1916 United States presidential election in Oregon

Main article: 1916 United States presidential election

1916 United States presidential election in Oregon

←  1912 November 7, 1916 1920  →

Nominee Charles Evans Hughes Woodrow Wilson Party Republican Democratic Home state New York New Jersey Running mate Charles W. Fairbanks Thomas R. Marshall Electoral vote 5 0 Popular vote 126,813 120,087 Percentage 48.47% 45.90%

County results Hughes   40–50%   50–60% Wilson   40–50%   50–60%

President before election Woodrow Wilson Democratic Elected President Woodrow Wilson Democratic

The 1916 United States presidential election in Oregon took place on November 7, 1916 as part of the 1916 United States presidential election in which all contemporary forty-eight states participated. Voters chose five electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Oregon had been in the 1900s solidified as a one-party Republican bastion, which it would remain at a Presidential level apart from the 1910s GOP split until Franklin D. Roosevelt rose to power in 1932, ^[1] and apart from a very short New Deal interlude at state level until the "Revolution of 1954". As of 1916, the state had not elected a Democratic Congressman since 1878, and between 1900 and 1954 Democratic representation in the Oregon legislature would never exceed fifteen percent except during the above-mentioned 1930s interlude, ^[2] so that Republican primaries would become the chief mode of competition. ^[3]

In 1912, a split in the Republican Party and the relatively limited appeal of Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party in what was at the time the most Republican of the Pacific States allowed Woodrow Wilson to become only the second Democratic presidential candidate after Horatio Seymour in 1868 to carry Oregon. ^[4]

For his 1916 re-election against a United GOP, Wilson campaigned on keeping the United States out of World War I, ^[5] and upon Progressive Era reforms like the income tax. ^[6] These reforms were much less popular in Yankee-settled Western Oregon – which had close cultural and political ties to New England – with the result that Oregon voted for the Republican nominee, Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes of New York, over the Democratic nominee, incumbent President Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey. Hughes won Oregon by a close margin of 2.57%; however, alongside South Dakota, Oregon was the only state that Hughes won in the Great Plains or westward. Wilson’s historically based strength in sparsely populated and Ozark mountaineer-settled Eastern Oregon, ^[4] like that of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, was inadequate to counter this.

Results

Presidential Candidate	Running Mate	Party	Electoral Vote (EV)	Popular Vote (PV)
Charles Evans Hughes of New York	Charles W. Fairbanks	Republican	5 [7]	126,813	48.47%
Woodrow Wilson	Thomas R. Marshall	Democratic	0	120,087	45.90%
Allan L. Benson	George Kirkpatrick	Socialist	0	9,711	3.71%
Frank Hanly	Ira Landrith	Prohibition	0	4,729	1.81%
—	—	Progressive	0	310	0.12%

