1896 United States presidential election in Colorado

Main article: 1896 United States presidential election

1896 United States presidential election in Colorado

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Nominee William Jennings Bryan William McKinley Party Democratic Republican Alliance Populist Home state Nebraska Ohio Running mate Arthur Sewall Garret Hobart Electoral vote 4 0 Popular vote 161,005 26,271 Percentage 84.95% 13.86%

County Results Bryan   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90%   90-100% McKinley   50-60%

President before election Grover Cleveland Democratic Elected President William McKinley Republican

The 1896 United States presidential election in Colorado took place on November 3, 1896. All contemporary 45 states were part of the 1896 United States presidential election. Voters chose four electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.

In its early days as a state, Colorado had like the Plains States to its east been solidly Republican. However, with crises emerging in its agricultural sector from low wheat prices ^[1] and a severe drought in 1888 and 1889, ^[2] and the state's underdevelopment leading to resentment of the Northeast, ^[3] the new Populist Party was able to largely take over the state's politics in the early 1890s. Aided by fusion with the minority Democratic Party and strong support for free silver in this state which produced over half of all American silver, ^[2] the Populist Party under James B. Weaver in 1892 carried the state's presidential electoral votes and won both its congressional seats. ^[2] After the Republicans gained a 130-seat majority in the House of Representatives following the 1894 elections, five dissident Republicans from the Mountain States who supported free silver jointed together as the “Silver Republicans” ^{[lower-alpha 1]} They supported nominating Centennial State Senator Henry M. Teller for president at first, but ultimately this was viewed as impractical and the Silver Republicans fused with Democrat/Populist ticket headed by William Jennings Bryan. ^[4]

Bryan's support for free silver against the existing gold standard supported by Republican nominee William McKinley ensured he had virtually unanimous support from Colorado's silver-dependent business elite. ^[5] Once a fusion between Democrats, Populists, and Silver Republicans was fully finalized, there was no campaigning in Colorado as all polls showed Bryan would carry the state very easily. ^[6] Bryan, in the end, carried Colorado by a margin of 71.09%, by over twenty percent the best performance by any presidential candidate in the history of the state. ^{[lower-alpha 2] [7]} Bryan carried all but two of Colorado's counties, and won nineteen with over ninety percent of the vote, with McKinley retaining significant support only on the eastern High Plains, where the power of the silver magnates was much less.

With 84.95% of the popular vote, Colorado would prove to be Bryan's third strongest state in the 1896 presidential election only after Mississippi and South Carolina. ^[8]

Bryan would win Colorado against William McKinley again in 1900 and would later also win the state against William Howard Taft in 1908, making the state one of just two western states Bryan would carry in all three of his runs (the other being Nevada). This is the first election where the Republican candidate won without the state.

Results

1896 United States presidential election in Colorado [9]
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Democratic	William Jennings Bryan	158,614	83.69%	4
	Populist	William Jennings Bryan	2,391	1.26%	0
	Total	William Jennings Bryan	161,005	84.95%	4
	Republican	William McKinley	26,271	13.86%	0
	Prohibition	Joshua Levering	1,717	0.91%	0
	National Prohibition	Charles E. Bentley	386	0.20%	0
	Socialist Labor	Charles H. Matchett	159	0.08%	0
	National Democratic	John M. Palmer	1	0.00%	0
Totals			189,539	100.00%	4
Voter turnout					—

