1896 United States presidential election in Utah

Summary

The 1896 United States presidential election in Utah was held on November 3, 1896 as part of the 1896 United States presidential election. Voters chose three representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. This was the first time Utah participated in a presidential election, having been admitted as the 45th state on January 4 of that year.

1896 United States presidential election in Utah

November 3, 1896 1900 →
 
Nominee William Jennings Bryan William McKinley
Party Democratic Republican
Alliance Populist -
Home state Nebraska Ohio
Running mate Arthur Sewall (Democratic) [a]
Thomas E. Watson (Populist)[b]
Garret Hobart
Electoral vote 3 0
Popular vote 64,610[c] 13,491
Percentage 82.70% 17.27%

County Results

President before election

Grover Cleveland
Democratic

Elected President

William McKinley
Republican

Democrat William Jennings Bryan carried Utah by an overwhelming margin of 65.43% over Republican William McKinley—by far the strongest ever performance by any presidential nominee in the state—despite narrowly losing the national election. As such, this is the only time a Republican has won the presidency without winning Utah, starkly contrasting with the state's subsequent status as one of the most staunchly Republican states in the nation.

Utah had been established as a territory within five years of the earliest settlement by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but opposition by the Republican Party – dominant from 1860 – to Mormon polygamy meant that Utah was consistently refused statehood.[1] Consequently, Utah territorial politics until 1891 was dominated by the Mormon-hierarchy-controlled "People's Party" and the anti-Mormon "Liberal Party".[2] Those Mormons who did affiliate with national parties generally were Democrats, who lacked moral qualms associated with polygamy and slavery – although the Liberal Party did have allies within the GOP.[3] In order to achieve statehood, however, the LDS Church disbanded the "People's Party" in 1891 and most LDS members moved towards the Democratic Party.

The 1896 election in Utah was dominated by the influence of silver mine owners, who overwhelmingly supported Democrat/Populist William Jennings Bryan because he advocated coinage of free silver at a ratio of 16-to-1 with gold.[4] As a consequence, Utah voted overwhelmingly for Bryan, who won the state by 65.43 percentage points, in what remains by far the strongest-ever performance by any presidential nominee in the state. Even with Republicans overwhelmingly dominating Utah politics since the 1960s, this margin has not been approached by any party or candidate since. Bryan carried every county except Kane in the far south – where his margin of defeat remains the second-best ever by a Democrat, behind Woodrow Wilson's narrow 1916 victory – with greater than sixty-five percent of the vote, and exceeded seventy percent in all but one.

With 82.7% of the popular vote, Utah would prove to be Bryan's fourth strongest state in the 1896 presidential election after Mississippi, South Carolina and Colorado.[5]

Bryan would later lose Utah to William McKinley four years later and would lose the state again to Republican William Howard Taft in 1908. Bryan's support for many Populist goals resulted in him being nominated by both the Democratic Party and the People's Party (Populists), though with different running mates. One electoral vote from Utah was cast for the Populist Bryan-Watson ticket with Thomas E. Watson as Vice-President and two votes were cast for the Bryan-Sewall ticket.

Results edit

1896 United States presidential election in Utah[6]
Party Candidate Votes Percentage Electoral votes
Democratic William Jennings Bryan 64,610 82.70% 2
Populist William Jennings Bryan 0 0.00% 1
Total William Jennings Bryan 64,610[c] 82.70% 3
Republican William McKinley 13,491 17.27% 0
Write-ins Others 21 0.03% 0
Totals 294,674 100.0% 12

Results by county edit

County William Jennings Bryan
Democratic/Populist
William McKinley
Republican
Various candidates
Write-ins
Margin Total votes cast[7]
# % # % # % # %
Beaver 1,057 83.76% 205 16.24% 852 67.51% 1,262
Box Elder 1,879 71.88% 735 28.12% 1,144 43.76% 2,614
Cache 4,395 83.97% 839 16.03% 3,556 67.94% 5,234
Carbon 663 88.64% 85 11.36% 578 77.27% 748
Davis 1,753 79.57% 450 20.43% 1,303 59.15% 2,203
Emery 985 81.00% 231 19.00% 754 62.01% 1,216
Garfield 615 71.18% 249 28.82% 366 42.36% 864
Grand 264 90.41% 28 9.59% 236 80.82% 292
Iron 806 79.72% 205 20.28% 601 59.45% 1,011
Juab 2,363 84.33% 439 15.67% 1,924 68.67% 2,802
Kane 230 44.40% 288 55.60% -58 -11.20% 518
Millard 1,384 89.29% 166 10.71% 1,218 78.58% 1,550
Morgan 582 80.83% 138 19.17% 444 61.67% 720
Piute 555 94.23% 34 5.77% 521 88.46% 589
Rich 408 71.58% 162 28.42% 246 43.16% 570
Salt Lake 18,617 87.75% 2,577 12.15% 21 0.10% 16,040 75.61% 21,215
San Juan 167 95.43% 8 4.57% 159 90.86% 175
Sanpete 3,387 65.13% 1,813 34.87% 1,574 30.27% 5,200
Sevier 1,858 78.90% 497 21.10% 1,361 57.79% 2,355
Summit 3,402 93.28% 245 6.72% 3,157 86.56% 3,647
Tooele 1,684 86.01% 274 13.99% 1,410 72.01% 1,958
Uintah 890 88.82% 112 11.18% 778 77.64% 1,002
Utah 7,375 78.34% 2,039 21.66% 5,336 56.68% 9,414
Wasatch 1,333 96.32% 51 3.68% 1,282 92.63% 1,384
Washington 1,210 87.68% 170 12.32% 1,040 75.36% 1,380
Wayne 405 83.85% 78 16.15% 327 67.70% 483
Weber 6,343 82.21% 1,373 17.79% 4,970 64.41% 7,716
Totals 64,610 82.70% 13,491 17.27% 21 0.03% 51,119 65.43% 78,122

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Two of the three electors voted for Arthur Sewall of Maine as Vice-President.
  2. ^ One of the three electors voted for Thomas E. Watson of Georgia as Vice-President.
  3. ^ a b Other figures have 64,607 votes for Bryan, but the county results from The Presidential Vote sum to 64,610.

References edit

  1. ^ Talbot, Christine; A Foreign Kingdom: Mormons and Polygamy in American Political Culture, 1852-1890, p. 113 ISBN 0252095359
  2. ^ May, Dean L. ; Utah: A People's History, pp. 120-121 ISBN 0874802849
  3. ^ Handy, Robert T.; Undermined Establishment: Church-State Relations in America, 1880-1920, p. 55 ISBN 1400862361
  4. ^ Rove, Karl; The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters, p. 148 ISBN 1476752966
  5. ^ "1896 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  6. ^ "1896 Presidential General Election Results – Utah". U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved April 12, 2013.
  7. ^ Robinson, Edgar Eugene; The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932 (second edition); pp. 223-224 Published 1947 by Stanford University Press