1916 United States presidential election

Democratic Party (United States) 1916 Democratic Party ticket
Woodrow Wilson	Thomas R. Marshall
for President	for Vice President
28th President of the United States (1913–1921)	28th Vice President of the United States (1913–1921)
HCV: 1,092 votes 1,202,492 votes

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

Republican Convention, The Coliseum, Chicago

The 1916 Republican National Convention was held in Chicago between June 7 and 10.

A major goal of the party leaders was to heal the bitter split that ripped the party apart in 1912. Although several candidates were openly competing for the 1916 nomination — most prominently Senator Elihu Root of New York and Senator John W. Weeks of Massachusetts — the leaders wanted a moderate who would be acceptable to both factions.

They turned to Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who had been serving on the court since 1910 and 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 remains, as of today, the only serving Supreme Court justice to be nominated for president by a major political party.

Candidates Considered
Theodore Roosevelt	Victor Murdock	Hiram Johnson	Gifford Pinchot
U.S. President from New York (1901–1909)	U.S. Representative from Kansas (1903–1915)	Governor of California (1911–1917)	Chief of the U.S. Forest Service from Pennsylvania (1905–1910)
DN	NFN	DI	DI

The Progressive Party re-nominated former President Theodore Roosevelt.

For Vice President, Progressives nominated businessman John Parker of Louisiana, who had run an unsuccessful campaign. California Governor Hiram Johnson was suggested for renomination, and Raymond Robins, chairman of the party convention, was proposed, but both withdrew their names in favor of Parker.

However, Roosevelt telegraphed the convention and declared that he could not accept their nomination and would be endorsing Republican nominee Charles Evans Hughes for the Presidency. Roosevelt turned down the Progressive nomination for both personal and political reasons. He was convinced that running for president on a third-party ticket again would merely give the election to the Democrats and had developed a strong dislike for President Wilson. He also believed Wilson was allowing Germany and other warring nations in Europe to "bully" and intimidate the United States.[7][8][9]

Former U.S. Representative Victor Murdock of Kansas pushed for a ticket consisting of William Jennings Bryan and Henry Ford but nothing came of it. Some, such as National Committeeman Harold L. Ickes, refused to consider endorsing Hughes. There was some talk of replacing Roosevelt with Hiram Johnson or Gifford Pinchot. All those discussed refused to consider the notion, and by this point, some leaders such as Henry Justin Allen had started to follow Roosevelt's lead and endorsed Hughes. Various state parties, such as those in Iowa and Maine, began to disband.

Finally, when the Progressive Party National Committee met in Chicago on June 26, those in attendance begrudgingly endorsed Hughes; even those like Ickes who had vehemently refused to consider granting an endorsement to Hughes began to recognize that without Roosevelt the party had no electoral staying power. There had been a weak attempt to replace Roosevelt on the ticket with Victor Murdock, but the motion was defeated 31 to 15.

With Roosevelt refusing their nomination, the Progressive Party quickly fell into disarray. Most members returned to the Republican Party, but a substantial minority supported Wilson for his efforts in keeping the United States out of World War I.

Without a presidential nominee, many in the party, notably vice-presidential nominee John Parker and Bainbridge Colby, remained steadfast in their refusal to support Hughes. Parker desired the presidential nomination himself. Colby, while opposed to the endorsement of Hughes, now considered a Progressive campaign impractical and privately supported Wilson. It appeared likely for a time that another convention would be called in early August, until a conference held among the remaining representatives of the party in Indianapolis decided against it, while also narrowly voting against filling the vacancy that had been caused by Roosevelt's refusal to be placed on the ticket (though Parker remained the vice-presidential nominee). Electoral tickets would still be put in place where the Progressive Party remained organized in the hopes of electing enough electors so as to possibly hold the balance of power in a close contest between the Democratic and Republican candidates.

While running as the vice-presidential nominee, John Parker would endorse Woodrow Wilson for the Presidency.[10][11]

Candidates in this section are sorted by number of votes received in the Mail-In Primary
James H. Maurer	Arthur LeSueur
State Representative from Pennsylvania (1915–1919)	Newspaper Editor from North Dakota
12,264 votes	3,495 votes

Eugene V. Debs and Charles Edward Russell declined to run for the nomination.[12] Debs, who had served as the party's presidential nominee since its foundation, chose to run for a seat in the United States House of Representatives from Indiana's 5th congressional district.[13] Allan Benson, a newspaper editor from New York, quickly came to dominate the field on a platform of his fervent opposition to militarism and proposal that all wars should be voted upon in a national referendum. Rather than a traditional nominating convention, the vote was conducted through a mail-order ballot, with Benson capturing 16,639 out of a total of 32,398 cast (to 12,264 for Maurer and 3,495 for Le Sueur). A vote for the vice-presidential nomination was jointly held with George Ross Kirkpatrick, a lecturer from New Jersey, winning the nomination 20,607 to 11,388 over Kate Richards O'Hare of Missouri.[14]

