United States presidential election, 1912

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United States presidential election, 1912
5 November 1912

Nominee	Woodrow Wilson	Theodore Roosevelt	William Howard Taft
Party	Democratic	Progressive	Republican
Home state	New Jersey	New York	Ohio
Running mate	Thomas R. Marshall	Hiram Johnson	Nicholas Murray Butler
Electoral vote	435	88	8
States carried	40	6	2
Popular vote	6,296,284	4,122,721	3,486,242
Percentage	41.8%	27.4%	23.2%

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.
Incumbent President William Howard Taft Republican President-Elect Woodrow Wilson Democratic

The United States presidential election of 1912 was fought among three major candidates, two of whom had previously won election to the office. Incumbent President William Howard Taft was renominated by the Republican party with the support of the conservative wing of the party. After former President Theodore Roosevelt failed to get the Republican nomination, he called his own convention and created a new Progressive Party (nicknamed the “Bull Moose Party”). It nominated Roosevelt and ran candidates for other offices in major states. Democrat Woodrow Wilson was nominated on the 46th ballot of a contentious convention, thanks to the support of William Jennings Bryan. He defeated both Taft and Roosevelt in the general election, winning a huge majority in the Electoral College despite only winning 42% of the popular vote, and initiating the only period between 1892 and 1932 when a Democrat was elected President. Wilson was the third of only three Democrats to be elected President between 1856 and 1932. This was also the last election in which a third party candidate came in second in the Electoral College.

1 Background
2 Nominations
3 General election
4 Consequences
5 See also
6 References
- 6.1 Primary sources
7 External links

[edit] Background

President Theodore Roosevelt had declined to run for reelection in 1908, following the long-established tradition that Presidents were to leave office after two terms. He had tapped William Howard Taft as his successor, and Taft had gone on to win the election of 1908. During Taft's administration, a rift grew between Roosevelt and Taft; they became the leaders of the Republican Party's two wings: the progressives opposed the courts, favored restrictions on women's employment, favored conservation, were more favorable toward labor unions, and opposed tariffs on manufactured products. The conservatives were for business and insisted on judicial supremacy. Taft became identified with the conservative wing while Roosevelt was the leader of the progressive wing. By 1910 the split was deep.

[edit] Nominations

[edit] Republican Party nomination

The battle between Taft and Roosevelt bitterly split the Republican Party; Taft's people dominated the party until 1936.

Republican candidates

Robert M. LaFollette, U.S. senator from Wisconsin
Theodore Roosevelt, former President from New York
William H. Taft, President of the United States from Ohio

For the first time some delegates to the national convention were elected in presidential preference primaries. Primary elections were advocated by the progressive faction in the GOP, which wanted to break the control of political parties by bosses. Altogether, fourteen states held Republican primaries. Robert LaFollette won two of the first four primaries (North Dakota and Wisconsin), and Taft won the other two early primaries (New York and Nevada). 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.

The Republican Convention was held in Chicago from June 18 to June 22. Unfortunately for Roosevelt, Taft had started much earlier in rounding up delegates, and the delegates chosen by primary election were a minority. Taft had the support of the bulk of the party organizations in 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, former Confederate states supported Taft by a 209-40 margin). When the Republican National Convention gathered, Roosevelt was challenging 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 contests 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 LaFollette, but Roosevelt had alienated LaFollette, 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 in order 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 Vice President since Richard M. Johnson to be nominated for reelection.

Senator Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin

Former President Theodore Roosevelt of New York

President William Howard Taft of Ohio

[edit] Progressive Party nomination

TR on the stump (colorized postcard)

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 Hiram Johnson of California as his running mate. Questioned by reporters, Roosevelt said he felt as strong as a "bull moose." Thenceforth 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 A. Munsey and its executive secretary George 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.

[edit] Democratic Party nomination

Democratic candidates

Simeon Eben Baldwin, Governor of Connecticut
William Jennings Bryan, 1896, 1900, and 1908 presidential nominee from Nebraska
Champ Clark, Speaker of the House from Missouri
Eugene Foss, Governor of Massachusetts
Judson Harmon, Governor of Ohio
William J. Gaynor, Mayor of New York City
Ollie M. James, U.S. representative from Kentucky
John W. Kern, U.S. senator from Indiana
J. Hamilton Lewis, former U.S. representative from Illinois
Thomas R. Marshall, Governor of Indiana
William Sulzer, U.S. representative from New York
Oscar W. Underwood, House Majority Leader from Alabama
Woodrow Wilson, Governor of New Jersey

The Democratic Convention was held in Baltimore from June 25 to July 2. After a long deadlock, former Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan threw his support to Woodrow Wilson in order to defeat Missouri Representative Champ Clark. Clark had received a majority of the vote, but because of the "two-thirds rule" and bitter opposition from Bryan and others, his support faded. Wilson received the nomination on the 46th ballot. He then went on to win the election.

