United States presidential election, 1916

United States presidential election, 1916

1912 ← November 7, 1916 → 1920

Nominee Woodrow Wilson Charles Evans Hughes Party Democratic Republican Home state New Jersey New York Running mate Thomas R. Marshall Charles W. Fairbanks Electoral vote 277 254 States carried 30 18 Popular vote 9,126,868 8,548,728 Percentage 49.2% 46.1%

Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Hughes/Fairbanks, Blue denotes those won by Wilson/Marshall. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.

President before election Woodrow Wilson Democratic Elected President Woodrow Wilson Democratic

The United States presidential election of 1916 took place while Europe was embroiled in World War I. Public sentiment in the still neutral United States leaned towards the British and French (allied) forces, due to the harsh treatment of civilians by the German Army, which had invaded and occupied large parts of Belgium and northern France. However, despite their sympathy with the allied forces, most American voters wanted to avoid involvement in the war, and preferred to continue a policy of neutrality. The campaign pitted incumbent President Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic candidate, against Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican candidate. After a hard-fought contest, Wilson defeated Hughes by a narrow margin. Wilson was helped by his campaign slogan "He kept us out of war".

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

Main article: 1916 Republican National Convention

Republican candidates:

• Charles Evans Hughes, U.S. Supreme Court Justice and former Governor of New York
• John W. Weeks, U.S. senator from Massachusetts
• Elihu Root, former U.S. senator from New York
• Charles W. Fairbanks, former Vice President of the United States from Indiana

Candidates gallery

• 

  U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes of New York

• 

  Senator John W. Weeks of Massachusetts

• 

  Former Senator Elihu Root of New York

• 

  Former Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks of Indiana

Republican National Convention

The 1916 Republican National Convention was held in Chicago from June 7 to June 10. A major goal of the party's bosses at the convention was to heal the bitter split within the party that had occurred in the 1912 presidential campaign. In that year, Theodore Roosevelt bolted the GOP and formed his own political party, the Progressive Party, which contained most of the GOP's liberals. William Howard Taft, the incumbent president, won the nomination of the regular Republican Party. This split in the GOP ranks divided the Republican vote and led to the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Although several candidates were openly competing for the 1916 nomination—most prominently conservative Senator Elihu Root of New York and liberal Senator John W. Weeks of Massachusetts—the party's bosses wanted a moderate who would be acceptable to both factions of the party. They turned to Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who had served on the court since 1910 and thus had the advantage of not having publicly spoken about political issues in six years. Although he had not actively sought the nomination, Hughes made it known that he would not turn it down; he won the nomination on the third ballot. Former Vice-President Charles W. Fairbanks was nominated as his running mate. Hughes was the only Supreme Court Justice to be nominated for president by a major political party.

Republican Convention, The Coliseum, Chicago

Ballot	1	2	3
Charles Evans Hughes	253	326	950
John W. Weeks	105	102	2
Elihu Root	103	89	9
Charles W. Fairbanks	89	75	7
Albert B. Cummins	85	77	2
Theodore Roosevelt	81	65	19
Theodore E. Burton	78	69	9
Lawrence Yates Sherman	66	59	5
Philander C. Knox	36	30	6
Henry Ford	32	29	9
Martin Grove Brumbaugh	29	22	2
Robert M. La Follette	25	25	23
William Howard Taft	14	4	0
T. Coleman du Pont	7	13	6
Henry Cabot Lodge	7	2	0
John Wanamaker	5	1	1
Frank B. Willis	1	2	2
William Borah	2	0	2
Warren G. Harding	1	0	1
Samuel W. McCall	0	1	1
Leonard Wood	0	1	1

Democratic Party nomination

Main article: 1916 Democratic National Convention

Democratic candidate:

• Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States from New Jersey

Candidates gallery

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  President Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey

Democratic National Convention

The 1916 Democratic National Convention was held in St. Louis, Missouri from June 14 to June 16. Given Wilson's enormous popularity within the party, he was overwhelmingly re-nominated. Vice-President Thomas R. Marshall was also re-nominated with no opposition.

Progressive Party Nomination

The Progressives re-nominated former President Theodore Roosevelt, but he withdrew from the race and supported Hughes. When Roosevelt refused to be their candidate, the Progressive Party quickly fell apart; most of its members returned to the Republican Party, although a substantial minority supported Wilson for his efforts in keeping the United States out of World War I. Roosevelt turned down the Progressive nomination for both personal and political reasons. He had become convinced that running for president on a third-party ticket again would merely give the election to the Democrats. Furthermore, had developed a strong dislike for President Wilson, who he believed was allowing Germany and other warring nations in Europe to "bully" the United States.

