1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party nomination
Both candidates suffered from unpopularity with one major group of voters: Dawes with organized labor for his opposition to certain strikes, Hoover with wheat farmers for his role in price fixing during the war. Hoover lost because most convention leaders were more sensitive to the farm vote than that of labor, and because the president had not endorsed him. Dawes, a fiery brigadier general of World War I, now fifty-nine years old (seven years older than Coolidge), was well received by the convention and by Republicans generally.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party nomination
No doubt the establishment would have preferred a man of quieter disposition such as Senator Charles Curtis from Kansas, but Dawes's denunciation of the closed shop pleased them. Since Coolidge had not strongly supported any candidate, congressional leaders and party rebels agreed that "Hell'n Maria" Dawes, who had denounced "pinhead" politicians before a congressional investigating committee, was available and a strong candidate. His familiarity with the West, which would be the battleground of the campaign, gave needed strength to a ticket headed by a conservative easterner.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party nomination
German-Americans, who could be expected to support La Follette in large numbers, liked Dawes in particular for helping to solve postwar difficulties in Germany through his service on the Reparations Commission. He was billed as the active member of the ticket who would carry on the partisan campaign for Coolidge, much as Richard Nixon would do for the incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956. In an episode also suggestive of Nixon's career, a scandal was raised against Dawes.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party nomination
A dozen years earlier his bank had briefly loaned a banker friend named Lorimer, who had been expelled from the United States Senate, over a million dollars for the purpose of satisfying a state banking law; eventually, Lorimer's bank failed, but in 1924 this issue did not resonate with the voters.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
Sizable Democratic gains during the 1922 Midterm elections suggested to many Democrats that the nadir they experienced immediately following the 1920 elections was ending, and that a popular candidate like William Gibbs McAdoo from California, who could draw the popular support of labor and Wilsonians, would stand an excellent chance of winning the coming presidential election.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
The Teapot Dome scandal added yet even more enthusiasm for party initially, though further disclosures revealed that the corrupt interests had been bipartisan; Edward Doheny for example, whose name had become synonymous with that of the Teapot Dome scandal, ranked highly in the Democratic party of California, contributing highly to party campaigns, served as chairman of the state party, and was even at one point advanced as a possible candidate for vice-president in 1920. The death of Warren Harding in August 1923 and the succession of Coolidge blunted the effects of the scandals upon the Republican party, including that of Teapot Dome, but up until and into the convention many Democrats believed that the Republicans would be turned out of the White House.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
The immediate leading candidate of the Democratic party was William Gibbs McAdoo, now sixty years old, who was extremely popular with labor thanks to his wartime record as Director General of the railroads and was, as former President Wilson's son-in-law, also the favorite of the Wilsonians. However, in January 1924, unearthed evidence of his relationship with Doheny discomforted many of his supporters. After McAdoo had resigned from the Wilson Administration in 1918, Joseph Tumulty, Wilson's secretary, had warned him to avoid association with Doheny.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
However, in 1919, McAdoo took Doheny as a client for an unusually large initial fee of $100,000, in addition to an annual retainer. Not the least perplexing part of the deal involved a million dollar bonus for McAdoo if the Mexican government reach a satisfactory agreement with Washington on oil lands Doheny held south of the Texas border. The bonus was never paid and McAdoo insisted later that it was a casual figure of speech mentioned in jest.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
At the time, however, he had telegraphed the New York World that he would have received "an additional fee of $900,000 if my firm had succeeded in getting a satisfactory settlement," since the Doheny companies had "several hundred million dollars of property at stake, our services, had they been effective, would have been rightly compensated by the additional fee." In fact, the lawyer received only $50,000 more from Doheny. It was also charged that on matters of interest to his client, Republic Iron and Steel, from whom he received $150,000, McAdoo neglected the regular channels dictated by propriety and consulted directly with his own appointees in the capital to obtain a fat refund.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
McAdoo's connection to Doheny appeared to seriously lessen his desirability as a presidential candidate. In February Colonel House urged him to withdraw from the race, as did Josephus Daniels, Thomas Bell Love, and two important contributors to the Democratic party, Bernard Baruch and Thomas Chadbourne. Some advisers hoped that McAdoo's chances would improve after a formal withdrawal. William Jennings Bryan, who never doubted McAdoo's honesty, thought that the Doheny affair had damaged the lawyer's chances "seriously, if not fatally."


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
Senator Thomas Walsh, who earlier had called McAdoo the greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton, informed him with customary curtness: "You are no longer available as a candidate." Breckinridge Long, who would be McAdoo's floor manager at the June convention, wrote in his diary on February 13: "As it stands today we are beat." The New York Times, itself convinced that McAdoo had acted in bad taste and against the spirit of the law, reported the widespread opinion that McAdoo had "been eliminated as a formidable contender for Democratic nomination."