Governor Simeon Eben Baldwin of Connecticut	1896, 1900 and 1908 nominee William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska	House Speaker Champ Clark of Missouri	Governor Eugene Foss of Massachusetts
Governor Judson Harmon of Ohio	Mayor William J. Gaynor of New York	Representative Ollie M. James of Kentucky	Senator John W. Kern of Indiana
Former Representative J. Hamilton Lewis of Illinois	Governor Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana	U.S. Representative William Sulzer of New York	House Majority Leader Oscar W. Underwood of Alabama
Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey

[edit] Socialist Party nomination

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 Debs had run for President in 1900, 1904, and 1908, primarily to encourage the local effort, and he did so again in 1912.^[1]

The conservatives, led by Victor Berger of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 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, by sending encouragement to western “Wobblies”, and by 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, and a long list of progressive reforms that the Democratic party was known for. 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. The party was so factionalized it could not survive a national election that required unity, and it fell apart after 1912.^[2]

[edit] General election

[edit] Campaign

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

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. Nevertheless, Roosevelt was to the left of Wilson on many issues; had Roosevelt not been in the race, it is doubtful that Wilson would have defeated Taft. Many Roosevelt supporters undoubtedly would have preferred Taft to Wilson. The election of 1912 is considered the high tide of progressive politics. A match-up between Roosevelt and Wilson alone may also have produced a Wilson victory, as many conservatives may 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 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 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, especially, watching and chastising bad corporations and overruling federal and state judges who made unprogressive decisions. Wilson happened to support a policy called "The New Freedom". This policy was based mostly on individualism instead of a strong government. Taft, knowing he had no chance to win, campaigned quietly, and spoke of the need for judges to be more powerful than elected officials. The departure of the more extreme progressives left the conservatives even more firmly in control of the Republican Party, and many of the Old Guard leaders even distrusted Taft as too progressive for their taste, especially on matters of antitrust and tariffs. Much of the Republican effort was designed to discredit Roosevelt as a dangerous radical, but people knew Roosevelt too well to buy that argument. The result was the weakest Republican effort in history.

Roosevelt's strong third-party candidacy resulted in the only instance in the 20th century of a third party candidate receiving more votes than one of the major party candidates: although he failed to become chief executive again, Roosevelt succeeded in his vendetta against Taft, who received just twenty-three percent of the popular vote compared to Roosevelt's twenty-seven percent. Winning only eight electoral votes, Taft suffered a worse defeat than any other President defeated for reelection.

Nicholas Butler was selected to receive the electoral votes from Utah and Vermont that would have gone to Sherman.

Source: Library of Congress

[edit] Results

(This was the first 48-state election, with Arizona and New Mexico having joined the Union earlier in the year)

Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Popular Vote		Electoral Vote	Running Mate	Running Mate's Home State	RM's Electoral Vote
Presidential Candidate	Party	Home State	Count	Pct	Electoral Vote	Running Mate	Running Mate's Home State	RM's Electoral Vote
Thomas Woodrow Wilson	Democratic	New Jersey	6,296,284	41.8%	435	Thomas Riley Marshall	Indiana	435
Theodore Roosevelt	Progressive	New York	4,122,721	27.4%	88	Hiram Warren Johnson	California	88
William Howard Taft	Republican	Ohio	3,486,242	23.2%	8	Nicholas Murray Butler	New York	8
Eugene Victor Debs	Socialist	Indiana	901,551	6.0%	0	Emil Seidel	Wisconsin	0
Eugene Wilder Chafin	Prohibition	Illinois	208,156	1.4%	0	Aaron Sherman Watkins	Ohio	0
Arthur Elmer Reimer	Socialist Labor	Massachusetts	29,324	0.2%	0	August Gilhaus	New York	0
Other			4,556	0.0%	–	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 (July 28, 2005).

Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 31, 2005).

