyal following in 1912.

Wilson won the election, gaining a large majority in the Electoral College and winning 42% of the popular vote, while Roosevelt won 27%, Taft 23% and Debs 6%. Wilson became the only elected president from the Democratic Party between 1892 and 1932, and the second of only two Democrats to be elected president between 1860 and 1932. This was the last election in which a candidate who was not a Republican or Democrat came second in either the popular vote or the Electoral College, and the first election in which all 48 states of the contiguous United States participated.

Background

Republican President Theodore Roosevelt had declined to run for re-election in 1908 in fulfillment of a pledge to the American people not to seek a second full term. Roosevelt's first term as president (1901–1905) was incomplete, as he succeeded to the office upon the assassination of William McKinley; it was only his second term (1905–1909) that encompassed four full years. He had tapped Secretary of War William Howard Taft to become his successor, and Taft defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the general election.

During Taft's administration, a rift grew between Roosevelt and Taft as they became the leaders of the Republican Party's two wings: the progressives, led by Roosevelt, and the conservatives, led by Taft. The progressive Republicans favored restrictions on the employment of women and children, promoted ecological conservation, and were more sympathetic toward labor unions. The progressives were also in favor of the popular election of federal and state judges and opposed to having judges appointed by the president or state governors. The conservatives were in support of high tariffs on imported goods to encourage consumers to buy American-made products (as were most progressives), favored business leaders over labor unions, and were generally opposed to the popular election of judges.

By 1910 the split between the two wings of the Republican Party was deep, and this, in turn, caused Roosevelt and Taft to turn against one another, despite their personal friendship. Taft's popularity among progressives collapsed when he supported the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act in 1909,[2] abandoned Roosevelt's anti-trust policy[3] and fired popular conservationist Gifford Pinchot as head of the Bureau of Forestry in 1910.[4]

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

Republican candidates:

Candidates gallery

A Punch cartoon, by Leonard Raven-Hill depicting the perceived aggression between Taft and Roosevelt.

For the first time, significant numbers of delegates to the national conventions were elected in presidential preference primaries. Primary elections were advocated by the progressive faction of the Republican Party, which wanted to break the control of political parties by bosses. Altogether, twelve states held Republican primaries. Robert M. La Follette won two of the first four primaries (North Dakota and Wisconsin). Beginning with his runaway victory in Illinois on April 9, however, Roosevelt won nine of the last ten presidential primaries (in order, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Oregon, Maryland, California, Ohio, New Jersey, and South Dakota), losing only Massachusetts to Taft.[5] As a sign of his great popularity, Roosevelt even carried Taft's home state of Ohio.

The Republican Convention was held in Chicago from June 18 to 22. Taft, however, had begun to gather delegates earlier, and the delegates chosen in the primaries were a minority. Taft had the support of the bulk of the party organizations in the Southern states. These states had voted solidly Democratic in every presidential election since 1880, and Roosevelt objected that they were given one-quarter of the delegates when they would contribute nothing to a Republican victory (as it turned out, delegates from the former Confederate states supported Taft by a 5 to 1 margin). When the convention gathered, Roosevelt challenged the credentials of nearly half of the delegates. By that time, however, it was too late. The delegates chose Elihu Root — once Roosevelt's top ally — to serve as chairman of the convention. Afterwards, the delegates seated Taft delegations in Alabama, Arizona, and California on tight votes of 597-472, 564-497, and 542-529, respectively. After losing California, where Roosevelt had won the primary, the progressive delegates gave up hope. They voted "present" on most succeeding roll calls. Not since the 1872 election had there been a major schism in the Republican party. Now, with the Democrats holding about 45% of the national vote, any schism would be fatal. Roosevelt's only hope at the convention was to form a "stop-Taft" alliance with La Follette, but Roosevelt had alienated La Follette, and the alliance could not form.

Unable to tolerate the personal humiliation he suffered at the hands of Taft and the Old Guard, and refusing to entertain the possibility of a compromise candidate, Roosevelt struck back hard. On the evening of June 22, 1912, Roosevelt asked his supporters to leave the convention. Roosevelt maintained that President Taft had allowed fraudulent seating of delegates to capture the presidential nomination from progressive forces within the Party. Thus, with the support of convention chairman Elihu Root, Taft's supporters outvoted Roosevelt's men, and the convention renominated incumbents William Howard Taft and James S. Sherman, making Sherman the first sitting vice-president to be nominated for re-election since John C. Calhoun in 1828.

