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| Elections in Louisiana |
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The 1908 United States presidential election in Louisiana took place on November 3, 1908. All contemporary 46 states were part of the 1908 United States presidential election. State voters chose nine electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.
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Following the passage of a new constitution in 1898, Louisiana became a one-party state dominated by the Democratic Party. The Republican Party became moribund due to the disenfranchisement of blacks and the complete absence of other support bases as Louisiana completely lacked upland or German refugee whites opposed to secession. [1] Despite this absolute single-party dominance, non-partisan tendencies remained strong among wealthy sugar planters in Acadiana, within the business elite of New Orleans, [2] and even amongst the “lily-white” faction of the moribund state GOP that supported black disenfranchisement in the effort to become respectable amongst the white elite. [3]
Following disfranchisement, the state's politics became dominated by the Choctaw Club of Louisiana, generally called the “Old Regulars”. This political machine was based in New Orleans and united with Black Belt cotton planters. [4] Although white Republicans continued to work towards taking over Federal patronage from the “black and tans”, throughout most of the 1900s Louisiana politics was under firm Choctaw control as the Populist movement weakened with the disenfranchisement of many poor whites via the poll tax. [3]
Louisiana was won by the Democratic nominees, former Representative William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska and his running mate John W. Kern of Indiana. They defeated the Republican candidates, United States Secretary of War William Howard Taft of Ohio and his running mate James S. Sherman of New York. Bryan won the state by a landslide margin of 72.7%.
With 84.63 percent of the popular vote, Louisiana would also prove to be Bryan's third strongest victory in terms of percentage in the popular vote only after South Carolina and Mississippi. [5]
Bryan had previously defeated William McKinley in Louisiana in both 1896 and 1900.
