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 County results Jones: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% Kolb: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Alabama |
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 Government |
The 1892 Alabama gubernatorial election took place on August 1, 1892, in order to elect the governor of Alabama.
Following the end of Reconstruction in Alabama, the Populist movement rose as an alliance of small-scale farmers and poor laborers to challenge the state's planter aristocracy. Populists supported policies such as government regulation of railroads, a silver standard for currency, and public storage of crops to drive up agricultural prices. [1] In contrast, the Bourbon Democrats represented the land-owning elite in the state who were returned to power after Reconstruction ended. [1]
In 1890, Reuben Kolb, a member of the Farmers' Alliance, challenged Thomas Goode Jones for the Democratic nomination for Governor; after Jones took the nomination, Kolb accused him and the Bourbon Democrats of illegal tactics. [1]
In 1892, Kolb again challenged Jones for the Democratic nomination. Though he denied he was a Populist, he accepted the endorsement of the People's Party. After Jones again won the regular Democratic nomination, Kolb also accepted the endorsement of the "Jeffersonian Democrats." [1] The Republican Party, which was limited to a presence in a few northern counties, did not field a candidate or make any formal endorsement, but most white Republicans supported Kolb, if only to injure the regular Democrats. Jones’s supporters were traditional Democrats, including lawyers, politicians, the press (except for a small group of reform newspapers), and wealthy farmers. [1]
Though African Americans in the Black Belt were normally Republicans and they overwhelmingly favored Kolb, their vote was rigidly controlled by the Democrats, who dominated economic life and the machinery of government in the Black Belt. [1] During the campaign, money, whiskey, and threats were used to influence and change votes. [1]
Alabamians turned out in large numbers for the August election, with 243,037 ballots cast. Jones received 126,959 votes to Kolb’s 115,524, and 544 ballots were scattered among minor candidates. In the fifteen Black Belt counties, Jones defeated Kolb by the runaway margin of 30,117 votes. He received majority votes in Montgomery County (6,254 votes), Dallas County (6,117 votes), and Wilcox County (5,350 votes). Of Kolb’s 37 counties, only five were in the Black Belt, and his majorities were much narrower than elsewhere in the state. [1]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Thomas G. Jones (incumbent) | 126,955 | 52.19 | |
| Independent Democrat | Reuben Kolb | 115,732 | 47.58 | |
| Other | Write-ins | 550 | 0.23 | |
| Total votes | 243,237 | 100.00 | ||
| Democratic hold | ||||
Election fraud was likely rampant. Ballot boxes with Kolb majorities were stolen after the election. In the Black Belt, returns were announced, changed, and announced again to show larger majorities for Jones. In Pike County, collusion between the sheriff and elections officials carried the vote for Jones. [1] Kolb and other reform leaders issued legal threats, but because Alabama did not have a law permitting election contests, they ultimately could do nothing. Historical analysis has declared that Kolb was the legitimately elected governor but was counted out in the Black Belt. [1]
Kolb also ran for governor in 1894 and lost under similar circumstances. [1]
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 1892. In the fourth rematch in American history, the Democratic nominee, former president Grover Cleveland, defeated the incumbent Republican President Benjamin Harrison. Cleveland's victory made him the first president in American history to be elected to a non-consecutive second term, a feat not repeated until Donald Trump was elected in 2024. This was the first of two occasions when incumbents were defeated in consecutive elections—the second being Gerald Ford's loss in 1976 to Jimmy Carter followed by Carter's loss in 1980 to Ronald Reagan. The 1892 election saw the incumbent White House party defeated in three consecutive elections, which did not occur again until 2024.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 3, 1896. Former Governor William McKinley, the Republican nominee, defeated former Representative William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee. The 1896 campaign, which took place during an economic depression known as the Panic of 1893, was a political realignment that ended the old Third Party System and began the Fourth Party System.
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Electoral fusion in the United States is an arrangement where two or more United States political parties on a ballot list the same candidate, allowing that candidate to receive votes on multiple party lines in the same election.