Presidential Ballot
Theodore Roosevelt 413
William Taft 391
Robert La Follette 19
William Borah 7
Albert J. Beveridge 5

Progressive Party

Progressive candidate:

Candidates gallery

Republican progressives reconvened in Chicago and endorsed the formation of a national progressive party. When formally launched later that summer, the new Progressive Party chose Roosevelt as its presidential nominee and Governor Hiram Johnson of California as his running mate. Questioned by reporters, Roosevelt said he felt as strong as a "bull moose." Henceforth known as the "Bull Moose Party," the Progressives promised to increase federal regulation and protect the welfare of ordinary people.

The party was funded by publisher Frank Munsey and its executive secretary George Walbridge Perkins, an employee of banker J. P. Morgan and International Harvester. Perkins blocked an anti-trust plank, shocking reformers who thought of Roosevelt as a true trust-buster. The delegates to the convention sang the hymn "Onward, Christian Soldiers" as their anthem. In a famous acceptance speech, Roosevelt compared the coming presidential campaign to the Battle of Armageddon and stated that the Progressives were going to "battle for the LORD." However, many of the nation's newspapers, which tended to be pro-Republican, harshly depicted Roosevelt as an egotist who was only running for president to spoil Taft's chances and feed his vanity. Many of these newspapers' political cartoons portrayed Roosevelt in this fashion; the anti-Roosevelt cartoon below was drawn by Edward Windsor Kemble for the January 1912 edition of Harper's Weekly.[6]

Progressive convention, 1912

Democratic Party nomination

Democratic candidates:

Candidates gallery

The Democratic Convention was held in Baltimore, Maryland, from June 25 to July 2. It proved to be one of the more memorable presidential conventions of the twentieth century. Initially, the frontrunner appeared to be Champ Clark of Missouri, the Speaker of the House, and Clark did receive the largest number of delegate votes early in the balloting. However, he was unable to get the two-thirds majority required to win the nomination. His chances were hurt when Tammany Hall, the powerful and corrupt Democratic political machine in New York City, threw its support behind Clark. Instead of helping him, this led William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate and still the leader of the party's liberals, to turn against Clark as the candidate of "Wall Street". Bryan instead threw his support to New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson, who had consistently finished second to Clark on each ballot, and who was regarded as a moderate reformer. Wilson had nearly given up hope that he could be nominated, and he was on the verge of having a concession speech read for him at the convention that would free his delegates to vote for someone else. Bryan's defection from Clark to Wilson led many other delegates to do the same, and Wilson gradually gained strength while Clark's support dwindled. Wilson finally received the nomination on the 46th ballot.

Thomas R. Marshall, the Governor of Indiana, who had swung his state's delegate votes to Wilson in later ballots, was named as Wilson's running mate.

Vice Presidential Ballot
1st 2nd Unanimous
Thomas R. Marshall 389 644.5 1,088
John Burke 304.67 386.33
George E. Chamberlain 157 12.5
Elmore W. Hurst 78 0
James H. Preston 58 0
Martin J. Wade 26 0
William F. McCombs 18 0
John E. Osborne 8 0
William Sulzer 3 0
Blank 46.33 44.67

Socialist Party nomination

Socialist candidates:

Candidates Gallery

Eugene V. Debs' 6% was an all-time high for the Socialist Party

The Socialist Party of America was a highly factionalized coalition of local parties based in industrial cities and usually was rooted in ethnic communities, especially German and Finnish. It also had some support in old Populist rural and mining areas in the West, especially Oklahoma. By 1912, the party claimed more than a thousand locally elected officials in 33 states and 160 cities, especially the Midwest. Eugene V. Debs had run for president in 1900, 1904, and 1908, primarily to encourage the local effort, and he did so again in 1912 and from prison in 1920.[7]

The conservatives, led by Victor L. Berger of Milwaukee, promoted progressive causes of efficiency and an end to corruption, nicknamed "gas and water socialism." Their opponents were the radicals who wanted to overthrow capitalism, tried to infiltrate labor unions, and sought to cooperate with the Industrial Workers of the World ("the Wobblies"). With few exceptions, the party had weak or nonexistent links to local labor unions. Immigration was an issue—the radicals saw immigrants as fodder for the war with capitalism, while conservatives complained that they lowered wage rates and absorbed too many city resources. Many of these issues had been debated at the First National Congress of the Socialist Party in 1910, and they were debated again at the national convention in Indianapolis in 1912. At the latter, the radicals won an early test by seating Bill Haywood on the Executive Committee, sending encouragement to western "Wobblies", and passed a resolution seeming to favor industrial unionism. The conservatives counterattacked by amending the party constitution to expel any socialists who favored industrial sabotage or syndicalism (that is, the IWW), and who refused to participate in American elections. They adopted a conservative platform calling for cooperative organization of prisons, a national bureau of health, abolition of the Senate and the presidential veto. Debs did not attend; he saw his mission as keeping the disparate units together in the hope that someday a common goal would be found.