Results by county

County	Charles Evans Hughes Republican		Thomas Woodrow Wilson Democratic		Allan Louis Benson Socialist		James Franklin Hanly Prohibition		No Candidate Progressive "Bull Moose"		Margin		Total votes cast [8]
	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%
Baker	2,541	37.16%	3,897	56.99%	324	4.74%	69	1.01%	7	0.10%	-1,356	-19.83%	6,838
Benton	2,902	50.72%	2,488	43.48%	120	2.10%	207	3.62%	5	0.09%	414	7.24%	5,722
Clackamas	6,349	50.91%	5,334	42.77%	556	4.46%	222	1.78%	10	0.08%	1,015	8.14%	12,471
Clatsop	2,568	49.44%	2,239	43.11%	320	6.16%	65	1.25%	2	0.04%	329	6.33%	5,194
Columbia	2,023	53.95%	1,451	38.69%	182	4.85%	92	2.45%	2	0.05%	572	15.25%	3,750
Coos	3,209	43.61%	3,352	45.56%	708	9.62%	74	1.01%	15	0.20%	-143	-1.94%	7,358
Crook	1,675	36.21%	2,699	58.34%	209	4.52%	38	0.82%	5	0.11%	-1,024	-22.14%	4,626
Curry	541	45.62%	512	43.17%	118	9.95%	8	0.67%	7	0.59%	29	2.45%	1,186
Douglas	3,922	48.16%	3,679	45.18%	420	5.16%	117	1.44%	5	0.06%	243	2.98%	8,143
Gilliam	557	37.89%	870	59.18%	25	1.70%	17	1.16%	1	0.07%	-313	-21.29%	1,470
Grant	941	40.56%	1,210	52.16%	145	6.25%	17	0.73%	7	0.30%	-269	-11.59%	2,320
Harney	872	37.52%	1,239	53.31%	189	8.13%	22	0.95%	2	0.09%	-367	-15.79%	2,324
Hood River	1,314	48.33%	1,188	43.69%	158	5.81%	58	2.13%	1	0.04%	126	4.63%	2,719
Jackson	3,538	39.41%	4,874	54.29%	321	3.58%	230	2.56%	15	0.17%	-1,336	-14.88%	8,978
Jefferson	581	36.13%	904	56.22%	62	3.86%	60	3.73%	1	0.06%	-323	-20.09%	1,608
Josephine	1,660	46.20%	1,656	46.09%	230	6.40%	42	1.17%	5	0.14%	4	0.11%	3,593
Klamath	1,631	44.37%	1,853	50.41%	170	4.62%	18	0.49%	4	0.11%	-222	-6.04%	3,676
Lake	793	41.94%	971	51.35%	98	5.18%	27	1.43%	2	0.11%	-178	-9.41%	1,891
Lane	7,253	51.70%	5,880	41.92%	607	4.33%	261	1.86%	27	0.19%	1,373	9.79%	14,028
Lincoln	1,167	50.87%	915	39.89%	190	8.28%	17	0.74%	5	0.22%	252	10.99%	2,294
Linn	4,524	46.26%	4,675	47.81%	318	3.25%	253	2.59%	9	0.09%	-151	-1.54%	9,779
Malheur	1,682	42.38%	1,937	48.80%	293	7.38%	54	1.36%	3	0.08%	-255	-6.42%	3,969
Marion	8,316	55.48%	5,699	38.02%	473	3.16%	475	3.17%	25	0.17%	2,617	17.46%	14,988
Morrow	748	44.08%	830	48.91%	92	5.42%	26	1.53%	1	0.06%	-82	-4.83%	1,697
Multnomah	41,458	51.67%	35,755	44.56%	1,852	2.31%	1,083	1.35%	87	0.11%	5,703	7.11%	80,235
Polk	2,899	47.89%	2,844	46.98%	187	3.09%	120	1.98%	4	0.07%	55	0.91%	6,054
Sherman	717	46.86%	747	48.82%	18	1.18%	48	3.14%	0	0.00%	-30	-1.96%	1,530
Tillamook	1,547	53.86%	1,175	40.91%	95	3.31%	53	1.85%	2	0.07%	372	12.95%	2,872
Umatilla	3,664	42.33%	4,606	53.22%	256	2.96%	122	1.41%	7	0.08%	-942	-10.88%	8,655
Union	2,253	39.77%	3,086	54.47%	259	4.57%	63	1.11%	4	0.07%	-833	-14.70%	5,665
Wallowa	1,198	35.75%	1,960	58.49%	165	4.92%	20	0.60%	8	0.24%	-762	-22.74%	3,351
Wasco	2,243	47.53%	2,287	48.46%	103	2.18%	80	1.70%	6	0.13%	-44	-0.93%	4,719
Washington	4,888	56.16%	3,363	38.64%	219	2.52%	222	2.55%	11	0.13%	1,525	17.52%	8,703
Wheeler	629	51.73%	570	46.88%	10	0.82%	6	0.49%	1	0.08%	59	4.85%	1,216
Yamhill	4,010	49.95%	3,342	41.63%	219	2.73%	443	5.52%	14	0.17%	668	8.32%	8,028
Totals	126,813	48.47%	120,087	45.90%	9,711	3.71%	4,729	1.81%	310	0.12%	6,726	2.57%	261,650

See also

• United States presidential elections in Oregon

References

1. Burnham, Walter Dean; 'The System of 1896', in Kleppner, Paul (editor), The Evolution of American Electoral Systems, pp. 176-179 ISBN   0313213798
2. Schattschneider, Elmer Eric; The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America, pp. 76-84 ISBN   0030133661
3. Murray, Keith; ‘Issues and Personalities of Pacific Northwest Politics, 1889-1950’, The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 3 (July 1950), pp. 213-233
4. Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 483 ISBN   978-0-691-16324-6
5. Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 47 ISBN   0786422173
6. Phillips; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 497
7. "1916 Presidential General Election Results – Oregon". Dave Leip’s U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
8. Oregon Secretary of State Elections Division; Abstract of Votes Cast in the several counties in the State of Oregon at a General Election held on the Seventh Day of November, A.D. 1916, for Presidential Electors, Representatives in Congress