Candidates in this section are sorted by their highest vote count on the nominating ballots
William Sulzer
State Assemblyman from New York (1914–1914)
181 votes

The twelfth Prohibition National Convention assembled in Saint Paul, Minnesota on July 19. Before the convention a number of figures were considered potential nominees for the Presidency, among them former Democratic Presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan, former Governor of New York William Sulzer, former Governor of Massachusetts Eugene Foss, former Governor of Indiana Frank Hanly, former General Nelson Miles, and former Alabama Congressman Richmond Hobson;[15] Sulzer and Hanly ultimately were the only two to actively campaign for the nomination. It was generally recognized early on that Hanly's nomination was favored with a supporter of his, Robert Patton, being named as permanent chairman of the convention. This culminated with the adoption of much of his program into the Party platform and his own nomination for the Presidency, Hanly receiving 440 votes to Sulzer's 181.[16][17] Ira Landrith, a Presbyterian minister from Tennessee and member of the Flying Squadron of America was nominated for the Vice Presidency after other names were withdrawn from contention before the first ballot.

In the weeks prior to the election, Wilson began to worry that, were he to lose the race to Hughes, he would remain a lame duck until March 1917. For Wilson, this was problematic, given that the United States was likely on the eve of its entry into the First World War. Wilson, thus, privately floated a contingency plan: were Hughes to win, Wilson would immediately appoint Hughes secretary of state (a role which was, at the time, second-in-line to the presidency). Wilson and Vice President Marshall would both then resign, allowing Hughes to immediately become acting president, thereby avoiding a lengthy lame duck presidency.[23][24] This plan was first revealed publicly two decades later in the memoirs of Robert Lansing, Wilson's secretary of state, who, under the plan, would have had to have resigned or been dismissed in order to allow Hughes to assume that office.[25]

Some New York newspapers declared Hughes the winner on Wednesday morning, including The World and The Sun, which erroneously published that six states (California, Idaho, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming) had voted for Hughes.[26] The official gazette of the Kingdom of Serbia also declared him the winner on 16 November 1916.[27]

A popular legend from the 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[lower-alpha 1] 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."[28][29]

By Wednesday evening, Wilson had secured 254 electoral votes in the counting, needing either California or Minnesota to claim victory.[30] Democrats declared victory in California on Thursday afternoon, and the California Republican Party conceded defeat that night.[31]

Wilson was the first Democratic president to win a second consecutive term since Andrew Jackson in 1832.[32] Vice-president Thomas R. Marshall also earned the distinction of becoming the first vice-president of any party elected to a second term since John C. Calhoun in 1828. As Calhoun had served as vice president under John Quincy Adams and was re-elected to serve under Andrew Jackson, Wilson and Marshall became the first incumbent ticket to win re-election since James Monroe and Daniel D. Tompkins in 1820.

The electoral vote was one of the closest in U.S. history – with 266 votes needed to win, Wilson took 30 states for 277 electoral votes, while Hughes won 18 states and 254 electoral votes. Wilson was the second of just four presidents in United States history to win re-election with a lower percentage of the electoral vote than in their prior elections, the other three were James Madison in 1812, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 and 1944 and Barack Obama in 2012.

Wilson's popular vote margin of 3.1 percent was the smallest attained by a victorious sitting president since 1812 and retained that status until 2004.

The total popular vote cast in 1916 exceeded that of 1912 by 3,500,000. The very large total vote was an indication of an aroused public interest in the campaign. It was larger in every section, notably in the East North Central section. Some of this was due to the extension of suffrage to women in individual states. In Illinois, for example, the total vote was one million greater than in 1912. It increased by more than 260,000 in Kansas, and in Montana, it more than doubled.

Wilson's vote was 9,126,868, an increase of nearly 3,000,000. There was a gain in every section and in every state. Hughes, the nominee of the united Republican Party, polled more votes by nearly 1,000,000 than had ever been cast for a Republican candidate.

Among the third-party candidates, Benson's vote dropped to a little over half of what Eugene Debs had earned at the previous election, though this would still represent the best-ever showing of any Socialist candidate other than Debs. Hanly's performance would mark the last time the Prohibition Party exceeded one percent of the popular vote, with the party quickly declining into irrelevance after the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919.

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. "1916 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved July 28, 2005.

Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 31, 2005.

The key state proved to be California, which Wilson won by only 3,800 votes out of nearly a million cast. If Hughes had carried California and its 13 electoral votes, he would have won the election.