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
McAdoo was unpopular for reasons other than his close association with Doheny. Even in 1918, The Nation was saying that "his election to the White House would be an unqualified misfortune." McAdoo, the liberal journal then believed, had wanted to go to war with Mexico and Germany, and he was held responsible for segregating clerks in the Treasury Department. Walter Lippmann wrote in 1920 that McAdoo "is not fundamentally moved by the simple moralities," and that his "honest" liberalism catered only to popular feeling. Liberal critics, believing him a demagogue, gave as evidence his stand for quick payment of the veterans' bonus.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
Much of the dissatisfaction with McAdoo on the part of reformers and urban Democrats sprang from his acceptance of the backing of the Ku Klux Klan. James Cox, the 1920 Democratic nominee, indignantly wrote that "there was not only tacit consent to the Klan's support, but it was apparent that he and his major supporters were conniving with the Klan." Friends insisted that McAdoo's silence on the matter hid a distaste that the political facts of life kept him from expressing, and especially after the Doheny scandal when he desperately needed support.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
Thomas Bell Love of Texas - though at one time of a contrary opinion - advised McAdoo not to issue even a mild disclaimer of the Klan. To Bernard Baruch and others, McAdoo explained as a disavowal of the Klan his remarks against prejudice at a 1923 college commencement. But McAdoo could not command the support of unsatisfied liberal spokesmen for The Nation and The New Republic, who favored the candidacy of the Republican Senator Robert La Follette.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
A further blow to McAdoo was the death on February 3, 1924, of Woodrow Wilson, who ironically had outlived his successor in the White House. Father-in-law to the candidate, Wilson might have given McAdoo a welcome endorsement now that the League of Nations had receded as an issue. William Dodd of the University of Chicago wrote to his father that Wilson had been "counting on" his daughter's being in the White House. The New York Times however reported a rumor that Wilson had written to Cox hoping he would again be a candidate in 1924.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
These handicaps did not deter McAdoo from campaigning vigorously and effectively in presidential primaries. He won easily against minor candidates whose success might have denied him key delegations in the South and West. Senator Oscar Underwood from Alabama was no match for McAdoo. Opposed to prohibition and the Klan, the Alabamian failed to identify himself with the kind of progressivism that would have won him some compensating support. Nor was Underwood a real southerner; he had been born in Kentucky and his father had served as a colonel in the Union army. "He is a New York candidate living in the South," said William Jennings Bryan. McAdoo defeated Underwood in Georgia and even split the Alabama delegation. Whatever appeal Underwood had outside of the South the emerging candidacy of Al Smith erased.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
In their immediate effects the heated primary contests drew to McAdoo the financial support of the millionaires Thomas Chadbourne and Bernard Baruch (who was indebted to McAdoo for his appointment as head of the War Industries Board); and they strengthened the resolve of Governor Smith, ten years younger than McAdoo, to make a serious try for the nomination, which he had originally sought primarily to block McAdoo on the behalf of the eastern political bosses. The contests also hardened the antagonisms between the candidates, and cut deeper divisions within the electorate.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
In doing this, they undoubtedly retrieved lost ground for McAdoo and broadened his previously shrinking base of support, drawing to him rural, Klan, and dry elements awakened by the invigorated candidacy of Smith. Senator Kenneth McKellar from Tennessee wrote to his sister Nellie: "I see McAdoo carried Georgia by such an overwhelming majority that it is likely to reinstate him in the running." The Klan seemed to oppose every Democratic candidate except McAdoo.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
A Klan newspaper rejected Henry Ford because he had given a Lincoln car to a Catholic archbishop; it flatly rejected Smith as a Catholic from "Jew York;" and it called Underwood the "Jew, jug, Jesuit candidate." The primaries therefore played their part in crystallizing the split within the party that would tear it apart at the forthcoming convention. City immigrants and McAdoo progressives had earlier joined to fight the Mellon tax plans in Congress, since both groups represented people of small means; deeper social animosities dissolved their alliance, and the urban-rural division rapidly supplanted all others. Frank Walsh, a progressive New York lawyer, wrote: "If his [Smith's] religion is a bar, of course it is all right with me to bust up the Democratic party on such an issue."