General election

Campaign

The 1912 presidential campaign was bitterly contested. Vice-President James S. Sherman died in office on October 30, 1912, less than a week before the election, leaving Taft without a running mate. With the Republican Party divided, Wilson captured the presidency handily on November 5.

Republican campaign postcard charging a Democratic administration would remove pensioners from the rolls

While Roosevelt was campaigning in Milwaukee on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Flammang Schrank shot him, but the bullet lodged in his chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50-page single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket.

The election of 1912 is considered the high tide of progressive politics. A match-up between Roosevelt and Wilson alone might also have produced a Wilson victory, as many conservatives might have preferred Wilson, who still would have won much of the Democratic and progressive base.

The Socialists had little money; Debs' campaign cost only $66,000, mostly for 3.5 million leaflets and travel to rallies organized by local groups. His biggest event was a speech to 15,000 supporters in New York City. The crowd sang "La Marseillaise" and "The Internationale" as Emil Seidel, the vice- presidential candidate, boasted, "Only a year ago workingmen were throwing decayed vegetables and rotten eggs at us but now all is changed... Eggs are too high. There is a great giant growing up in this country that will someday take over the affairs of this nation. He is a little giant now but he is growing fast. The name of this little giant is socialism." Debs said that only the socialists represented labor. He condemned "Injunction Bill Taft" and ridiculed Roosevelt as "a charlatan, mountebank, and fraud, and his Progressive promises and pledges as the mouthings of a low and utterly unprincipled self seeker and demagogue." Debs insisted that the Democrats, Progressives, and Republicans alike were financed by the trusts. Party newspapers spread the word—there were five English-language and eight foreign-language dailies along with 262 English and 36 foreign-language weeklies. The labor union movement, however, largely rejected Debs and supported Wilson.

Roosevelt mixing radical ingredients in his speeches in this 1912 editorial cartoon by Karl K. Knecht (1883-1972) in the Republican Evansville Courier newspaper

Roosevelt conducted a vigorous national campaign for the Progressive Party, denouncing the way the Republican nomination had been "stolen". He bundled together his reforms under the rubric of "The New Nationalism" and stumped the country for a strong federal role in regulating the economy and chastising bad corporations. Wilson supported a policy called "The New Freedom". This policy was based mostly on individualism instead of a strong government. Taft, campaigned quietly, and spoke of the need for judges to be more powerful than elected officials. The departure of the more progressive Republicans left the conservative Republicans even more firmly in control of their party until 1916, when many progressives returned. Much of the Republican effort was designed to discredit Roosevelt as a dangerous radical, but this had little effect.

Results

Results by county explicitly indicating the percentage for the winning candidate. Shades of blue are for Wilson (Democratic), shades of green are for Roosevelt (Progressive), shades of red are for Taft (Republican), and shades of yellow are for Debs (Socialist)

The impact of the third-party vote is indicated by the fact that while Taft carried 2 states (Utah and Vermont), Roosevelt 6, and Wilson 40 by the electoral vote, there were few states carried by a majority of the popular vote. Taft carried no state with a popular majority, Roosevelt carried 1 (South Dakota, where there was no Republican ticket), and Wilson carried 11 (all the states of the former Confederacy). More than 2/3 of Wilson's total vote was cast in the 37 states that he did not carry by majority vote.[8]

Wilson's vote, 6,296,919, was less than William Jennings Bryan totaled in any one of his campaigns, and over 100,000 less than Bryan received in 1908, when Bryan won only 162 electoral votes.[9] Wilson fell behind the Bryan strength in most of the country, and notably so in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Arkansas. In only 2 sections was Wilson's vote greater than the greatest Bryan vote: New England and the Pacific.[10] Wilson led the poll in 1,969 counties, but he had a majority vote in only 1,237 counties. It was less than Bryan had had in any of his campaigns.[11] Taft had a majority in only 35, and "Other(s)" in only 305. These small figures clearly reveal the result of the division of the normal Republican vote, as does the fact that in the greatest number of counties (1,396) no party had a majority.[12] Taft had a lead over the field in only 232 counties. In addition to 7 Southern states in which he carried no county, he also carried none in Maine, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Washington, and of course none in South Dakota and California, where there was no Taft ticket.[13]