Results by county

County	William Jennings Bryan [10] Democratic		William McKinley [10] Republican		Joshua Levering [10] Prohibition		Various candidates [10] Other parties		Margin
	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#
Pitkin	98.97%	3,763	0.71%	27	0.05%	2	0.26%	10	98.26%	3,736
San Juan	98.71%	1,535	1.09%	17	0.13%	2	0.06%	1	97.62%	1,518
Mineral	98.30%	808	1.34%	11	0.24%	2	0.12%	1	96.96%	797
Dolores	98.11%	676	1.60%	11	0.15%	1	0.15%	1	96.52%	665
Ouray	98.08%	2,192	1.70%	38	0.13%	3	0.09%	2	96.38%	2,154
Summit	97.64%	1,243	2.20%	28	0.16%	2	0.00%	0	95.44%	1,215
Clear Creek	96.84%	3,345	2.92%	101	0.23%	8	0.00%	0	93.92%	3,244
Hinsdale	96.40%	697	2.63%	19	0.55%	4	0.41%	3	93.78%	678
La Plata	96.57%	2,729	3.22%	91	0.18%	5	0.04%	1	93.35%	2,638
Montezuma	96.13%	845	3.75%	33	0.11%	1	0.00%	0	92.38%	812
Lake	96.04%	6,518	3.76%	255	0.16%	11	0.04%	3	92.28%	6,263
Conejos	95.98%	2,388	3.86%	96	0.04%	1	0.12%	3	92.12%	2,292
San Miguel	95.70%	2,136	3.90%	87	0.18%	4	0.22%	5	91.80%	2,049
Eagle	95.04%	1,149	4.38%	53	0.41%	5	0.17%	2	90.65%	1,096
Grand	94.72%	251	4.53%	12	0.38%	1	0.38%	1	90.19%	239
Chaffee	94.35%	2,606	5.10%	141	0.25%	7	0.29%	8	89.25%	2,465
Gunnison	93.29%	2,268	6.17%	150	0.25%	6	0.29%	7	87.12%	2,118
Garfield	90.81%	2,065	7.61%	173	1.14%	26	0.44%	10	83.20%	1,892
Delta	89.85%	1,603	7.79%	139	2.13%	38	0.22%	4	82.06%	1,464
Park	90.81%	1,562	8.78%	151	0.35%	6	0.06%	1	82.03%	1,411
Jefferson	88.99%	3,176	8.41%	300	1.79%	64	0.81%	29	80.58%	2,876
Gilpin	89.76%	2,532	9.43%	266	0.64%	18	0.18%	5	80.33%	2,266
Routt	89.62%	1,105	9.89%	122	0.16%	2	0.32%	4	79.72%	983
Rio Blanco	89.55%	454	10.26%	52	0.20%	1	0.00%	0	79.29%	402
Rio Grande	87.71%	1,428	10.81%	176	1.29%	21	0.18%	3	76.90%	1,252
Montrose	86.19%	1,348	11.64%	182	0.96%	15	1.21%	19	74.55%	1,166
Arapahoe	86.54%	42,521	12.33%	6,057	0.76%	374	0.37%	182	74.21%	36,464
Saguache	86.45%	1,155	13.17%	176	0.07%	1	0.30%	4	73.28%	979
Fremont	85.07%	4,267	12.78%	641	2.01%	101	0.14%	7	72.29%	3,626
Pueblo	85.39%	8,373	13.44%	1,318	0.55%	54	0.62%	61	71.95%	7,055
Douglas	85.24%	1,051	13.95%	172	0.65%	8	0.16%	2	71.29%	879
Custer	85.07%	986	14.41%	167	0.35%	4	0.17%	2	70.66%	819
Boulder	83.87%	6,046	14.33%	1,033	1.62%	117	0.18%	13	69.54%	5,013
Weld	82.13%	4,620	15.54%	874	1.69%	95	0.64%	36	66.60%	3,746
Las Animas	82.50%	5,497	16.90%	1,126	0.53%	35	0.08%	5	65.60%	4,371
Mesa	80.04%	2,374	15.81%	469	3.14%	93	1.01%	30	64.23%	1,905
Larimer	78.83%	3,195	18.11%	734	2.79%	113	0.27%	11	60.72%	2,461
Otero	79.12%	2,167	19.13%	524	1.46%	40	0.29%	8	59.99%	1,643
Bent	73.88%	591	24.63%	197	1.38%	11	0.13%	1	49.25%	394
Morgan	72.88%	602	25.54%	211	0.97%	8	0.61%	5	47.34%	391
Costilla	73.36%	1,052	26.08%	374	0.42%	6	0.14%	2	47.28%	678
El Paso	72.84%	17,672	25.75%	6,248	1.22%	296	0.18%	44	47.09%	11,424
Archuleta	73.18%	393	26.26%	141	0.56%	3	0.00%	0	46.93%	252
Elbert	72.70%	751	26.52%	274	0.58%	6	0.19%	2	46.18%	477
Logan	69.23%	603	26.52%	231	3.67%	32	0.57%	5	42.71%	372
Yuma	69.83%	442	28.44%	180	1.74%	11	0.00%	0	41.39%	262
Huerfano	67.45%	1,929	32.48%	929	0.07%	2	0.00%	0	34.97%	1,000
Prowers	63.16%	552	34.78%	304	1.72%	15	0.34%	3	28.38%	248
Lincoln	62.69%	210	36.72%	123	0.30%	1	0.30%	1	25.97%	87
Phillips	62.78%	334	36.84%	196	0.38%	2	0.00%	0	25.94%	138
Sedgwick	60.85%	216	36.62%	130	1.97%	7	0.56%	2	24.23%	86
Cheyenne	54.45%	104	45.55%	87	0.00%	0	0.00%	0	8.90%	17
Kiowa	53.45%	155	45.86%	133	0.69%	2	0.00%	0	7.59%	22
Baca	51.53%	135	47.71%	125	0.76%	2	0.00%	0	3.82%	10
Kit Carson	46.45%	229	51.12%	252	1.62%	8	0.81%	4	-4.67%	-23
Washington	42.86%	177	53.75%	222	3.39%	14	0.00%	0	-10.90%	-45

Notes

1. Henry M. Teller of Colorado, Fred T. Dubois of Idaho, Frank J. Cannon of Utah and Thomas H. Carter and Lee Mantle of Montana. ^[4]
2. The second-best Colorado presidential election performance was by Herbert Hoover in 1928, when, aided by powerful anti-Catholic sentiment against Al Smith in the High Plains, he won 64.72 percent of the vote.

References

1. Gormley, Ken (editor); The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History, p. 299 ISBN   1479839906
2. Larson, Robert W.; ‘Populism in the Mountain West: A Mainstream Movement’; Western Historical Quarterly; Vol. 13, No. 2 (April 1982), pp. 143-164
3. Azari, Julia and Hetherington, Mark J.; ‘Back to the Future? What the Politics of the Late Nineteenth Century Can Tell Us about the 2016 Election’; The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science; Vol 667: Elections in America; (September 2016), pp. 92-109
4. Ellis, Elmer; ‘The Silver Republicans in the Election of 1896’; The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (March 1932), pp. 519-534
5. Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 458 ISBN   9780691163246
6. ‘Ready for the Vote: Campaign Now Closed in Nearly All States of the Union’; Baltimore Sun , November 2, 1896, p. 2
7. "Presidential General Election Results Comparison – Colorado". Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas.
8. "1896 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
9. "1896 Presidential General Election Results – Colorado". Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas.
10. Géoelections; Popular Vote at the Presidential Election for 1896 (.xlsx file for €30 including full minor party figures)