1920 United States presidential election in Massachusetts

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1920 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
Flag of Massachusetts (1908-1971).svg
  1916 November 2, 1920 1924  
Turnout53.3% [1] Decrease2.svg 9.5 pp
  Warren G Harding-Harris & Ewing crop.jpg James M. Cox 1920.jpg
Nominee Warren G. Harding James M. Cox
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Ohio Ohio
Running mate Calvin Coolidge Franklin D. Roosevelt
Electoral vote180
Popular vote681,153276,691
Percentage68.55%27.84%

Massachusetts Presidential Election Results 1920.svg
1920 Presidential Election in Massachusetts By Municipality.svg

President before election

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic

Elected President

Warren G. Harding
Republican

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.

Contents

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]
PartyCandidateVotesPercentageElectoral votes
Republican Warren G. Harding 681,15368.55%18
Democratic James M. Cox 276,69127.84%0
Socialist Eugene V. Debs 32,2673.25%0
Socialist Labor William Wesley Cox 3,5830.36%0
Write-ins Write-ins 240.00%0
Totals993,718100.00%18

Results by county

CountyWarren G. Harding
Republican
James M. Cox
Democratic
Eugene V. Debs [4]
Socialist
Various candidates [4]
Other parties
MarginTotal votes cast [5]
# %# %# %# %# %
Barnstable 6,38384.41%1,12514.88%290.38%250.33%5,25869.53%7,562
Berkshire 20,13863.11%10,95634.33%7032.20%1130.35%9,18228.77%31,910
Bristol 56,73473.65%17,71923.00%2,1792.83%4000.52%39,01550.65%77,032
Dukes 1,01386.73%15012.84%30.26%20.17%86373.89%1,168
Essex 95,05771.87%30,56023.11%6,0764.59%5710.43%64,49748.76%132,264
Franklin 9,93177.85%2,54219.93%2421.90%420.33%7,38957.92%12,757
Hampden 46,74168.92%19,15628.25%1,7192.53%2040.30%27,58540.67%67,820
Hampshire 13,17470.10%5,30528.23%2861.52%280.15%7,86941.87%18,793
Middlesex 156,63669.90%61,66127.52%5,1352.29%6460.29%94,97542.38%224,078
Nantucket 60874.51%20525.12%30.37%00.00%40349.39%816
Norfolk 51,82674.69%15,72022.66%1,6902.44%1490.21%36,10652.04%69,385
Plymouth 33,58273.54%9,37320.53%2,5615.61%1470.32%24,20953.02%45,663
Suffolk 108,08958.08%67,55236.30%9,5425.13%9150.49%40,53721.78%186,098
Worcester 81,24168.63%34,66729.29%2,0971.77%3670.31%46,57439.35%118,372
Totals681,15368.55%276,69127.84%32,2653.25%3,6090.36%404,46240.70%993,718

See also

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References

  1. Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, part 2, p. 1072.
  2. Lubell, Samuel; The Future of American Politics, p. 135. Published 1952 by Harper and Brothers, New York
  3. "1920 Presidential General Election Results - Massachusetts". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved February 7, 2013.
  4. 1 2 Géoelections; Popular Vote for Eugene Debs (1920) (.xlsx file for €15)
  5. Scammon, Richard M. (compiler); America at the Polls: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics 1920-1964; p. 213 ISBN   0405077114