1896 United States presidential election in Utah
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The 1896 United States presidential election in Utah was held on November 3, 1896 as part of the 1896 United States presidential election. Voters chose three representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
This was the first time Utah participated in a presidential election, having been admitted as the 45th state on January 4 of that year.
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.
Electoral Vote
Bryan's support for many Populist goals resulted in him being nominated by both the Democratic Party and the People's Party (Populists), though with different running mates. One electoral vote from Utah was cast for the Populist Bryan-Watson ticket with Thomas E. Watson as Vice-President and two votes were cast for the Bryan-Sewall ticket.
Results
| 1896 United States presidential election in Utah[5] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Democratic | William Jennings Bryan | 64,610[a] | 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 | William Jennings Bryan Democratic/Populist |
William McKinley Republican |
Various candidates Write-ins |
Margin | Total votes cast[6] | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Beaver | 1,057 | 83.76% | 205 | 16.24% | 852 | 67.51% | 1,262 | ||
| Box Elder | 1,879 | 71.88% | 735 | 28.12% | 1,144 | 43.76% | 2,614 | ||
| Cache | 4,395 | 83.97% | 839 | 16.03% | 3,556 | 67.94% | 5,234 | ||
| Carbon | 663 | 88.64% | 85 | 11.36% | 578 | 77.27% | 748 | ||
| Davis | 1,753 | 79.57% | 450 | 20.43% | 1,303 | 59.15% | 2,203 | ||
| Emery | 985 | 81.00% | 231 | 19.00% | 754 | 62.01% | 1,216 | ||
| Garfield | 615 | 71.18% | 249 | 28.82% | 366 | 42.36% | 864 | ||
| Grand | 264 | 90.41% | 28 | 9.59% | 236 | 80.82% | 292 | ||
| Iron | 806 | 79.72% | 205 | 20.28% | 601 | 59.45% | 1,011 | ||
| Juab | 2,363 | 84.33% | 439 | 15.67% | 1,924 | 68.67% | 2,802 | ||
| Kane | 230 | 44.40% | 288 | 55.60% | -58 | -11.20% | 518 | ||
| Millard | 1,384 | 89.29% | 166 | 10.71% | 1,218 | 78.58% | 1,550 | ||
| Morgan | 582 | 80.83% | 138 | 19.17% | 444 | 61.67% | 720 | ||
| Piute | 555 | 94.23% | 34 | 5.77% | 521 | 88.46% | 589 | ||
| Rich | 408 | 71.58% | 162 | 28.42% | 246 | 43.16% | 570 | ||
| Salt Lake | 18,617 | 87.75% | 2,577 | 12.15% | 21 | 0.10% | 16,040 | 75.61% | 21,215 |
| San Juan | 167 | 95.43% | 8 | 4.57% | 159 | 90.86% | 175 | ||
| Sanpete | 3,387 | 65.13% | 1,813 | 34.87% | 1,574 | 30.27% | 5,200 | ||
| Sevier | 1,858 | 78.90% | 497 | 21.10% | 1,361 | 57.79% | 2,355 | ||
| Summit | 3,402 | 93.28% | 245 | 6.72% | 3,157 | 86.56% | 3,647 | ||
| Tooele | 1,684 | 86.01% | 274 | 13.99% | 1,410 | 72.01% | 1,958 | ||
| Uintah | 890 | 88.82% | 112 | 11.18% | 778 | 77.64% | 1,002 | ||
| Utah | 7,375 | 78.34% | 2,039 | 21.66% | 5,336 | 56.68% | 9,414 | ||
| Wasatch | 1,333 | 96.32% | 51 | 3.68% | 1,282 | 92.63% | 1,384 | ||
| Washington | 1,210 | 87.68% | 170 | 12.32% | 1,040 | 75.36% | 1,380 | ||
| Wayne | 405 | 83.85% | 78 | 16.15% | 327 | 67.70% | 483 | ||
| Weber | 6,343 | 82.21% | 1,373 | 17.79% | 4,970 | 64.41% | 7,716 | ||
| Totals | 64,610 | 82.70% | 13,491 | 17.27% | 21 | 0.03% | 51,119 | 65.43% | 78,122 |
Notes
References
- ^ Talbot, Christine; A Foreign Kingdom: Mormons and Polygamy in American Political Culture, 1852-1890, p. 113 ISBN 0252095359
- ^ May, Dean L. ; Utah: A People's History, pp. 120-121 ISBN 0874802849
- ^ Handy, Robert T.; Undermined Establishment: Church-State Relations in America, 1880-1920, p. 55 ISBN 1400862361
- ^ Rove, Karl; The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters, p. 148 ISBN 1476752966
- ^ "1896 Presidential General Election Results – Utah". U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
- ^ Robinson, Edgar Eugene; The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932 (second edition); pp. 223-224 Published 1947 by Stanford University Press