The split in the Republican vote made it possible for Wilson to carry a number of states that had been reliably Republican for decades. For the first time since 1852, a majority of the New England states were carried by a Democrat. In fact, Wilson was the first Democratic presidential candidate ever to carry the state of Massachusetts (whereas Rhode Island and Maine had not been carried by a Democrat since 1852). On the West coast, Oregon had not been carried by a Democrat since 1868.

The split in the Republican vote resulted in the weakest Republican effort in history. Winning only 8 electoral votes, Taft suffered a worse defeat than any other president defeated for re-election. (Vice President Sherman, who had been renominated along with Taft, died shortly before the election, and Nicholas Murray Butler was selected to receive the electoral votes that would have gone to Sherman.)[14]

The 772 counties not carried by Wilson or by Taft were distributed in 38 states, most of them in Pennsylvania (48), Illinois (33), Michigan (68), Minnesota (75), Iowa (49), South Dakota (54), Nebraska (32), Kansas (51), Washington (38), and California (44), and almost without exception were carried by Roosevelt. Debs carried 4 counties in Minnesota (3), and North Dakota (1), the only counties ever to vote socialist in a presidential election.

The largest non-Democratic, non-Republican vote of the Fourth Party System was polled in the election of 1912.[15] It amounted to roughly 5,250,000 votes and represented 1/3 of the votes cast.[16] Approximately 4/5 of it (4,125,000) was cast for Theodore Roosevelt, but the Socialist vote was larger than it ever had been or ever would be in American history except for 1920.[17] Eugene Debs, the nominee of the Socialist Party, polled nearly 1,000,000 votes, more than doubling his vote of 1908.[18]

1912 marked the first (and last) election since 1860 in which 4 candidates each cleared 5.0%. 1912 was also the only election in which a third-party candidate received more popular votes and electoral votes than one of the major-party candidates.

Neither Presidents Roosevelt nor Taft won their home states of New York and Ohio, respectively.

Arizona and New Mexico cast presidential votes for the first time after being admitted to the Union the same year.

Presidential candidate Party Home state Popular vote Electoral
vote		 Running mate
Count Pct Vice-presidential candidate Home state Elect. vote
Woodrow Wilson Democratic New Jersey 6,296,284 41.84% 435 Thomas R. Marshall Indiana 435
Theodore Roosevelt Progressive New York 4,122,721 27.40% 88 Hiram W. Johnson California 88
William Howard Taft (Incumbent) Republican Ohio 3,486,242 23.17% 8 Nicholas Murray Butler New York 8
Eugene V. Debs Socialist Indiana 901,551 5.99% 0 Emil Seidel Wisconsin 0
Eugene W. Chafin Prohibition Illinois 208,156 1.38% 0 Aaron S. Watkins Ohio 0
Arthur E. Reimer Socialist Labor Massachusetts 29,324 0.19% 0 August Gillhaus New York 0
Other 4,556 0.03% — Other —
Total 15,048,834 100% 531 531
Needed to win 266 266

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. "1912 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved July 28, 2005. 

Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 31, 2005. 

Popular vote
Wilson
  
 41.84%
Roosevelt
  
 27.40%
Taft
  
 23.17%
Debs
  
 5.99%
Others
  
 1.60%
Electoral vote
Wilson
  
 81.92%
Roosevelt
  
 16.57%
Taft
  
 1.51%

Geography of Results

Cartographic Gallery

Results by state

[19]