Although New Hampshire may not have been a deciding state in the election, the margin of victory for Wilson there was the second smallest ever recorded in an American presidential election at just 56 votes, behind Franklin Pierce's 25-vote victory in Delaware in 1852.[33][lower-alpha 2]

In some of the states carried by Wilson, particularly in the South, the popular-vote margin was large. Wilson ran behind Hughes in New England, the Mid-Atlantic states, and in the East North Central section.[34] His lead was not great in the West North Central, but was very large in the West South Central and Mountain as well as in the East South Central and South Atlantic sections.[35] Half of Wilson's total vote was cast in the 18 states that he did not carry.

To date this is the last presidential election in which North Dakota and South Dakota did not vote for the same candidate, with the only others being 1896 and 1912. This is the last time Illinois voted for a losing candidate until 1976, the last time Minnesota voted for a losing candidate until 1968, and the last time West Virginia voted for a losing candidate until 1952. It was the only time a Democrat was elected without winning West Virginia from the state's founding until 2008.[lower-alpha 3]

This was the last election in which the Democrats won New Hampshire until 1936 and the last in which the Democrats won Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming until 1932.

This would also be one of four times in which the winning presidential candidate lost his home state including 1844, 1968, and 2016. This election and the 1968 election are the only elections ever where the winning Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates lost each of their home states.

Wilson was the last Democrat to win an election without carrying Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island (although he had previously won the latter two states in 1912).

Margin of victory of less than 1% (52 electoral votes):

1. New Hampshire, 0.06% (56 votes)
2. Minnesota, 0.10% (392 votes)
3. California, 0.38% (3,773 votes) (tipping point state)
4. West Virginia, 0.94% (2,721 votes)
5. Indiana, 0.97% (6,942 votes)

Margin of victory of less than 5% (77 electoral votes):

1. North Dakota, 1.50% (1,735 votes)
2. Delaware, 2.43% (1,258 votes)
3. Oregon, 2.57% (6,726 votes)
4. Connecticut, 3.15% (6,728 votes)
5. New Mexico, 3.56% (2,375 votes)
6. Missouri, 3.65% (28,693 votes)
7. South Dakota, 3.90% (5,026 votes)
8. Massachusetts, 3.93% (20,899 votes)
9. Maine, 4.02% (5,475 votes)
10. Washington, 4.25% (16,180 votes)

Margin of victory of between 5% and 10% (162 electoral votes):

1. Rhode Island, 5.08% (4,464 votes)
2. Kentucky, 5.41% (28,136 votes)
3. Kansas, 5.86% (36,930 votes)
4. Wisconsin, 6.59% (29,459 votes)
5. New York, 7.02% (119,812 votes)
6. Ohio, 7.67% (89,408 votes)
7. Maryland, 8.02% (21,012 votes)
8. Michigan, 8.04% (52,322 votes)
9. Illinois, 9.23% (202,320 votes)

Of the 3,022 counties making returns, Wilson led in 2,039 counties (67.47%). Hughes managed to carry only 976 counties (32.30%), the smallest number in the Republican column in a two-party contest during the Fourth Party System. Two counties (0.07%) split evenly between Wilson and Hughes. Although the Progressive Party had no presidential candidate (just candidates for presidential electors who were unpledged for president), they carried five counties (0.17%), whilst nine counties – 0.30 percent and the same as in 1912 – inhabited either by Native Americans without citizenship or disenfranchised African Americans failed to return a single vote. Wilson carried 200 counties that had never voted Democratic in a two-party contest prior to that time.[37]

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Democratic)

1. Dillon County, South Carolina 100.00%
2. Hampton County, South Carolina 100.00%
3. Jasper County, South Carolina 100.00%
4. Tunica County, Mississippi 100.00%
5. Echols County, Georgia 100.00%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Republican)

1. Leslie County, Kentucky 91.55%
2. Sevier County, Tennessee 90.42%
3. Zapata County, Texas 89.17%
4. Jackson County, Kentucky 87.90%
5. Johnson County, Tennessee 87.33%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Other)

1. Lafourche Parish, Louisiana 59.38%
2. Glascock County, Georgia 53.79%
3. Paulding County, Georgia 53.52%
4. Fannin County, Georgia 51.29%
5. Iberia Parish, Louisiana 47.59%

• 
  Results by state
• 
  Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote
• 
  Results by county, shaded according to percentage of the vote for Wilson
• 
  Results by county, shaded according to percentage of the vote for Hughes
• 
  Results by county, shaded according to percentage of the vote for all others
• 
  A continuous cartogram of the 1916 United States presidential election
• 
  Cartogram shaded according to percentage of the vote for Wilson
• 
  Cartogram shaded according to percentage of the vote for Hughes
• 
  Cartogram shaded according to percentage of the vote for all others

• Chester, Edward W A guide to political platforms (1977) online
• Porter, Kirk H. and Donald Bruce Johnson, eds. National party platforms, 1840-1964 (1965) online 1840-1956