[edit] State by state results

		Woodrow Wilson			Theodore Roosevelt			William Taft			Eugene V. Debs
electoral votes	State	count	%	electoral votes	count	%	electoral votes	count	%	electoral votes	count	%	electoral votes
12	Alabama	82,438	69.9	12	22,680	19.2		9,807	8.3		3,029	2.6
3	Arizona	10,324	44.0	3	6,949	29.6		3,021	12.9		3,163	13.5
9	Arkansas	68,814	55.4	9	21,644	17.4		25,585	20.6		8,153	6.6
13	California	283,436	43.6	*2	283,610	43.6	*11	3,914	0.6		79,201	12.2
6	Colorado	114,232	43.7	6	72,306	27.7		58,386	22.3		16,418	6.3
7	Connecticut	74,561	39.9	7	34,129	18.2		68,324	36.5		10,056	5.4
3	Delaware	22,631	47.1	3	8,886	18.5		15,998	33.3		556	1.2
6	Florida	35,343	72.2	6	4,555	9.3		4,279	8.7		4,806	9.8
14	Georgia	93,087	76.7	14	21,985	18.1		5,191	4.3		1,058	0.9
4	Idaho	33,921	32.5	4	25,527	24.5		32,810	31.5		11,960	11.5
29	Illinois	405,048	36.0	29	386,478	34.3		253,593	22.5		81,278	7.2
15	Indiana	281,890	44.6	15	162,007	25.6		151,267	23.9		36,931	5.8
13	Iowa	185,325	38.3	13	161,819	33.4		119,805	24.8		16,967	3.5
10	Kansas	143,663	39.3	10	120,210	32.9		74,845	20.5		26,779	7.3
13	Kentucky	219,484	48.9	13	101,766	22.7		115,510	25.8		11,646	2.6
10	Louisiana	60,871	76.8	10	9,283	11.7		3,833	4.8		5,261	6.6
6	Maine	51,113	39.7	6	48,495	37.7		26,545	20.6		2,541	2.0
8	Maryland	112,674	49.1	8	57,789	25.2		54,956	24.0		3,996	1.7
18	Massachusetts	173,408	35.8	18	142,228	29.4		155,948	32.2		12,616	2.6
15	Michigan	150,751	27.9		214,584	39.7	15	152,244	28.2		23,211	4.3
12	Minnesota	106,426	32.8		125,856	38.8	12	64,334	19.8		27,505	8.5
10	Mississippi	57,324	88.9	10	3,549	5.5		1,560	2.4		2,050	3.2
18	Missouri	330,746	47.8	18	124,375	18.0		207,821	30.1		28,466	4.1
4	Montana	27,941	35.0	4	22,456	28.1		18,512	23.2		10,885	13.6
8	Nebraska	109,008	44.3	8	72,681	29.5		54,226	22.0		10,185	4.1
3	Nevada	7,986	39.7	3	5,620	27.9		3,196	15.9		3,313	16.5
4	New Hampshire	34,724	39.7	4	17,794	20.4		32,927	37.7		1,981	2.3
14	New Jersey	178,289	41.6	14	145,410	33.9		88,835	20.7		15,948	3.7
3	New Mexico	20,437	41.3	3	8,347	16.9		17,733	35.9		2,859	5.8
45	New York	655,573	41.9	45	390,093	24.9		455,487	29.1		63,434	4.1
12	North Carolina	144,407	59.3	12	69,135	28.4		29,129	12.0		987	0.4
5	North Dakota	29,555	34.6	5	25,726	30.1		23,090	27.1		6,966	8.2
24	Ohio	424,834	41.5	24	229,807	22.5		278,168	27.2		90,144	8.8
10	Oklahoma	119,156	47.4	10	not on ballot			90,786	36.1		41,674	16.6
5	Oregon	47,064	35.5	5	37,600	28.3		34,673	26.1		13,343	10.1
38	Pennsylvania	395,637	33.0		444,894	37.2	38	273,360	22.8		83,614	7.0
5	Rhode Island	30,412	39.5	5	16,878	21.9		27,703	36.0		2,049	2.7
9	South Carolina	48,357	96.0	9	1,293	2.6		536	1.1		164	0.3
5	South Dakota	48,942	43.5		58,811	52.3	5	not on ballot			4,662	4.1
12	Tennessee	133,021	53.0	12	54,041	21.5		60,475	24.1		3,564	1.4
20	Texas	221,589	73.1	20	28,853	9.5		26,755	8.8		25,743	8.5
4	Utah	36,579	32.7		24,174	21.6		42,100	37.6	4	9,023	8.1
4	Vermont	15,354	24.9		22,132	35.8		23,332	37.8	4	928	1.5
12	Virginia	90,332	66.3	12	21,776	16.0		23,288	17.1		820	0.6
7	Washington	86,840	27.9		113,698	36.5	7	70,445	22.6		40,134	12.9
8	West Virginia	113,097	42.8	8	79,112	29.9		56,754	21.5		15,248	5.8
13	Wisconsin	164,230	42.0	13	62,448	16.0		130,596	33.4		33,476	8.6
3	Wyoming	15,310	36.6	3	9,232	22.1		14,560	34.8		2,760	6.6
		count	%	electoral votes	count	%	electoral votes	count	%	electoral votes	count	%	electoral votes
531	Totals:	6,296,184	42.5	435	4,122,721	27.8	88	3,486,242	23.5	8	901,551	6.1	0
percentages in this table do not take into account other candidates

Source: Leip, David. 1912 Presidential Election Data by State. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (July 31, 2005).

[edit] Consequences

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 after 1912, and thus some Progressives like Harold L. Ickes joined the 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.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Chace, James (2004). 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs—The Election That Changed the Country. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-0394-1.
Cooper, John Milton, Jr. (1983). The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt.
Ira Kipnis, The American Socialist Movement, 1897-1912 1952.
Link, Arthur C. (1956). Wilson: Volume 1, The Road to the White House.
Morgan, H. Wayne (1962). Eugene V. Debs: Socialist for President. Syracuse University Press.
Mowry, George E. (1946). Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement.
Wilensky, Norman N. (1965). Conservatives in the Progressive Era: The Taft Republicans of 1912.