States won by Wilson/Marshall
States won by Roosevelt/Johnson
States won by Taft/Butler
Woodrow Wilson
Democratic		 Theodore Roosevelt
Progressive		 William H. Taft
Republican		 Eugene V. Debs
Socialist		 Eugene Chafin
Prohibition		 Arthur Reimer
Socialist Labor		 Margin State Total
State electoral
votes		 # % electoral
votes		 # % electoral
votes		 # % electoral
votes		 # % electoral
votes		 # % electoral
votes		 # % electoral
votes		 # % #
Alabama 12 82,438 69.89 12 22,680 19.23 - 9,807 8.31 - 3,029 2.57 - - - - - - - 59,758 50.66 117,959 AL
Arizona 3 10,324 43.52 3 6,949 29.29 - 3,021 12.74 - 3,163 13.33 - 265 1.12 - - - - 3,375 14.23 23,722 AZ
Arkansas 9 68,814 55.01 9 21,644 17.30 - 25,585 20.45 - 8,153 6.52 - 908 0.73 - - - - 43,229 34.55 125,104 AR
California 13 283,436 41.81 2 283,610 41.83 11 3,914 0.58 - 79,201 11.68 - 23,366 3.45 - - - - -174 -0.03 677,944 CA
Colorado 6 114,232 42.80 6 72,306 27.09 - 58,386 21.88 - 16,418 6.15 - 5,063 1.90 - 475 0.18 - 41,926 15.71 266,880 CO
Connecticut 7 74,561 39.16 7 34,129 17.92 - 68,324 35.88 - 10,056 5.28 - 2,068 1.09 - 1,260 0.66 - 6,237 3.28 190,404 CT
Delaware 3 22,631 46.48 3 8,886 18.25 - 15,998 32.85 - 556 1.14 - 623 1.28 - - - - 6,633 13.62 48,694 DE
Florida 6 35,343 69.52 6 4,555 8.96 - 4,279 8.42 - 4,806 9.45 - 1,854 3.65 - - - - 30,537 60.07 50,837 FL
Georgia 14 93,087 76.63 14 21,985 18.10 - 5,191 4.27 - 1,058 0.87 - 149 0.12 - - - - 71,102 58.53 121,470 GA
Idaho 4 33,921 32.08 4 25,527 24.14 - 32,810 31.02 - 11,960 11.31 - 1,536 1.45 - - - - 1,111 1.05 105,754 ID
Illinois 29 405,048 35.34 29 386,478 33.72 - 253,593 22.13 - 81,278 7.09 - 15,710 1.37 - 4,066 0.35 - 18,570 1.62 1,146,173 IL
Indiana 15 281,890 43.07 15 162,007 24.75 - 151,267 23.11 - 36,931 5.64 - 19,249 2.94 - 3,130 0.48 - 119,883 18.32 654,474 IN
Iowa 13 185,325 37.64 13 161,819 32.87 - 119,805 24.33 - 16,967 3.45 - 8,440 1.71 - - - - 23,506 4.77 492,356 IA
Kansas 10 143,663 39.30 10 120,210 32.88 - 74,845 20.47 - 26,779 7.33 - - - - - - - 23,453 6.42 365,560 KS
Kentucky 13 219,484 48.48 13 101,766 22.48 - 115,510 25.52 - 11,646 2.57 - 3,253 0.72 - 1,055 0.23 - 103,974 22.97 452,714 KY
Louisiana 10 60,871 76.81 10 9,283 11.71 - 3,833 4.84 - 5,261 6.64 - - - - - - - 51,588 65.10 79,248 LA
Maine 6 51,113 39.43 6 48,495 37.41 - 26,545 20.48 - 2,541 1.96 - 946 0.73 - - - - 2,618 2.02 129,640 ME
Maryland 8 112,674 48.57 8 57,789 24.91 - 54,956 23.69 - 3,996 1.72 - 2,244 0.97 - 322 0.14 - 54,885 23.66 231,981 MD
Massachusetts 18 173,408 35.53 18 142,228 29.14 - 155,948 31.95 - 12,616 2.58 - 2,754 0.56 - 1,102 0.23 - 17,460 3.58 488,057 MA
Michigan 15 150,751 27.36 - 214,584 38.95 15 152,244 27.63 - 23,211 4.21 - 8,934 1.62 - 1,252 0.23 - -62,340 -11.31 550,976 MI
Minnesota 12 106,426 31.84 - 125,856 37.66 12 64,334 19.25 - 27,505 8.23 - 7,886 2.36 - 2,212 0.66 - -19,430 -5.81 334,219 MN
Mississippi 10 57,324 88.90 10 3,549 5.50 - 1,560 2.42 - 2,050 3.18 - - - - - - - 53,775 83.39 64,483 MS
Missouri 18 330,746 47.35 18 124,375 17.80 - 207,821 29.75 - 28,466 4.07 - 5,380 0.77 - 1,778 0.25 - 122,925 17.60 698,566 MO