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
More directly, the contest between McAdoo and Smith thrust upon the Democratic national convention a dilemma of a kind no politician would wish to confront. To reject McAdoo and nominate Smith would solidify anti-Catholic feeling and rob the party of millions of otherwise certain votes in the South and elsewhere. But to reject Smith and nominate McAdoo would antagonize American Catholics, who constituted some 16 percent of the population and most of whom could normally be counted upon by the Democrats. Either selection would affect significantly the future of the party. Now in the ostensibly neutral hands of Cordell Hull, the Democratic national convention chairman, party machinery was expected to shift to the victor in the convention, and a respectable run in the fall election would ensure the victor's continued supremacy in Democratic politics.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
The selection of New York as the site for the 1924 convention was based in part on the recent success of the party; in 1922 thirteen Republican congressmen from the state had lost their seats. New York City had not been chosen for a convention since 1868. Wealthy New Yorkers, who had outbid other cities, declared their purpose "to convince the rest of the country that the town was not the red-light menace generally conceived by the sticks." Though dry organizations opposed the choice of New York, it won McAdoo's grudging consent in the fall of 1923, before the oil scandals made Smith a serious threat to him. McAdoo's own adopted state, California, had played host to the Democrats in 1920.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
The 1924 Democratic National Convention was held from June 24 to July 9, and while there were a number of memorable moments, none were more crucial to the following proceedings then what occurred after a Platform Committee report on whether to censure the Ku Klux Klan by name came out. McAdoo controlled three of the four convention committees, including this one, and the majority report declared specifically against naming the Klan - although all the Committee members agreed on a general condemnation of bigotry and intolerance.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
Every effort was made to avoid the necessity of a direct commitment on the issue. Smith did not want to inflame the issue, but the proponents of his candidacy were anxious to identify McAdoo closely with the Klan and possibly to defeat him in a test of strength before the balloting began; the Smith faction, led by George Brennan of Illinois, therefore demanded that the specific denunciation of the Klan uttered by the committee minority become official.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
William Jennings Bryan, whose aim was to keep the party together and to maintain harmony among his rural followers, argued that naming the Klan would popularize it, as had the publicity given the organization by the New York World. It was also good politics to avoid the issue, Bryan claimed, since naming it would irredeemably divide the party. Worse still, Bryan believed, denouncing the Klan by name would betray the McAdoo forces, since it had been the Smith camp's strategy to raise the issue. In contrast to Bryan, former mayor Andrew Erwin of Athens, Georgia, spoke for the anti-Klan plank. In the ensuing vote, the Klan escaped censure by a hair's breadth; the vote itself foretold McAdoo's own defeat in the balloting.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
Balloting for President began on June 30. McAdoo and Smith each evolved a strategy to build up his own total slowly. Smith's trick was to plant his extra votes for his opponent, so that McAdoo's strength might later appear to be waning; the Californian countered by holding back his full force, though he had been planning a strong early show. But by no sleight of hand could the convention have been swung around to either contestant.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
With the party split into two assertive parts, the rule requiring a two-thirds majority for nomination crippled the chances of both candidates by giving a veto each could - and did - use. McAdoo himself wanted to drop the two-thirds rule, but his Protestant supporters preferred to keep their veto over a Catholic candidate, and the South regarded the rule as a protection of its interests.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
At no point in the balloting did Smith receive more than a single vote from the South and scarcely more than 20 votes from the states west of the Mississippi; he never won more than 368 of the 729 votes needed for nomination, though even this performance was impressive for a Roman Catholic. McAdoo's strength fluctuated more widely, reaching its highest point of 528 on the seventieth ballot. Since both candidates occasionally received purely strategic aid, the nucleus of their support was probably even less. The remainder of the votes were divided among dark horses and favorite sons who had spun high hopes since the Doheny testimony; understandably, they hesitated to withdraw their own candidacies as long as the convention was so clearly divided.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
As time passed, the maneuvers of the two factions took on the character of desperation. Daniel C. Roper even went to Franklin Roosevelt, reportedly to offer Smith second place on a McAdoo ticket. For their part, the Tammany men tried to prolong the convention until the hotel bills were beyond the means of the outlanders; the Smith backers also attempted to stampede the delegates by packing the galleries with noisy rooters. Senator James Phelan from California, among others, complained of "New York rowdyism."


