1896 United States presidential election in Utah

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1896 United States presidential election in Utah
US flag 45 stars.svg
November 3, 1896 1900  
  William Jennings Bryan 2 (cropped).jpg William McKinley by Courtney Art Studio, 1896 (cropped).jpg
Nominee William Jennings Bryan William McKinley
Party Democratic Republican
Alliance Populist -
Home state Nebraska Ohio
Running mate Arthur Sewall (Democratic) [a]
Thomas E. Watson (Populist) [b]
Garret Hobart
Electoral vote30
Popular vote64,610 [c] 13,491
Percentage82.70%17.27%

Utah 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 Utah was held on November 3, 1896, as part of the 1896 United States presidential election. Voters chose three representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. This was the first time Utah participated in a presidential election, having been admitted as the 45th state on January 4 of that year.

Contents

Democrat William Jennings Bryan carried Utah by an overwhelming margin of 65.43% over Republican William McKinley—by far the strongest ever performance by any presidential nominee in the state—despite narrowly losing the national election. As such, this is the only time a Republican has won the presidency without winning Utah, starkly contrasting with the state's subsequent status as one of the most staunchly Republican states in the nation.

Utah had been established as a territory within five years of the earliest settlement by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but opposition by the Republican Party – dominant from 1860 – to Mormon polygamy meant that Utah was consistently refused statehood. [1] Consequently, Utah territorial politics until 1891 was dominated by the Mormon-hierarchy-controlled "People's Party" and the anti-Mormon "Liberal Party". [2] Those Mormons who did affiliate with national parties generally were Democrats, who lacked moral qualms associated with polygamy and slavery – although the Liberal Party did have allies within the GOP. [3] In order to achieve statehood, however, the LDS Church disbanded the "People's Party" in 1891 and most LDS members moved towards the Democratic Party.

The 1896 election in Utah was dominated by the influence of silver mine owners, who overwhelmingly supported Democrat/Populist William Jennings Bryan because he advocated coinage of free silver at a ratio of 16-to-1 with gold. [4] As a consequence, Utah voted overwhelmingly for Bryan, who won the state by 65.43 percentage points, in what remains by far the strongest-ever performance by any presidential nominee in the state. Even with Republicans overwhelmingly dominating Utah politics since the 1960s, this margin has not been approached by any party or candidate since. Bryan carried every county except Kane in the far south – where his margin of defeat remains the second-best ever by a Democrat, behind Woodrow Wilson's narrow 1916 victory – with greater than sixty-five percent of the vote, and exceeded seventy percent in all but one.

With 82.7% of the popular vote, Utah would prove to be Bryan's fourth strongest state in the 1896 presidential election after Mississippi, South Carolina and Colorado. [5]

Bryan would later lose Utah to William McKinley four years later and would lose the state again to Republican William Howard Taft in 1908. Bryan's support for many Populist goals resulted in him being nominated by both the Democratic Party and the People's Party (Populists), though with different running mates. One electoral vote from Utah was cast for the Populist Bryan-Watson ticket with Thomas E. Watson as vice-president and two votes were cast for the Bryan-Sewall ticket.

Results

1896 United States presidential election in Utah [6]
PartyCandidateVotesPercentageElectoral votes
Democratic William Jennings Bryan64,61082.70%2
Populist William Jennings Bryan00.00%1
Total William Jennings Bryan 64,610 [c] 82.70%3
Republican William McKinley 13,49117.27%0
Write-ins Others210.03%0
Totals294,674100.0%12

Results by county

CountyWilliam Jennings Bryan
Democratic/Populist
William McKinley
Republican
Various candidates
Write-ins
MarginTotal votes cast [7]
# %# %# %# %
Beaver 1,05783.76%20516.24%85267.51%1,262
Box Elder 1,87971.88%73528.12%1,14443.76%2,614
Cache 4,39583.97%83916.03%3,55667.94%5,234
Carbon 66388.64%8511.36%57877.27%748
Davis 1,75379.57%45020.43%1,30359.15%2,203
Emery 98581.00%23119.00%75462.01%1,216
Garfield 61571.18%24928.82%36642.36%864
Grand 26490.41%289.59%23680.82%292
Iron 80679.72%20520.28%60159.45%1,011
Juab 2,36384.33%43915.67%1,92468.67%2,802
Kane 23044.40%28855.60%-58-11.20%518
Millard 1,38489.29%16610.71%1,21878.58%1,550
Morgan 58280.83%13819.17%44461.67%720
Piute 55594.23%345.77%52188.46%589
Rich 40871.58%16228.42%24643.16%570
Salt Lake 18,61787.75%2,57712.15%210.10%16,04075.61%21,215
San Juan 16795.43%84.57%15990.86%175
Sanpete 3,38765.13%1,81334.87%1,57430.27%5,200
Sevier 1,85878.90%49721.10%1,36157.79%2,355
Summit 3,40293.28%2456.72%3,15786.56%3,647
Tooele 1,68486.01%27413.99%1,41072.01%1,958
Uintah 89088.82%11211.18%77877.64%1,002
Utah 7,37578.34%2,03921.66%5,33656.68%9,414
Wasatch 1,33396.32%513.68%1,28292.63%1,384
Washington 1,21087.68%17012.32%1,04075.36%1,380
Wayne 40583.85%7816.15%32767.70%483
Weber 6,34382.21%1,37317.79%4,97064.41%7,716
Totals64,61082.70%13,49117.27%210.03%51,11965.43%78,122

See also

Notes

  1. Two of the three electors voted for Arthur Sewall of Maine as Vice-President.
  2. One of the three electors voted for Thomas E. Watson of Georgia as Vice-President.
  3. 1 2 Other figures have 64,607 votes for Bryan, but the county results from The Presidential Vote sum to 64,610.

References

  1. Talbot, Christine; A Foreign Kingdom: Mormons and Polygamy in American Political Culture, 1852-1890, p. 113 ISBN   0252095359
  2. May, Dean L. ; Utah: A People's History, pp. 120-121 ISBN   0874802849
  3. Handy, Robert T.; Undermined Establishment: Church-State Relations in America, 1880-1920, p. 55 ISBN   1400862361
  4. Rove, Karl; The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters, p. 148 ISBN   1476752966
  5. "1896 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  6. "1896 Presidential General Election Results – Utah". U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved April 12, 2013.
  7. Robinson, Edgar Eugene; The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932 (second edition); pp. 223-224 Published 1947 by Stanford University Press