Montana 4 27,941 35.00 4 22,456 28.13 - 18,512 23.19 - 10,885 13.64 - 32 0.04 - - - - 5,485 6.87 79,826 MT
Nebraska 8 109,008 43.69 8 72,681 29.13 - 54,226 21.74 - 10,185 4.08 - 3,383 1.36 - - - - 36,327 14.56 249,483 NE
Nevada 3 7,986 39.70 3 5,620 27.94 - 3,196 15.89 - 3,313 16.47 - - - - - - - 2,366 11.76 20,115 NV
New Hampshire 4 34,724 39.48 4 17,794 20.23 - 32,927 37.43 - 1,981 2.25 - 535 0.61 - - - - 1,797 2.04 87,961 NH
New Jersey 14 178,289 41.20 14 145,410 33.60 - 88,835 20.53 - 15,948 3.69 - 2,936 0.68 - 1,321 0.31 - 32,879 7.60 432,739 NJ
New Mexico 3 20,437 41.39 3 8,347 16.90 - 17,733 35.91 - 2,859 5.79 - - - - - - - 2,704 5.48 49,376 NM
New York 45 655,573 41.27 45 390,093 24.56 - 455,487 28.68 - 63,434 3.99 - 19,455 1.22 - 4,273 0.27 - 200,086 12.60 1,588,315 NY
North Carolina 12 144,407 59.24 12 69,135 28.36 - 29,129 11.95 - 987 0.40 - 118 0.05 - - - - 75,272 30.88 243,776 NC
North Dakota 5 29,555 34.14 5 25,726 29.71 - 23,090 26.67 - 6,966 8.05 - 1,243 1.44 - - - - 3,829 4.42 86,580 ND
Ohio 24 424,834 40.96 24 229,807 22.16 - 278,168 26.82 - 90,144 8.69 - 11,511 1.11 - 2,630 0.25 - 146,666 14.14 1,037,094 OH
Oklahoma 10 119,156 46.95 10 - - - 90,786 35.77 - 41,674 16.42 - 2,185 0.86 - - - - 28,370 11.18 253,801 OK
Oregon 5 47,064 34.34 5 37,600 27.44 - 34,673 25.30 - 13,343 9.74 - 4,360 3.18 - - - - 9,464 6.91 137,040 OR
Pennsylvania 38 395,637 32.49 - 444,894 36.53 38 273,360 22.45 - 83,614 6.87 - 19,525 1.60 - 706 0.06 - -49,257 -4.04 1,217,736 PA
Rhode Island 5 30,412 39.04 5 16,878 21.67 - 27,703 35.56 - 2,049 2.63 - 616 0.79 - 236 0.30 - 2,709 3.48 77,894 RI
South Carolina 9 48,357 95.94 9 1,293 2.57 - 536 1.06 - 164 0.33 - - - - - - - 47,064 93.37 50,405 SC
South Dakota 5 48,942 42.07 - 58,811 50.56 5 - - - 4,662 4.01 - 3,910 3.36 - - - - -9,869 -8.48 116,325 SD
Tennessee 12 133,021 52.80 12 54,041 21.45 - 60,475 24.00 - 3,564 1.41 - 832 0.33 - - - - 72,546 28.80 251,933 TN
Texas 20 221,589 72.62 20 28,853 9.46 - 26,755 8.77 - 25,743 8.44 - 1,738 0.57 - 442 0.14 - 192,736 63.17 305,120 TX
Utah 4 36,579 32.55 - 24,174 21.51 - 42,100 37.46 4 9,023 8.03 - - - - 510 0.45 - -5,521 -4.91 112,386 UT
Vermont 4 15,354 24.43 - 22,132 35.22 - 23,332 37.13 4 928 1.48 - 1,095 1.74 - - - - -1,200 -1.91 62,841 VT
Virginia 12 90,332 65.95 12 21,776 15.90 - 23,288 17.00 - 820 0.60 - 709 0.52 - 50 0.04 - 67,044 48.95 136,975 VA
Washington 7 86,840 26.90 - 113,698 35.22 7 70,445 21.82 - 40,134 12.43 - 9,810 3.04 - 1,872 0.58 - -26,858 -8.32 322,799 WA
West Virginia 8 113,197 42.11 8 79,112 29.43 - 56,754 21.11 - 15,248 5.67 - 4,517 1.68 - - - - 34,085 12.68 268,828 WV
Wisconsin 13 164,230 41.06 13 62,448 15.61 - 130,596 32.65 - 33,476 8.37 - 8,584 2.15 - 632 0.16 - 33,634 8.41 399,975 WI
Wyoming 3 15,310 36.20 3 9,232 21.83 - 14,560 34.42 - 2,760 6.53 - 434 1.03 - - - - 750 1.77 42,296 WY
TOTALS: 531 6,296,284 41.84 435 4,122,721 27.40 88 3,486,242 23.17 8 901,551 5.99 - 208,156 1.38 - 29,324 0.19 - 2,173,563 14.44 15,048,834 US

