1920 United States presidential election in Louisiana

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1920 United States presidential election in Louisiana
Flag of Louisiana (1912-2006).svg
  1916 November 2, 1920 1924  
  James M. Cox 1920.jpg Warren G Harding-Harris & Ewing crop.jpg
Nominee James M. Cox Warren G. Harding
Party Democratic Republican
Home state Ohio Ohio
Running mate Franklin D. Roosevelt Calvin Coolidge
Electoral vote100
Popular vote87,51938,538
Percentage69.24%30.49%

Louisiana Presidential Election Results 1920.svg
Parish Results

President before election

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic

Elected President

Warren G. Harding
Republican

The 1920 United States presidential election in Louisiana took place on November 2, 1920, as part of the 1920 United States presidential election. Voters chose ten representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Contents

Ever since the passage of a new constitution in 1898, Louisiana had been 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 and within the business elite of New Orleans. [2]

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. [3] Opposition began to emerge with the Progressive movement in the 1910s, chiefly in the southern sugar-growing parishes, where conflicts with President Wilson's Underwoood-Simmons Act [4] even allowed a Progressive Party member in Whitmell P. Martin [a] to be elected to the Third Congressional District in 1914. Continued opposition to the Choctaws would elect the reformer John M. Parker, originally part of Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party, as governor at the beginning of 1920. [5]

During the second term of President Wilson, the Acadian parishes became even more upset with him because of his deep disagreements with Georges Clemenceau, as well as continued problems with the issue of sugar tariffs. [6] [7] There was also strong opposition is this part of Louisiana to the Nineteenth Amendment, and also substantial opposition in the Black Belt of the state because it was believed that enfranchising women could interfere with lily-white politics. [8] In the Ozark- and previously Socialist-influenced northern upcountry parishes, opposition to women's suffrage was much weaker. [8]

Results

Presidential Candidate Running Mate PartyElectoral Vote (EV)Popular Vote (PV)
James M. Cox of Ohio Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic 10 [9] 87,51969.24%
Warren Harding Calvin Coolidge Republican 038,53830.49%
Write-ins Independent Republican03390.27%

Results by parish

1920 United States presidential election in Louisiana by parish [10]
ParishJames Middleton Cox
Democratic
Warren Gamaliel Harding
Republican
Write-ins
Independent Republican
MarginTotal votes cast
#%#%#%#%
Acadia 1,05847.98%1,14151.75%60.27%-83-3.76%2,205
Allen 1,00880.64%24219.36%76661.28%1,250
Ascension 62255.64%49644.36%12611.27%1,118
Assumption 20221.79%72578.21%-523-56.42%927
Avoyelles 1,42266.26%72433.74%69832.53%2,146
Beauregard 1,14684.14%20214.83%141.03%94469.31%1,362
Bienville 1,41983.27%25715.08%281.64%1,16268.19%1,704
Bossier 73194.32%445.68%68788.65%775
Caddo 4,26491.40%4018.60%3,86382.81%4,665
Calcasieu 2,48083.33%48316.23%130.44%1,99767.10%2,976
Caldwell 53980.81%12819.19%41161.62%667
Cameron 14692.99%117.01%13585.99%157
Catahoula 51774.60%17625.40%34149.21%693
Claiborne 1,21696.20%483.80%1,16892.41%1,264
Concordia 38096.94%123.06%36893.88%392
De Soto 1,21995.61%564.39%1,16391.22%1,275
East Baton Rouge 2,33684.09%44215.91%1,89468.18%2,778
East Carroll 24796.86%83.14%23993.73%255
East Feliciana 52994.63%305.37%49989.27%559
Evangeline 54248.01%58751.99%-45-3.99%1,129
Franklin 89883.85%17316.15%72567.69%1,071
Grant 67486.08%10913.92%56572.16%783
Iberia 43825.57%1,27574.43%-837-48.86%1,713
Iberville 38545.29%46554.71%-80-9.41%850
Jackson 1,22988.10%16611.90%1,06376.20%1,395
Jefferson 1,23886.57%19213.43%1,04673.15%1,430
Jefferson Davis 72844.86%89555.14%-167-10.29%1,623
Lafayette 82344.06%1,04555.94%-222-11.88%1,868
Lafourche 33724.40%1,04475.60%-707-51.19%1,381
La Salle 57082.13%10915.71%152.16%46166.43%694
Lincoln 98984.39%18315.61%80668.77%1,172
Livingston 67475.48%21824.41%10.11%45651.06%893
Madison 33198.81%41.19%32797.61%335
Morehouse 62294.24%385.76%58488.48%660
Natchitoches 1,59588.71%20311.29%1,39277.42%1,798
Orleans 32,72464.74%17,81935.26%14,90529.49%50,543
Ouachita 1,48189.98%1649.96%10.06%1,31780.01%1,646
Plaquemines 32970.15%12426.44%163.41%20543.71%469
Pointe Coupee 40774.00%14326.00%26448.00%550
Rapides 2,76586.11%44513.86%10.03%2,32072.25%3,211
Red River 76680.38%18719.62%57960.76%953
Richland 66493.00%507.00%61485.99%714
Sabine 1,24591.81%1118.19%1,13483.63%1,356
Saint Bernard 35886.47%5613.53%30272.95%414
Saint Charles 18366.55%9233.45%9133.09%275
Saint Helena 36691.04%368.96%33082.09%402
Saint James 34239.09%53360.91%-191-21.83%875
Saint John the Baptist 23948.88%25051.12%-11-2.25%489
Saint Landry 1,01751.91%94248.09%753.83%1,959
Saint Martin 31943.22%41956.78%-100-13.55%738
Saint Mary 53940.62%78859.38%-249-18.76%1,327
Saint Tammany 96777.80%27622.20%69155.59%1,243
Tangipahoa 1,50177.33%44022.67%1,06154.66%1,941
Tensas 24394.19%155.81%22888.37%258
Terrebonne 47740.08%71359.92%-236-19.83%1,190
Union 1,22192.57%987.43%1,12385.14%1,319
Vermilion 54927.87%1,42072.08%10.05%-871-44.21%1,970
Vernon 1,14384.79%20515.21%93869.58%1,348
Washington 1,09486.89%16513.11%92973.79%1,259
Webster 1,00990.01%1129.99%89780.02%1,121
West Baton Rouge 35266.79%17533.21%17733.59%527
West Carroll 34673.62%10422.13%204.26%24251.49%470
West Feliciana 35691.28%348.72%32282.56%390
Winn 96365.20%29119.70%22315.10%67245.50%1,477
Totals87,51969.24%38,53830.49%3390.27%48,98138.75%126,396

Analysis

In Acadiana, the 1920 election would see a temporary break with “Solid South” voting patterns, as anger at the Wilson Administration's foreign and domestic policies caused the region's voters – much more moderate on racial issues than the rest of Louisiana [11] – to break powerfully from Democratic nominee James M. Cox. [12] Harding carried fourteen of the Acadian parishes, and in the two most sugar-dependent, Assumption and Lafourche, he received over three-quarters of the vote. In the remainder of Louisiana, as racially hardline as anywhere in the South, Democratic voting remained as rock-solid as ever despite nominee James M. Cox suffering a record 26.17 point landslide defeat and carrying only 41 counties outside antebellum slave states and Oklahoma. The revolt in Acadiana, however, was sufficient to drop Louisiana to Cox’ fourth-best state behind Georgia as well as South Carolina and Mississippi (as was typical in the “Solid South” era). As of the 2024 election, this is the last time that a Republican has won a majority in Iberville Parish, as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Donald Trump only received pluralities.

See also

Notes

  1. Martin would join the Democratic Party in 1919.

References

  1. Phillips, Kevin P. (November 23, 2014). The Emerging Republican Majority. Princeton University Press. pp. 208, 210. ISBN   9780691163246.
  2. Schott, Matthew J. (Summer 1979). "Progressives against Democracy: Electoral Reform in Louisiana, 1894-1921". Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. 20 (3): 247–260.
  3. Wall, Bennett H.; Rodriguez, John C. (January 28, 2014). Louisiana: A History. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 274–275. ISBN   978-1118619292.
  4. Collin, Richard H. (Winter 1971). "Theodore Roosevelt's Visit to New Orleans and the Progressive Campaign of 1914". Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. 12 (1): 5–19.
  5. Sindler, Allan P. (1956). Huey Long's Louisiana: State Politics, 1920-1952. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 40–41.
  6. See Howard, Perry H. (1954). "One-Party Politics and the Rise of Longism". Political Tendencies in Louisiana, 1812-1952; An Ecological Analysis of Voting Behavior (Thesis). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. p. 144. OCLC   8115.
  7. Howard, Perry H. (1957). PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 1920 — REPUBLICAN SUPPORT IN SELECTED PARISHES (Map). p. 145. also maps on pp. 145 and 151
  8. 1 2 Wall and Rodriguez. Louisiana: A History, p. 277
  9. Dave Leip. "1920 Presidential General Election Results – Louisiana". Dave Leip’s U.S. Election Atlas.
  10. Scammon, Richard M. (compiler); America at the Polls: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics 1920-1964; pp. 189-190 ISBN   0405077114
  11. Howard, Perry H. (1954). "A New Look at Reconstruction". Political Tendencies in Louisiana, 1812-1952; An Ecological Analysis of Voting Behavior (Thesis). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. pp. 112–113. OCLC   8115.
  12. Phillips. The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 268