The People's Party, usually known as the populist party or simply the Populists, was an agrarian populist political party in the United States in the late 19th century. The Populist Party emerged in the early 1890s as an important force in the Southern and Western United States, but declined rapidly after the 1896 United States presidential election in which most of its natural constituency was absorbed by the Bryan wing of the Democratic Party. A rump faction of the party continued to operate into the first decade of the 20th century, but never matched the popularity of the party in the early 1890s.
Thomas Goode Jones was an Alabama lawyer, politician, and military officer. He served in the Alabama legislature and as Governor of Alabama. He later became United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Black populism was a broad-based, independent political movement started by Black Americans following the end of the Reconstruction era. The movement began among Black agricultural workers as a response to Jim Crow laws. They sought better pay and labor protections, increased funding for Black schools, criminal justice reform, and increased participation of Black Americans in politics.
Bourbon Democrat was a term used in the United States in the later 19th century and early 20th century (1872–1904) to refer to members of the Democratic Party who were ideologically aligned with fiscal conservatism or classical liberalism, especially those who supported presidential candidates Charles O'Conor in 1872, Samuel J. Tilden in 1876, President Grover Cleveland in 1884, 1888, and 1892 and Alton B. Parker in 1904.
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The Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union was formed in 1886 in Texas. Despite the fact that both black and white farmers faced great difficulties due to the rising price of farming and the decreasing profits which were coming from farming, the protective organization known as the Southern Farmers' Alliance did not allow black farmers to join. A group of black farmers decided to organize their own alliance, to fill their needs. The organization rapidly spread across the Southern United States, peaking with a membership of 1.2 million in 1891.
The Alabama Republican Party is the state affiliate of the Republican Party in Alabama. It is the dominant political party in Alabama. The state party is governed by the Alabama Republican Executive Committee. The committee usually meets twice a year. As of the February 23, 2019 meeting in Birmingham, the committee is composed of 463 members. Most of the committee's members are elected in district elections across Alabama. The district members are elected in the Republican Primary once every four years, with the most recent election for the committee having been on June 5, 2018. The new committee takes office following the general election in November 2018. In addition, all 67 county GOP chairmen have automatic seats as voting members. The state chairman can appoint 10 members. Each county committee can appoint bonus members based on a formula that theoretically could add 312 seats, although that formula currently calls for only about 50 seats.
The Election Massacre of 1874, or Coup of 1874, took place on election day, November 3, 1874, near Eufaula, Alabama in Barbour County. Freedmen comprised a majority of the population and had been electing Republican candidates to office. Members of an Alabama chapter of the White League, a paramilitary group supporting the Democratic Party's drive to regain political power in the county and state, used firearms to ambush black Republicans at the polls.
Elections in Alabama are authorized under the Alabama State Constitution, which establishes elections for the state level officers, cabinet, and legislature, and the election of county-level officers, including members of school boards.
Reuben Francis Kolb (1839–1918) was an Alabama politician. Kolb ran unsuccessfully for governor of Alabama thrice, in 1890, 1892 and 1894, first as a Democrat and then as a Populist. He also served as the state's commissioner of agriculture twice, in 1887 and between 1910 and 1914.
The 1968 United States presidential election in Alabama was held on November 5, 1968. In Alabama, voters voted for electors individually instead of as a slate, as in the other 49 states.
The 1928 United States presidential election in Alabama took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the 1928 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all contemporary forty-eight states. Voters chose twelve representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. This was the last election in which Alabama had twelve electoral votes: the Great Migration caused the state to lose congressional districts after the 1930 Census produced the first Congressional redistricting since 1911.
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The 1896 United States presidential election in Louisiana took place on November 3, 1896. All contemporary 45 states were part of the 1896 United States presidential election. State voters chose eight electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.
From 1894 to 1900 the North Carolina Republican Party and the Populist Party collaborated via electoral fusion to compete against the North Carolina Democratic Party. This political coalition was dubbed Fusionism.
 Alabama gubernatorial elections | |
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