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| Elections in North Carolina |
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The 1900 North Carolina gubernatorial election was held on August 2, 1900. Democratic nominee Charles Brantley Aycock defeated Republican nominee Spencer B. Adams with 59.57% of the vote. The election started a string of 18 consecutive elections in which the Democratic nominee won the Governor's office. The state would not elect another Republican as governor until James E. Holshouser, Jr. won in 1972. [1]
The backdrop of the election campaign was the backlash among whites to the relatively large role that African Americans had played in politics during the 1890s, as the coalition (or "Fusion") of Republicans and Populists took power. In 1898, the state Democratic Party won back the majority of seats in the legislature on a platform emphasizing "white supremacy." The resulting legislature then proposed an amendment to the North Carolina Constitution which added a literacy test and a poll tax requirement for voting, amounting to disfranchisement. The state's voters approved the constitutional amendment on the same day as the 1900 gubernatorial election. [2] [3]
Aycock, who had been a prominent spokesman for Democrats in the 1898 campaign, was unopposed for the Democratic Party nomination for Governor. During the campaign, Aycock emphasized not only white supremacy but also improving the public school system. [2] The Republicans nominated Spencer Adams, an attorney and former North Carolina Superior Court judge. [4]
The general election campaign featured a pro-Democratic paramilitary force known as Red Shirts. The party seemed to threaten violence, including a "willingness — in Aycock’s words — to 'rule by force'; only a vote for white supremacy and Black disenfranchisement would restore peace and good order." [5]
Major party candidates
Other candidates
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Charles Brantley Aycock | 186,650 | 59.57% | ||
| Republican | Spencer B. Adams | 126,296 | 40.31% | ||
| Prohibition | Henry Sheets | 358 | 0.11% | ||
| Majority | 60,354 | ||||
| Turnout | |||||
| Democratic gain from Republican | Swing | ||||
The 1796 United States presidential election was the third quadrennial presidential election of the United States. It was held from Friday, November 4 to Wednesday, December 7, 1796. It was the first contested American presidential election, the first presidential election in which political parties played a dominant role, and the only presidential election in which a president and vice president were elected from opposing tickets. Incumbent vice president John Adams of the Federalist Party defeated former secretary of state Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party.
Charles Brantley Aycock was the 50th governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1901 to 1905. After starting his career as a lawyer and teacher, he became active in the Democratic Party during the party's Solid South period, and made his reputation as a prominent segregationist.
Locke Craig, an American lawyer and Democratic politician, was the 53rd governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina, serving from 1913 until 1917.
Daniel Lindsay Russell Jr. was an American politician who served as the 49th governor of North Carolina, from 1897 to 1901. An attorney and judge, he had also been elected as state representative and to the United States Congress, serving from 1879 to 1881. Although he fought with the Confederacy during the Civil War, Russell and his father were both Unionists. After the war, Russell joined the Republican Party in North Carolina, which was an unusual affiliation for one of the planter class. In the postwar period he served as a state judge, as well as in the state and national legislatures.
Furnifold McLendel Simmons was an American politician who served as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1887, to March 4, 1889, and U.S. senator from the state of North Carolina between March 4, 1901, and March 4, 1931. He served as chairman of the powerful Committee on Finance from March 4, 1913, to March 4, 1919. He was an unsuccessful contender for the 1920 Democratic Party nomination for president. Simmons was a staunch segregationist and white supremacist, and a leading perpetrator of the Wilmington insurrection of 1898.
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Alfred Moore Waddell was an American politician and white supremacist. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a U.S. representative from North Carolina between 1871 and 1879 and as mayor of Wilmington, North Carolina from 1898 to 1906.
The Wilmington insurrection of 1898, also known as the Wilmington massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington coup of 1898, was a coup d'état and a massacre which was carried out by white supremacists in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States, on Thursday, November 10, 1898. The white press in Wilmington originally described the event as a race riot caused by black people. In later study from the 20th century onward, the event has been characterized as a violent overthrow of a duly elected government by a group of white supremacists.
The Red Shirts or Redshirts of the Southern United States were white supremacist paramilitary terrorist groups that were active in the late 19th century in the last years of, and after the end of, the Reconstruction era of the United States. Red Shirt groups originated in Mississippi in 1875, when anti-Reconstruction private terror units adopted red shirts to make themselves more visible and threatening to Southern Republicans, both whites and freedmen. Similar groups in the Carolinas also adopted red shirts.
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The North Carolina Republican Party (NCGOP) is the affiliate of the Republican Party in North Carolina. Michael Whatley was the chair from 2019 until his election as national chair in March 2024. It is currently the state's dominant party, controlling half of North Carolina's U.S. House seats, both U.S. Senate seats, and a 3/5 supermajority control of both chambers of the state legislature, as well as a majority on the state supreme court.
Clarence C. "Taddy" Aycock, an American conservative Democrat from Franklin in St. Mary Parish, was the only three-term lieutenant governor in 20th century Louisiana history. He served from 1960 to 1972. Aycock failed in his only bid for governor in the 1971 Democratic primary. Few lieutenant governors in Louisiana have been elected directly to the governorship; former Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Lafayette, is a prominent exception.
The 2012 North Carolina gubernatorial election took place on November 6, 2012, concurrently with the 2012 United States presidential election, U.S. House election, statewide judicial election, Council of State election and various local elections.
The 1980 North Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 4, 1980. Despite North Carolina going to Ronald Reagan in the presidential race and the U.S. Senate race being won by a Republican, popular Democratic Governor Jim Hunt won a second term in office in a landslide over Republican I. Beverly Lake. Hunt thus became the first governor of the state elected to a consecutive four-year term, following an amendment to the Constitution of North Carolina allowing such a run.
The 1976 North Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 2, 1976. Democratic nominee Jim Hunt defeated Republican nominee David T. Flaherty with 64.99% of the vote.
The 1928 United States presidential election in Louisiana took place on November 6, 1928, as part of the wider United States presidential election. Voters chose ten representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1928 North Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 1928. Democratic nominee O. Max Gardner defeated Republican nominee Herbert F. Seawell, with just over 55% of the vote. This was, relatively, a close election for the time in North Carolina, with Gardner receiving the smallest percentage of the vote that any Democratic gubernatorial nominee won between 1900 and 1956. The result came against the backdrop of divisions in the state Democratic Party over the controversial nomination of Alfred E. Smith for president. Gardner supported Smith, who lost the state to Herbert Hoover.
The 1920 North Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 2, 1920. Democratic nominee Cameron A. Morrison defeated Republican nominee John J. Parker with 57.2% of the vote. Both were attorneys in private practice at the time.
The 1904 North Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 1904. Democratic nominee Robert Broadnax Glenn defeated Republican nominee Charles J. Harris with 61.72% of the vote. At the time, Glenn was an attorney and former member of the state Senate, while Harris was a businessman and former member of the United States Industrial Commission.
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.