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
But the rudeness of Tammany, and particularly the booing accord to Bryan when he spoke to the convention, only steeled the resolution of the country delegates. McAdoo and Bryan both tried to reassemble the convention in another city, perhaps Washington, D.C. or St. Louis. As a last resort, McAdoo supporters introduced a motion to eliminate one candidate on each ballot until only five remained, but Smith delegates and those supporting favorite sons managed to defeat the McAdoo strategy.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
Smith countered by suggesting that all delegates be released from their pledges - to which McAdoo agreed on condition that the two-thirds rule be eliminated - although Smith fully expected that loyalty would prevent the disaffection of Indiana and Illinois votes, both controlled by political bosses friendly to him. Indeed, Senator David Walsh from Massachusetts expressed the sentiment that moved Smith backers: "We must continue to do all that we can to nominate Smith. If it should develop that he cannot be nominated, then McAdoo cannot have it either." For his part, McAdoo would angrily quit the convention and leave the country once he lost: but the sixty-first inconclusive round - when the convention set a record for length of balloting - was no time to admit defeat.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
It had seemed for a time that the nomination could go to Samuel Ralston, an Indiana senator and popular former governor. Advanced by the indefatigable boss Thomas Taggart, Ralston's candidacy might look for some support from Bryan, who had written, "Ralston is the most promising of the compromise candidates." Ralston was also a favorite of the Klan and a second choice of many McAdoo men. In 1922 he had launched an attack on parochial schools that the Klan saw as an endorsement of its own views, and he won several normally Republican counties dominated by the Klan.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
Commenting on the Klan issue, Ralston said that it would create a bad precedent to denounce any organization by name in the platform. Much of Ralston's support came from the South and West - states like Oklahoma, Missouri, and Nevada, with their strong Klan elements. McAdoo himself, according to Claude Bowers, said: "I like the old Senator, like his simplicity, honesty, record"; and it was reported that he told Smith supporters he would withdraw only in favor of Ralston.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
As with John W. Davis, Ralston had few enemies, and his support from men as divergent as Bryan and Taggart cast him as a possible compromise candidate. He passed Davis, the almost consistent third choice of the convention, on the fifty-second ballot; but Taggart then discouraged the boom for the time being because the McAdoo and Smith phalanxes showed no signs of weakening.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
On July 8, the eighty-seventh ballot showed a total for Ralston of 93 votes, chiefly from Indiana and Missouri; before the day was over, the Ralston total had risen to almost two hundred, a larger tally than Davis had ever received. Most of these votes were drawn from McAdoo, to whom they later returned.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
Numerous sources indicate that Taggart was not exaggerating when he later said: "We would have nominated Senator Ralston if he had not withdrawn his name at the last minute. It was a near certainty as anything in politics could be. We had pledges of enough delegates that would shift to Ralston on a certain ballot to have nominated him." Ralston himself had wavered on whether to make the race; despite the doctor's stern recommendation not to run and the illness of his wife and son, the Senator had told Taggart that he would be a candidate, albeit a reluctant one. But the three-hundred pound Ralston finally telegraphed his refusal to go on with it; sixty-six years old at the time of the convention, he would die the following year.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
The nomination, stripped of all honor, finally went to John W. Davis, a compromise candidate who won on the one hundred and third ballot after the withdrawal of Smith and McAdoo. Davis had never been a genuine dark horse candidate; he had almost always been third in the balloting, and by the end of the twenty-ninth round he was the betting favorite of New York gamblers.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
There had been a Davis movement at the 1920 San Francisco convention of considerable size; however, Charles Hamlin wrote in his diary, Davis "frankly said ... that he was not seeking [the nomination] and that if nominated he would accept only as a matter of public duty." For Vice-President, the Democrats nominated the able Charles W. Bryan, governor of Nebraska, brother of William Jennings Bryan, and for many years editor of The Commoner. Loquacious beyond endurance, Bryan attacked the gas companies of Nebraska and bravely tried such socialistic schemes as a municipal ice plant for Lincoln.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
In 1922 he had won the governorship by promising to lower taxes. Bryan received little more than the necessary two-thirds vote, and no attempt was made to make the choice unanimous; boos were sounding through the Garden.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
The incongruous teaming of the distinguished Wall Street lawyer and the radical from a prairie state provided not a balanced but a polarized ticket, and because the selection of Bryan was reputed to be a sop to the radicals, many delegates unfamiliar with Davis's actual record came to identify the lawyer with a conservatism in excess even of that considerable amount he did indeed represent.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party nomination
In his acceptance speech Davis made the perfunctory statement that he would enforce the prohibition law, but his conservatism prejudiced him in favor of personal liberty and home rule and he was frequently denounced as a wet. The dry leader Wayne Wheeler complained of Davis's "constant repetition of wet catch phrases like 'personal liberty,' 'illegal search and seizure,' and 'home rule'." After the convention Davis tried to satisfy both factions of his party, but his support came principally from the same city elements that had backed Cox in 1920.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Progressive Party nomination
The movement for a significant new third party had its impetus in 1919 when John A. H. Hopkins, earlier a prominent member of the Rooseveltian Progressive Party, organized the Committee of 48 as a progressive political action group. The work of political mobilization begun by the committee was taken up in 1922 by a conference of progressives called by the railroad brotherhoods of Chicago, where La Follette established his position as head of the young movement.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Progressive Party nomination
The majority of participants at a second meeting that December in Cleveland were trade union officials, the delegates including William Green of the United Mine Workers and Sidney Hillman of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. A quarter of the delegates came from the Nonpartisan League, the Farmer-Labor Party, and Morris Hillquit's Socialist Party of America, while individual farmers and labor spokesmen comprised the remainder of the progressive conclave. The Forty-Eighters acted as a mediating force between the idealistic Socialists and the pragmatic labor men. Although majority sentiment for an independent party did not crystallize in Cleveland, the dream of a united new liberal party captured the loyalty of many delegates who subsequently turned away from the major parties in 1924.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Progressive Party nomination
Out of the Committee of Forty-Eight, some earlier organizations formed by La Follette, and the Chicago conventions grew the Conference for Progressive Political Action. La Follette had told reporters the previous summer that there would be no need for a third ticket unless both parties nominated reactionaries. Then came the Doheny scandals. As it seemed likely at the time that the scandals would eliminate Democratic frontrunner William Gibbs McAdoo, who was popular among railroad unions and other labor groups, the way was paved for the party which was launched at Cleveland in July 1924.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Progressive Party nomination
Twelve hundred delegates and nine thousand spectators ratified the nomination of La Follette. The atmosphere was more sober than the one that had prevailed in 1912, where Theodore Roosevelt elicited much enthusiasm among the delegations. Farmers themselves were sparsely represented; they were too "broke" to come, according to Senator Lynn Frazier. Only one African-American sat in the audience and only one or two eastern intellectuals. Duly accredited delegates appeared for the Food Reform Society of America, the National Unity Committee, and the Davenport Iowa Ethical Society. Many students attended, one of the largest groups coming from Columbia University.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Progressive Party nomination
Jacob Coxey was present as well as John J. Streeter. Radical labor leaders constituted the main body of the congregation. It was the dream of the Progressives that they might replace the Democrats, and thereby bring a clearer ideological alignment to American politics. The best way to do this, according to John Hopkins, would be to prevent either of the major parties from gaining a majority in the Electoral College and thus force the House of Representatives to choose the President.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Progressive Party nomination
As the Progressive candidate for president, La Follette became leader of the first formal prominent alliance in American political history between members of organized labor and farm groups, and of these with Socialists and independent radicals. Even the American Federation of Labor, although weakened by a precipitous decline in membership since the First World War, gave La Follette mild backing and so officially supported a presidential candidate for the first time.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Progressive Party nomination
The Progressive vice-presidential candidate was Senator Burton K. Wheeler from Montana, only one of many Democrats who abandoned the chaos of their own party for La Follette's, and found there an idealism and dedication unparalleled within any of the other major political organizations of the 1920s. Wheeler explained his defection in his autobiography: "When the Democratic party goes to Wall Street for a candidate, I must refuse to go with it." The Senator added special strength to the ticket, for he had played a major role in bringing to justice Attorney General Harry Daugherty. Moreover, his selection made it plain that the Progressives would seek votes from both major parties.


