1896 United States presidential election in North Dakota

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1896 United States presidential election in North Dakota
Flag of North Dakota.svg
  1892 November 3, 1896 1900  
  William McKinley by Courtney Art Studio, 1896 (cropped).jpg William Jennings Bryan 2 (cropped).jpg
Nominee William McKinley William Jennings Bryan
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Ohio Nebraska
Running mate Garret Hobart Arthur Sewall
Electoral vote30
Popular vote26,33520,686
Percentage55.57%43.65%

North Dakota Presidential Election Results 1896.svg
County Results

President before election

Grover Cleveland
Democratic

Elected President

William McKinley
Republican

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

Contents

Although the state had been carried by a fusion ticket under the “Populist” label in 1892, unlike the other Mountain and Plains states, North Dakota was largely Catholic and Lutheran and opposed Populist and Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan’s evangelistic Protestantism. [1] In spite of the fact that this predominantly wheat-growing state was severely hit by drought, high interest rates and problems of poor transportation, [2] hostility to Bryan’s fundamentalism amongst the Russian-Germans of the southern part of the state was intense, while the Catholic Church under the influence of John Ireland also condemned Bryan’s free silver policy at the same time as Bryan toured North Dakota in October. [3] There was also fear that if Bryan were elected the nation would split as severely as it had in 1861 after the election of Abraham Lincoln, [4] and Archbishop Ireland pointed out that Bryan’s election might create class war.

For these reasons, Bryan was able to carry only the rural Scandinavian-American counties in the Red River Valley and the north of the state adjacent to Minnesota and Canada. In the predominantly German remainder of the state, Republican nominees, former Ohio Governor William McKinley and his running mate Garret Hobart of New Jersey established a Republican dominance of the state’s presidential politics that would prove permanent except during the Prohibition and New Deal era.

McKinley won North Dakota by a margin of 11.92 percentage points, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to win the state. He repeated this much more decisively four years later. Bryan would also later lose the state to William Howard Taft in 1908. Bryan would be the only Democrat to carry any of North Dakota’s counties until Woodrow Wilson in 1912 [5] and the only one to obtain a majority in a North Dakota county until Wilson in 1916. This is the only election ever where North Dakota and Kansas didn't choose the same candidate. [lower-alpha 1]

Results

1896 United States presidential election in North Dakota [6]
PartyCandidateVotesPercentageElectoral votes
Republican William McKinley 26,33555.57%3
Democratic William Jennings Bryan 20,68643.65%0
Prohibition Joshua Levering 3580.76%0
Write-ins Scattered120.03%0
Totals47,391100.00%3
Voter turnout

Results by county

County [7] William McKinley
Republican
William Jennings Bryan
Democratic
John Granville Woolley
Prohibition
MarginTotal votes cast
#%#%#%#%
Barnes 98649.62%97749.17%241.21%90.45%1,987
Benson 54970.11%22728.99%70.89%32241.12%783
Billings 7873.58%2725.47%10.94%5148.11%106
Bottineau 36948.36%38950.98%50.66%-20-2.62%763
Burleigh 72968.13%33831.59%30.28%39136.54%1,070
Cass 3,05058.80%2,08940.27%480.93%96118.53%5,187
Cavalier 73038.42%1,15860.95%120.63%-428-22.53%1,900
Dickey 61951.07%58748.43%60.50%322.64%1,212
Eddy 27853.15%24346.46%20.38%356.69%523
Emmons 30063.69%16835.67%30.64%13228.03%471
Foster 21659.83%14339.61%20.55%7320.22%361
Grand Forks 2,43255.72%1,89343.37%400.92%53912.35%4,365
Griggs 31846.42%36052.55%71.02%-42-6.13%685
Kidder 17662.86%10437.14%00.00%7225.71%280
LaMoure 46053.30%40146.47%20.23%596.84%863
Logan 7073.68%2526.32%00.00%4547.37%95
McHenry 21756.51%16643.23%10.26%5113.28%384
McIntosh 33683.58%6616.42%00.00%27067.16%402
McLean 12461.08%7938.92%00.00%4522.17%203
Mercer 11580.42%2819.58%00.00%8760.84%143
Morton 75265.51%39334.23%30.26%35931.27%1,148
Nelson 61650.45%60349.39%20.16%131.06%1,221
Oliver 5950.43%5849.57%00.00%10.85%117
Pembina 1,68747.57%1,80750.96%521.47%-120-3.38%3,546
Pierce 22274.50%7525.17%10.34%14749.33%298
Ramsey 86955.78%66542.68%120.77%20413.09%1,558 [lower-alpha 2]
Ransom 76656.49%57942.70%110.81%18713.79%1,356
Richland 1,84361.13%1,16038.47%120.40%68322.65%3,015
Rolette 30647.44%33151.32%81.24%-25-3.88%645
Sargent 58747.84%63651.83%40.33%-49-3.99%1,227
Stark 53070.86%21628.88%20.27%31441.98%748
Steele 57263.49%32235.74%70.78%25027.75%901
Stutsman 70554.44%57844.63%120.93%1279.81%1,295
Towner 30342.74%39455.57%121.69%-91-12.83%709
Traill 1,67370.68%67428.47%200.84%99942.21%2,367
Walsh 1,70744.18%2,13455.23%230.60%-427-11.05%3,864
Ward 29960.28%19338.91%40.81%10621.37%496
Wells 58464.25%31734.87%80.88%26729.37%909
Williams 10354.79%8344.15%21.06%2010.64%188
Totals26,33555.57%20,68643.65%3580.76%5,64911.92%47,391

See also

Notes

  1. In 1892, when Kansas gave all its votes to James B. Weaver, North Dakota, although giving a plurality to Weaver, split its votes one each between Weaver, Democrat Grover Cleveland and Republican Benjamin Harrison.
  2. 12 write-in votes were recorded from this county.

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References

  1. Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 418 ISBN   978-0-691-16324-6
  2. Barry Eichengreen; Michael R. Haines; Matthew S. Jaremski; David Leblang. "Populists at the Polls: Economic Factors in the 1896 Presidential Election" (PDF). National Bureau of Economic Research.
  3. Harpine, William D.; From the Front Porch to the Front Page: McKinley and Bryan in the 1896 Presidential Campaign, pp. 166-167 ISBN   9781585444502
  4. Patrick J. Kelly. "The Election of 1896 and the Restructuring of Civil War Memory" (PDF). Kent State University Press.
  5. Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, pp. 271-273 ISBN   0786422173
  6. Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas; Presidential General Election Results – North Dakota
  7. Géoelections; Popular Vote at the Presidential Election for 1896 (.xlsx file for €30 including full minor party figures)