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1920 United States presidential election in Wyoming

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United States presidential election in Wyoming, 1920

← 1916 November 2, 1920 1924 →
 
Nominee Warren G. Harding James M. Cox
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Ohio Ohio
Running mate Calvin Coolidge Franklin D. Roosevelt
Electoral vote 3 0
Popular vote 35,091 17,429
Percentage 64.15% 31.86%

President before election

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic

Elected President

Warren G. Harding
Republican

The 1920 United States presidential election in Wyoming took place on November 2, 1920, as part of the 1920 United States presidential election. Wyoming voters chose three representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Wyoming was won by Republican Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding, running with governor of Massachusetts and the future 30th president of the United States Calvin Coolidge, with 64.15 percent of the popular vote, against the Democratic 46th and 48th Governor of Ohio James M. Cox, running with the future Governor of New York and 32nd President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt, with 31.86 percent of the popular vote.[1]

Like all of the Western United States, severe anger at President Woodrow Wilson's failure to maintain his promise to keep the United States out of World War I produced extreme hostility among the strongly isolationist population of remote Wyoming.[2] In addition, by the beginning of 1920 skyrocketing inflation and Wilson's focus upon his proposed League of Nations at the expense of domestic policy had helped make the incumbent president very unpopular[3] – besides which Wilson also had major health problems that had left First Lady Edith effectively running the nation. Political unrest seen in the Palmer Raids and the "Red Scare" further added to the unpopularity of the Democratic Party, since this global political turmoil produced considerable fear of alien revolutionaries invading the country.[4] Demand in the West for exclusion of Asian immigrants became even stronger than it had been before.[5] Another factor hurting the Democratic Party was the migration of many people from the traditionally Republican Upper Midwest into the state.[2]

Because the West had been the chief presidential battleground ever since the "System of 1896" emerged following that election,[6] Governor Cox traveled across the western states in August and September, but he did not visit Wyoming with its tiny population and poverty of electoral votes. No polls were taken in the state, but a Republican success was universally assumed.

Vote

Like every Mountain state, Wyoming, which had voted strongly for Woodrow Wilson in 1916 – turned very strongly against Cox, who was to lose the state by a two-to-one majority, after Charles Evans Hughes had lost the state by double digits in 1916. Harding carried every county in Wyoming with an absolute majority, and passed sixty percent in all but three. Socialist Eugene Debs was not on the ballot in Wyoming, but Socialist Labor Party candidate Allan Benson managed double figures in Sheridan County.

This would prove the last time Sweetwater County voted Republican until Richard Nixon's landslide 1972 victory.[7]

Results

United States presidential election in Wyoming, 1920[1]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican Calvin Coolidge 35,091 64.15%
Democratic Party James M. Cox 17,429 31.86%
Socialist Labor Allan Benson 2,180 3.99%
Total votes 54,700 100.00%

Results by county

County Harding# Harding% Cox# Cox% Benson# Benson% Total votes cast[8]
Albany 1,769 59.16% 1,145 38.29% 76 2.54% 2,990
Big Horn 2,157 65.78% 1,083 33.03% 39 1.19% 3,279
Campbell 1,027 66.69% 493 32.01% 20 1.30% 1,540
Carbon 1,871 60.65% 1,039 33.68% 175 5.67% 3,085
Converse 1,561 69.41% 679 30.19% 9 0.40% 2,249
Crook 934 67.24% 451 32.47% 4 0.29% 1,389
Fremont 2,194 67.61% 994 30.63% 57 1.76% 3,245
Goshen 1,496 72.73% 552 26.84% 9 0.44% 2,057
Hot Springs 1,212 64.61% 529 28.20% 135 7.20% 1,876
Johnson 1,202 69.36% 525 30.29% 6 0.35% 1,733
Laramie 3,399 62.60% 1,810 33.33% 221 4.07% 5,430
Lincoln 2,043 61.06% 1,154 34.49% 149 4.45% 3,346
Natrona 2,957 66.20% 1,153 25.81% 357 7.99% 4,467
Niobrara 969 73.52% 345 26.18% 4 0.30% 1,318
Park 1,630 70.53% 666 28.82% 15 0.65% 2,311
Platte 1,405 65.68% 694 32.45% 40 1.87% 2,139
Sheridan 2,645 60.43% 1,192 27.23% 540 12.34% 4,377
Sweetwater 1,744 54.14% 1,216 37.75% 261 8.10% 3,221
Uinta 1,191 55.76% 914 42.79% 31 1.45% 2,136
Washakie 609 64.31% 333 35.16% 5 0.53% 947
Weston 1,073 68.65% 463 29.62% 27 1.73% 1,563
Totals 35,088 64.15% 17,430 31.87% 2,180 3.99% 54,698

References

  1. ^ a b "1920 Presidential Election Results – Wyoming". {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  2. ^ a b Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 461–462 ISBN 9780691163246
  3. ^ Goldberg, David Joseph; Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s, p. 44 ISBN 0801860059
  4. ^ Leuchtenburg, William E.; The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-1932, p. 75 ISBN 0226473724
  5. ^ Vought, Hans P. ; The Bully Pulpit and the Melting Pot: American Presidents And The Immigrant, 1897-1933, p. 167 ISBN 0865548870
  6. ^ Faykosh, Joseph D., Bowling Green State University; The Front Porch of the American People: James Cox and the Presidential Election of 1920 (thesis), p. 68
  7. ^ Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, pp. 342-343 ISBN 0786422173
  8. ^ Scammon, Richard M. (compiler); America at the Polls: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics 1920-1964; p. 514 ISBN 0405077114