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Progressive Party nomination
Ill with pneumonia and absent from his Senate desk during most of the spring, sixty-eight-year-old La Follette still was a formidable contender. Drawing on a variety of discontents, he could injure the cause of either major party in sections it could ill afford to lose. The long appeal to the farmer in the party platform suggested his major target, but the candidate was addressing every American. In his acceptance speech La Follette urged that military spending be curtailed and soldiers' bonus paid. At the foundation of La Follette's program was an attack on monopolies, which he demanded should be "crushed."


1924 United States presidential election, Nominations, Progressive Party nomination
His Socialist supporters took this as an attack on the capitalistic system in general; to non-Socialists, including the Senator himself, who believed this encroached on personal liberty, it signified a revival of the policy of trust-busting. The Progressive candidate also called for government ownership of water power and gradual nationalization of the railroads. He also supported the nationalization of cigarette factories and other large industries, strongly supported increased taxation on the wealthy, and supported the right of collective bargaining for factory workers. William Foster, a major figure within the Communist Party, considered La Follette a hopeless reactionary who wanted to break up monopolies and return to an era of small businesses.


1924 United States presidential election, Results
This was the first presidential election in which all American Indians were recognized as citizens and allowed to vote.


1924 United States presidential election, Results
With the Democratic Convention having divided the Democrats and the economy booming, there was little doubt that Coolidge would win the election. His campaign slogan, "Keep Cool with Coolidge", was highly popular.


1924 United States presidential election, Results
The total vote increased 2,300,000 but, because of the great drawing power of the La Follette candidacy, both the Republican and Democratic totals were less. Largely because of the deep inroads made by La Follette in the Democratic vote, Davis polled 750,000 fewer votes than were cast for Cox in 1920. Coolidge polled 425,000 votes less than Harding had in 1920. Nonetheless, La Follette's appeal among liberal Democrats allowed Coolidge to achieve a 25.2 percent margin of victory over Davis in the popular vote (the second largest since 1824).


1924 United States presidential election, Results
Davis's popular vote percentage of 28.8% remains the lowest of any Democratic presidential candidate (not counting John C. Breckinridge's run on a Southern Democratic ticket in 1860, when the vote was split with Stephen A. Douglas, the main Democratic candidate), albeit with several other candidates performing worse in the electoral college.


1924 United States presidential election, Results
The "other" vote amounted to nearly five million, owing in largest part to the 4,832,614 votes cast for La Follette. This candidacy, like that of Roosevelt in 1912, altered the distribution of the vote throughout the country and particularly in eighteen states in the Middle and Far West. Unlike the Roosevelt vote of 1912, the La Follette vote included most of the Socialist strength.


1924 United States presidential election, Results
The La Follette vote was distributed over the nation, and in every state, but its greatest strength lay in the East North Central and West North Central sections. However, La Follette carried no section, and he was second in only two sections, the Mountain and Pacific areas. In twelve states, the La Follette vote was greater than that cast for Davis. In one of these states, Wisconsin, La Follette defeated the Republican ticket also, thus winning one state in the electoral college. The "other" vote led the poll in 235 counties, and practically all of these (225) gave La Follette a plurality. Four counties, three in the South, recorded zero votes, as against seven in 1920 – this decrease reflecting the Indian Citizenship Act.


1924 United States presidential election, Results
On the basis of number of counties carried, the Republican Party was weaker than in 1920, whilst the Democratic Party, despite its heavy losses in numerous states, was stronger than in 1920. Davis led the poll in 1,279 counties. This was a gain of 183, due to his recovering lost support in the Confederate and border states. Republican strength in the Middle West and Far West was undermined by La Follette. La Follette ran second in 566 counties. Coolidge had a majority in 1,217 counties and Davis in 1,193 counties while La Follette had a majority in 137 counties.


1924 United States presidential election, Results
The inroads of the La Follette candidacy upon the Democratic Party were in areas where Democratic county majorities had been infrequent in the Fourth Party System. At the same time, the inroads of La Follette's candidacy upon the Republican Party were in areas where in this national contest their candidate could afford to be second or third in the poll. Thus, Davis carried only the traditionally Democratic Solid South and Oklahoma; due to liberal Democrats voting for La Follette, Davis lost the popular vote to Coolidge by 25.2 percentage points. Only Warren Harding, who finished 26.2 points ahead of his nearest competitor in the previous election, did better in this category in competition between multiple candidates (incumbent James Monroe was the only candidate in 1820 and thus took every vote).


1924 United States presidential election, Results
The combined vote for Davis and La Follette over the nation was exceeded by Coolidge by 2,500,000. Nevertheless, in thirteen states (four border and nine western), Coolidge received only a plurality. The Coolidge vote topped the poll, however, in thirty-five states, leaving the electoral vote for Davis in only twelve. All the states of the former Confederacy voted for Davis (plus Oklahoma), while all of the Union/postbellum states (except Wisconsin and Oklahoma) voted for Coolidge. It remains the last time anyone won the Presidency without carrying a single former Confederate state.


1924 United States presidential election, Results
This was the last election in which Republicans won Massachusetts and Rhode Island until 1952. The Republicans did so well that they carried New York City, a feat they have not repeated since, and this was also the last election in which they carried Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Ramsey County, Minnesota, Costilla County, Colorado and Deer Lodge County, Montana, or the City of St. Louis, Missouri. Davis did not carry any counties in twenty of the forty-eight states, two fewer than Cox during the previous election, but nonetheless an ignominy approached since only by George McGovern in his landslide 1972 loss. Davis did not carry one county in any state bordering Canada or the Pacific. The election was the last time a Republican won the presidency without Florida, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.


1924 United States presidential election, Results, Geography of results
Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote


1924 United States presidential election, Results, Close states
Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (69 electoral votes):


1924 United States presidential election in Alabama
The 1924 United States presidential election in Alabama took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the nationwide presidential election, which was held throughout all contemporary forty-eight states. Voters chose twelve representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Alabama
Alabama was won easily by John W. Davis of West Virginia over incumbent president Calvin Coolidge and Progressive nominee Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin. With 67.8% of the popular vote, Alabama makes it Davis' 6th strongest state.


1924 United States presidential election in Arizona
The 1924 United States presidential election in Arizona took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. State voters chose three representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Arizona
Arizona was won by incumbent Republican President Calvin Coolidge, and his running mate Charles G. Dawes, winning 41.26% of the popular vote. Coolidge's percentage of victory was significantly lower than previous Republican President Warren G. Harding who earned a solid 55.6% of the total vote. Many progressive Republicans who sided with Harding in 1920, split from the party again voting for Progressive Party candidate Robert M. La Follette who received an astounding 23.27% of the popular vote.


1924 United States presidential election in Arizona
La Follette was a Progressive Republican Senator from Wisconsin who chose to run for President against conservative Republican President Calvin Coolidge, whom he disagreed with on economic issues. LaFollette's greatest strength was found the Western states, particularly Arizona where many voters disapproved of both conservative nominees for the Republican and Democratic Party.


1924 United States presidential election in Arizona
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom John W. Davis was the Democratic nominee who had little support outside the South, including Arizona where he received a mere 35.47% of the popular vote, running with Charles W. Bryan, younger brother of former perennial presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.


1924 United States presidential election in Arkansas
The 1924 United States presidential election in Arkansas was held on November 4, 1924 as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. State voters chose nine electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice-President.


1924 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Background and vote
Except for the Unionist Ozark counties of Newton and Searcy where Republicans controlled local government, Arkansas since the end of Reconstruction had been a classic one-party Democratic “Solid South” state. Disfranchisement during the 1890s of effectively all Negroes and most poor whites had meant that outside those two aberrant counties, the Republican Party was completely moribund and Democratic primaries the only competitive elections. Although the northwest of the state was to develop a strong Socialist Party movement that served as a swing vote in county elections, political repression and internal party divisions diminished that party’s strength substantially.


1924 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Background and vote
The Democratic Party, under the influence of future federal Senate Minority and Majority Leader Joseph Taylor Robinson and demagogic Governor and Senator Jeff Davis, was to make many familiar progressive changes in railroad regulation and child labor, but under the administration of George W. Donaghey – who saw his administration and Democratic primary candidacy as a fight against the “Davis Machine” – more rapid development occurred, especially in abolishing convict leasing and improving bank regulation.


1924 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Background and vote
Race riots and fear of the Bolshevik Revolution spreading and destroying American capitalism ensued when many soldiers returned from World War I, and President Woodrow Wilson responded with the Palmer Raids and a “Red Scare”. Isolationism was sufficiently powerful in Ozark sections of Arkansas that Warren G. Harding, with almost forty percent of the statewide vote in 1920, gained the most support for any GOP candidate since disfranchisement of Black Americans.


1924 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Background and vote
However, with the anti-Democratic opposition split and isolationism cooling, Davis more than doubled James M. Cox’s 1920 margin. Republican Coolidge – though winning a national landslide and carrying every state except the former Confederacy plus culturally and politically allied Oklahoma – carried as Charles Evans Hughes did eight years previously only the two traditional Unionist Ozark counties.


1924 United States presidential election in California
The 1924 United States presidential election in California took place on November 4, 1924 as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. State voters chose 13 electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in California, Background
Since the "Panic of 1893" and large-scale voter registration, California had become a one-party state dominated by the Republican Party. The Democratic Party was largely moribund as a result of its association with the Populist revolt, the rural formerly slave South, and the polyglot metropolis – which held no appeal in an old-stock Western state with very few Southern and Eastern European immigrants. Rigid registration laws and, before 1914, poll taxes, largely disfranchised what immigrants (who had leaned Democratic during the Third Party System) did enter the state.


1924 United States presidential election in California, Background
Nonetheless, the appeal of Progressivism and tendency towards nonpartisan politics allowed Woodrow Wilson to nearly carry the state in 1912 and do so in 1916 despite substantial Socialist votes in both elections; however, James M. Cox lost most of this support by 1920 as a result of a powerful reaction in the West against the social upheaval Wilson had caused.


1924 United States presidential election in California, Background
Following the Cox debacle, the Democratic Party disintegrated even further: in 1922 they elected only four seats in the state House of Representatives, and had failed to elect an open Senator in 1920, and defeated James D. Phelan's efforts to have William Gibbs McAdoo nominated as Democratic presidential candidate in 1924 further ruined the party's organization and furthered cleavages between the "dry" and "wet" sections of the party.


