United States presidential election in Utah, 1896

United States presidential election in Utah, 1896
Utah
November 3, 1896

 
Nominee William Jennings Bryan William McKinley
Party Democratic Republican
Home state Nebraska Ohio
Running mate Arthur Sewall Garret Hobart
Electoral vote 3 0
Popular vote 64,610[lower-alpha 1] 13,491
Percentage 82.70% 17.27%
President before election

Grover Cleveland
Democratic

 Elected President

William McKinley
Republican

The 1896 United States presidential election in Utah was held on November 3, 1896, and was Utah’s first election after statehood at the beginning of the year. Utah voters chose three electors to the Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice President.

Background

Utah had been established as a territory within five years of the earliest settlement by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but opposition by the Republican Party – dominant from 1860 – to Mormon polygyny meant that Utah was consistently refused statehood.[1] Consequently, Utah territorial politics until 1891 was dominated by the Mormon-hierarchy-controlled “People's Party” and the anti-Mormon “Liberal Party”.[2] Those Mormons who did affiliate with national parties generally were Democrats, who lacked moral qualms associated with polygyny and slavery – although the Liberal Party did have allies within the GOP.[3] In order to achieve statehood, however, the LDS Church disbanded the “People’s Party” in 1891 and most LDS members moved towards the Democratic Party.

The 1896 election in Utah was dominated by the influence of silver mine owners, who overwhelmingly supported Democrat/Populist William Jennings Bryan because he advocated coinage of free silver at a ratio of 16 to 1 with gold.[4]

As a consequence, Utah voted overwhelmingly for Bryan, who won the state by 65.43 percentage points. Even with overwhelming Republican dominance of Utah since the late 1960s, this margin has not been approached since. Apart from Kane County in the far south – and even here Bryan’s performance remains the second-best ever by a Democrat behind Woodrow Wilson’s narrow 1916 victory – Bryan exceeded sixty-five percent of the vote in every county, and exceeded seventy percent in all but two.

Results

United States presidential election in Utah, 1896[5]
Party Candidate Votes Percentage Electoral votes
Democratic William Jennings Bryan 64,610[lower-alpha 1] 82,70% 3
Republican William McKinley 13,491 17.27% 0
Write-ins Others 21 0.03% 0
Totals 294,674 100.0% 12

Results by county

County Bryan# Bryan% McKinley# McKinley% Write-ins# Write-ins% Total votes cast[6]
Beaver 1,057 83.76% 205 16.24% 1,262
Box Elder 1,879 71.88% 735 28.12% 2,614
Cache 4,395 83.97% 839 16.03% 5,234
Carbon 663 88.64% 85 11.36% 748
Davis 1,753 79.57% 450 20.43% 2,203
Emery 985 81.00% 231 19.00% 1,216
Garfield 615 71.18% 249 28.82% 864
Grand 264 90.41% 28 9.59% 292
Iron 806 79.72% 205 20.28% 1,011
Juab 2,363 84.33% 439 15.67% 2,802
Kane 230 44.40% 288 55.60% 518
Millard 1,384 89.29% 166 10.71% 1,550
Morgan 582 80.83% 138 19.17% 720
Piute 555 94.23% 34 5.77% 589
Rich 408 71.58% 162 28.42% 570
Salt Lake 18,617 87.75% 2,577 12.15% 21 0.10% 21,215
San Juan 167 95.43% 8 4.57% 175
Sanpete 3,387 65.13% 1,813 34.87% 5,200
Sevier 1,858 78.90% 497 21.10% 2,355
Summit 3,402 93.28% 245 6.72% 3,647
Tooele 1,684 86.01% 274 13.99% 1,958
Uintah 890 88.82% 112 11.18% 1,002
Utah 7,375 78.34% 2,039 21.66% 9,414
Wasatch 1,333 96.32% 51 3.68% 1,384
Washington 1,210 87.68% 170 12.32% 1,380
Wayne 405 83.85% 78 16.15% 483
Weber 6,343 82.21% 1,373 17.79% 7,716
Totals64,61082.70%13,49117.27%210.03%78,122

References

  1. ↑ Talbot, Christine; A Foreign Kingdom: Mormons and Polygamy in American Political Culture, 1852-1890, p. 113 ISBN 0252095359
  2. ↑ May, Dean L. ; Utah: A People’s History, pp. 120-121 ISBN 0874802849
  3. ↑ Handy, Robert T.; Undermined Establishment: Church-State Relations in America, 1880-1920, p. 55 ISBN 1400862361
  4. ↑ Rove, Karl; The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters, p. 148 ISBN 1476752966
  5. ↑ "1896 Presidential General Election Results – Utah". U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
  6. ↑ Robinson, Edgar Eugene; The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932 (second edition); pp. 223-224 Published 1947 by Stanford University Press

Notes

  1. 1 2 Other figures have 64,607 votes for Bryan, but the county results from The Presidential Vote sum to 64,610.
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