General election

The fall campaign

See also: American entry into World War I

The fighting in Europe dominated the campaign. Woodrow Wilson campaigned for re-election on a pledge of continued neutrality in the World War I. His campaign slogan, "He Kept Us out of War", was highly popular. Hughes advocated a program of greater mobilization and preparedness; some pro-Wilson newspapers claimed that Hughes, if elected, was secretly planning to take America into the war. With Wilson having successfully pressured the Germans to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare, it was difficult for Hughes to attack Wilson's peace platform. Hughes criticized Wilson's military interventions in Mexico, where the U.S. was supporting various factions in the Mexican civil war. Hughes also attacked Wilson for his support of various "pro-labor" laws (such as limiting the workday to eight hours), on the grounds that they were harmful to business interests. However, his criticisms gained little traction, especially among factory workers who had supported such laws. Hughes was helped by the vigorous support of popular former President Theodore Roosevelt, and by the fact that the Republicans were still the nation's majority party at the time. A key mistake by Hughes was made in California. Just before the election Hughes made a campaign swing through the state. While in Long Beach he stayed in the same hotel as Hiram Johnson, the powerful Republican Governor of the state. Hughes — who may not have known of Johnson's presence in the hotel — never made the short trip to greet Johnson in his hotel suite. Johnson took this as a deliberate snub and never gave Hughes his full support. Given the extremely narrow loss Hughes suffered in California, this unintentional slight may have cost him the presidency. The pivotal importance of California was remarkable, since it had traditionally been a reliably Republican state (Democratic presidential candidates had earlier carried it only twice since 1856). Furthermore, it controlled only a modest number of electoral votes at this time in history (13).

Results

Results by county explicitly indicating the percentage of the winning candidate in each county. Shades of blue are for Woodrow Wilson, shades of red are for Charles Hughes, and shades of green are for no candidate. Grey indicates counties with no information or results.

On election night (November 7), Hughes took an early lead in the Eastern and Midwestern states, and several newspapers declared him the winner. However, Wilson refused to concede, and as returns came in from the South and West, Wilson made a comeback and eventually took the lead. The key state proved to be California, which Wilson won by only 3,800 votes out of nearly a million cast. The electoral vote was one of the closest in American history - with 266 votes needed to win, Wilson took 30 states for 277 electoral votes, while Hughes won 18 states and 254 electoral votes. If Hughes had carried California and its 13 electoral votes, he would have won the election. In the popular vote Wilson's lead was larger, although it was still narrow - Wilson took 49% of the popular vote to Hughes' 46%. A popular legend from the 1916 campaign states that Hughes went to bed on election night thinking that he was the newly-elected president. When a reporter tried to telephone him the next morning to get his reaction to Wilson's comeback, someone (stories vary as to whether this person was his son or a butler or valet) answered the phone and told the reporter that "the president is asleep." The reporter retorted, "When he wakes up, tell him he isn't the president."

Vice-President Thomas R. Marshall became the first vice-president elected to a second term since John C. Calhoun in 1828. Woodrow Wilson became the first Democratic president to win a second consecutive term since Andrew Jackson. Wilson was only the second person to win a presidential election but not win his home state (New Jersey). The first was James K. Polk, who in 1844 did not carry his home state of Tennessee or the state of his birth, North Carolina (George W. Bush did not carry his birth state of Connecticut in 2000 and 2004, but he won his home state of Texas both times). Wilson's popular vote margin of victory, 3.1%, was also the smallest percentage margin for a victorious sitting president in history until the 2004 election, in which George W. Bush won the popular vote with 50.7% against John Kerry's 48.3%, producing a margin of 2.4%. Although Wilson won three states he lost in 1912 (California, Utah and Washington), he lost 13 states he had earlier carried. Wilson is the only president in U.S. history to win re-election with fewer electoral votes than in his first election. He was not the only president to win re-election with a lower percentage of the electoral vote in his second election, however, as James Madison won re-election with a smaller percentage of the electoral vote than in his first election, but still won more electoral votes (this is because the total number of electoral votes increased from 175 to 217 between the years 1808 and 1812).

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	9,126,868	49.2%	277	Thomas R. Marshall	Indiana	277
Charles Evans Hughes	Republican	New York	8,548,728	46.1%	254	Charles W. Fairbanks	Indiana	254
Allan L. Benson	Socialist	New York	590,524	3.2%	0	George Ross Kirkpatrick	New Jersey	0
Frank Hanly	Prohibition	Indiana	221,302	1.2%	0	Ira Landrith	Tennessee	0
Other			49,163	0.3%	—	Other		—
Total			18,536,585	100%	531			531
Needed to win					266			266

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1916 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).

Close states

Business advertising postcard exploiting public interest in the election; parts of Wilson's and Hughes' faces can be seen in this image, with the U.S. Capitol building in the background

1. New Hampshire, 0.06%
2. Minnesota, 0.1%
3. California, 0.3%
4. Indiana, 0.9%
5. West Virginia, 1.0%
6. North Dakota, 1.5%
7. Delaware, 2.4%
8. Oregon, 2.6%
9. Missouri, 2.7%
10. Connecticut, 3.2%
11. South Dakota, 3.9%
12. Massachusetts, 3.9%
13. Maine, 4.0%
14. Washington, 4.2%

Bibliography

• Leary, William M., Jr. (1967). "Woodrow Wilson, Irish Americans, and the Election of 1916". The Journal of American History (Organization of American Historians) 54 (1): 57–72. doi:10.2307/1900319. JSTOR 1900319. 
• Link, Arthur Stanley (1954). Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910–1917. New York: Harper. 
• Link, Arthur Stanley (1965). Wilson: Campaigns For Progressivism and Peace 1916–1917. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 
• Lovell, S. D. (1980). The Presidential Election of 1916. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0809309653. 
• Pusey, Merlo J. (1951). Charles Evans Hughes. 1. New York: Macmillan. 

See also

• President of the United States
• History of the United States (1865-1918)

External links

• 1916 popular vote by counties
• How close was the 1916 election? — Michael Sheppard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology