1920 United States presidential election in Massachusetts

Main article: 1920 United States presidential election

1920 United States presidential election in Massachusetts

←  1916 November 2, 1920 1924  →
Turnout	53.3% [1] 9.5 pp
Nominee Warren G. Harding James M. Cox Party Republican Democratic Home state Ohio Ohio Running mate Calvin Coolidge Franklin D. Roosevelt Electoral vote 18 0 Popular vote 681,153 276,691 Percentage 68.55% 27.84%
County Results Harding   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90% The 1920 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 2, 1920, as part of the 1920 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose 18 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. Massachusetts was won in a landslide by Republican Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who was running against Democratic Governor James M. Cox of Ohio. Harding's running mate was Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, while Cox ran with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York. Also running that year was Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs of Indiana and his running mate Seymour Stedman of Illinois. Harding carried Massachusetts overwhelmingly with 68.55% of the vote to Cox's 27.84%, a Republican victory margin of 40.71%. Debs finished third, with 3.25%. Massachusetts had long been a typical Yankee Republican bastion in the wake of the Civil War, having voted Republican in every election since 1856, except in 1912, when former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt had run as a Progressive candidate against incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft, splitting the Republican vote and allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win Massachusetts with a plurality of only 35.53% of the vote. In 1916, the state had returned to the Republican column, although only by a fairly narrow 4-point margin. With the deeply unpopular Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson as the backdrop for the 1920 campaign, Warren G. Harding promised a "return to normalcy" that appealed to many voters, while Cox was tied to the policies of the Wilson administration, whose unpopularity was especially severe among Irish-Americans who saw Wilson as pro-Britain and against their independence. [2] Harding won nationally in one of the most decisive landslides in American history, and Massachusetts, already a fiercely Republican state, went even harder for Harding than the nation, voting a solid 15% more Republican than the national average. Harding was also helped in the state by his running mate, Calvin Coolidge, a traditional Yankee Republican born in neighboring Vermont and being the popular sitting Governor of Massachusetts. Harding swept every county in the state of Massachusetts, including even Suffolk County, home to the state's capital and largest city, Boston. Boston had been a Democratic-leaning city prior to this, and while Calvin Coolidge would win the city once more for the GOP in 1924, Boston would defect to the Democrats for Catholic Al Smith in 1928 and become reliably Democratic in every election that followed. As Coolidge won Suffolk County with a plurality in 1924, 1920 thus remains the last election in which a Republican has won an absolute majority of the vote in Suffolk County. In 13 of the state's 14 counties (all but Suffolk), Harding broke 60% of the vote, and in nine, Harding broke seventy percent. He even reached eighty percent in the island county of Dukes and peninsular Barnstable. Results 1920 United States presidential election in Massachusetts [3] Party Candidate Votes Percentage Electoral votes Republican Warren G. Harding 681,153 68.55% 18 Democratic James M. Cox 276,691 27.84% 0 Socialist Eugene V. Debs 32,267 3.25% 0 Socialist Labor William Wesley Cox 3,583 0.36% 0 Write-ins Write-ins 24 0.00% 0 Totals 993,718 100.00% 18 Results by county County Warren G. Harding Republican James M. Cox Democratic Eugene V. Debs [4] Socialist Various candidates [4] Other parties Margin Total votes cast [5] #  % #  % #  % #  % #  % Barnstable 6,383 84.41% 1,125 14.88% 29 0.38% 25 0.33% 5,258 69.53% 7,562 Berkshire 20,138 63.11% 10,956 34.33% 703 2.20% 113 0.35% 9,182 28.77% 31,910 Bristol 56,734 73.65% 17,719 23.00% 2,179 2.83% 400 0.52% 39,015 50.65% 77,032 Dukes 1,013 86.73% 150 12.84% 3 0.26% 2 0.17% 863 73.89% 1,168 Essex 95,057 71.87% 30,560 23.11% 6,076 4.59% 571 0.43% 64,497 48.76% 132,264 Franklin 9,931 77.85% 2,542 19.93% 242 1.90% 42 0.33% 7,389 57.92% 12,757 Hampden 46,741 68.92% 19,156 28.25% 1,719 2.53% 204 0.30% 27,585 40.67% 67,820 Hampshire 13,174 70.10% 5,305 28.23% 286 1.52% 28 0.15% 7,869 41.87% 18,793 Middlesex 156,636 69.90% 61,661 27.52% 5,135 2.29% 646 0.29% 94,975 42.38% 224,078 Nantucket 608 74.51% 205 25.12% 3 0.37% 0 0.00% 403 49.39% 816 Norfolk 51,826 74.69% 15,720 22.66% 1,690 2.44% 149 0.21% 36,106 52.04% 69,385 Plymouth 33,582 73.54% 9,373 20.53% 2,561 5.61% 147 0.32% 24,209 53.02% 45,663 Suffolk 108,089 58.08% 67,552 36.30% 9,542 5.13% 915 0.49% 40,537 21.78% 186,098 Worcester 81,241 68.63% 34,667 29.29% 2,097 1.77% 367 0.31% 46,574 39.35% 118,372 Totals 681,153 68.55% 276,691 27.84% 32,265 3.25% 3,609 0.36% 404,462 40.70% 993,718 See also United States presidential elections in Massachusetts References Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, part 2, p. 1072. Lubell, Samuel; The Future of American Politics, p. 135. Published 1952 by Harper and Brothers, New York "1920 Presidential General Election Results - Massachusetts". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved February 7, 2013. Géoelections; Popular Vote for Eugene Debs (1920) (.xlsx file for €15) Scammon, Richard M. (compiler); America at the Polls: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics 1920-1964; p. 213 ISBN   0405077114 This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.