Close states

Margin of victory less than 5% (153 electoral votes):

  1. California, 0.03%
  2. Idaho, 1.05%
  3. Illinois, 1.62%
  4. Wyoming, 1.77%
  5. Vermont, 1.91%
  6. Maine, 2.02%
  7. New Hampshire, 2.04%
  8. Connecticut, 3.28%
  9. Rhode Island, 3.48%
  10. Massachusetts, 3.58%
  11. Pennsylvania, 4.04%
  12. North Dakota, 4.42%
  13. Iowa, 4.77%
  14. Utah, 4.91%

Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (73 electoral votes):

  1. New Mexico, 5.48%
  2. Minnesota, 5.81%
  3. Kansas, 6.42%
  4. Montana, 6.87%
  5. Oregon, 6.91%
  6. New Jersey, 7.60%
  7. Washington, 8.32%
  8. Wisconsin, 8.41%
  9. South Dakota, 8.48%

Statistics

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Democratic)

  1. Greenville County, South Carolina 100.00%
  2. Marlboro County, South Carolina 100.00%
  3. Hampton County, South Carolina 100.00%
  4. Jasper County, South Carolina 100.00%
  5. Reagan County, Texas 100.00%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Other)

  1. Scott County, Tennessee 82.80%
  2. Campbell County, South Dakota 80.42%
  3. Clearwater County, Minnesota 77.35%
  4. Avery County, North Carolina 72.84%
  5. Cook County, Minnesota 72.70%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Republican)

  1. Zapata County, Texas 80.89%
  2. Valencia County, New Mexico 77.25%
  3. Kane County, Utah 75.40%
  4. Clinton County, Kentucky 64.79%
  5. Huerfano County, Colorado 63.36%

Consequences

Inauguration platform being constructed in front of the Capitol Building ten days before Wilson's March 4, 1913 inauguration.

Failing to make itself a believable third party, the Bull Moose Party ended up losing strength. Its candidates did poorly in 1914. It vanished in 1916 with most members following Roosevelt back into the Republican party. However, the Taft conservatives controlled the party and its platform from 1912 to 1928, and thus some Progressives like Harold L. Ickes joined the steadily more liberal Democratic party.

The election of 1912 was the topic of counterfactual speculation by John Lukacs, "The Election of Theodore Roosevelt, 1912", in What If? 2, edited by Robert Cowley.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Rauchway, Eric (2003). Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America. New York: Hill and Wang. p. 189. ISBN 0-8090-7170-3.
  2. ↑ Coletta, Presidency of William Howard Taft ch 3
  3. ↑ Anderson (1973), p.79
  4. ↑ Schweikart and Allen, p. 491.
  5. ↑ 1912 Republican Convention: Return of the Rough Rider
  6. ↑ http://elections.harpweek.com/1912/cartoon-1912-large.asp?UniqueID=9&Year=1912
  7. ↑ Ira Kipnis, The American Socialist Movement, 1897–1912 1952.
  8. ↑ The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932, Edgar E. Robinson, pg. 14
  9. ↑ The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932, Edgar E. Robinson, pg. 14
  10. ↑ The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932, Edgar E. Robinson, pg. 15
  11. ↑ The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932, Edgar E. Robinson, pg. 15
  12. ↑ The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932, Edgar E. Robinson, pg. 17
  13. ↑ The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932, Edgar E. Robinson, pg. 15
  14. ↑ http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/jun22.html Library of Congress
  15. ↑ The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932, Edgar E. Robinson, pg. 15
  16. ↑ The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932, Edgar E. Robinson, pg. 15-17
  17. ↑ The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932, Edgar E. Robinson, pg. 17
  18. ↑ The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932, Edgar E. Robinson, pg. 15
  19. ↑ "1912 Presidential General Election Data - National". Retrieved May 4, 2013.

References

Primary sources

External links

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