1924 United States presidential election in California, Background
California's large "Progressive" electorate had been divided by issues such as the League of Nations and Prohibition, and was weakened by the election of economy-minded Friend W. Richardson as Governor in 1922. When Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette announced he would run a third-party presidential campaign in 1924, there remained division, but radical San Francisco Progressive Rudolph Spreckels supported him on the "Socialist" line against indifference from Hiram Johnson (who had attempted to unseat Coolidge in the GOP primaries) and State Senators Herbert Jones and Inman.


1924 United States presidential election in California, Vote
Democratic nominee John W. Davis of West Virginia and Coolidge both spent most of their campaign attacking La Follette as a political extremist.


1924 United States presidential election in California, Vote
At the beginning of the campaign, Davis had substantial hope of recovering support lost in 1920. However, Davis' opposition to women's suffrage, and belief in strictly limited government with no expansion in nonmilitary fields had almost no appeal in California. Although in September Davis underwent an extensive tour of the region and of the Great Plains, and campaigned to eliminate the income tax burden of the poorer classes, he received a mere 8.23 percent of the vote in California – the worst for any major party nominee in California's history and his fourth-worst state nationwide.


1924 United States presidential election in California, Vote
Reduced to a battle between Coolidge and La Follette, the incumbent President campaigned upon present prosperity in addition to his opponent's perceived extremism. Despite perception the state may be doubtful, Coolidge won a plurality of over 24 percentage points, aided by a campaign based upon vilification. La Follette did nonetheless match Coolidge outside conservative, heavily populated Southern California, and he carried most urban working class districts in Northern California, as well as most of the Sierra logging counties that were to become Democratic strongholds between FDR and Jimmy Carter. La Follette's vote was later to revive the moribund Democratic Party when it turned largely to Al Smith (whom his family was to endorse when he died) in the following election.


1924 United States presidential election in Colorado
The 1924 United States presidential election in Colorado took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary forty-eight states. Voters chose six representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Colorado
Between 1896 and 1916, Colorado had been strongly Democratic-leaning due to that party’s adoption of free silver in this silver-mining state; however, in 1920 Warren G. Harding carried every county in the state. In the following few years the Ku Klux Klan grew extremely rapidly in Colorado and by the time of the next election it was close to taking control of the state government. The Klan was aided by structural problems in Colorado’s agriculture and fear of Catholicism embedded in Mexican immigration and the traditional Catholicism of the Hispanic south-central counties.


1924 United States presidential election in Colorado
As it turned out, the strong economy ensured that incumbent President Calvin Coolidge would have little trouble carrying the state, despite the strong third-party candidacy of Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette, who was opposed to the powerful Klan and struggled in the anti-Catholic High Plains.


1924 United States presidential election in Colorado
As of the 2020 presidential election this is the last occasion Costilla County has voted for a Republican presidential candidate.


1924 United States presidential election in Connecticut
The 1924 United States presidential election in Connecticut took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose seven representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Connecticut
Connecticut voted for the Republican nominee, incumbent President Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, over the Democratic nominee, Ambassador John W. Davis of West Virginia. Coolidge ran with former Budget Director Charles G. Dawes of Illinois, while Davis ran with Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska. Also in the running that year was the Progressive Party nominee, Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin and his running mate Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana. La Follette’s support base was primarily among rural German and Scandinavian Americans, and he possessed little appeal in the Northeast outside a few New York and Boston anti-Prohibition precincts.


1924 United States presidential election in Connecticut
Coolidge won Connecticut by a margin of 34.01%. His victory was also enjoyed a unique personal popularity which helped him in the state and the rest of New England. He was the epitome of a traditional New England Yankee, having been born in the small-town of Plymouth Notch, Vermont, and establishing his political career nearby as Governor of Massachusetts. Thus Coolidge remained especially popular with voters across the New England region.


1924 United States presidential election in Connecticut
The 1920s were a fiercely Republican decade in American politics, and Connecticut in that era was a fiercely Republican state in presidential elections. The economic boom and social good feelings of the Roaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership virtually guaranteed Calvin Coolidge an easy win in the state against the conservative Southern Democrat John Davis, who had little appeal in Northern states like Connecticut.


1924 United States presidential election in Connecticut
As of 2020, this was the last presidential election in which the Republican nominee carried the city of Hartford.


1924 United States presidential election in Delaware
The 1924 United States presidential election in Delaware took place on November 4, 1924. All contemporary 48 states were part of the 1924 United States presidential election. State voters chose three electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Delaware
Delaware was won by the Republican nominee, incumbent President Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, over the Democratic nominee, Ambassador John W. Davis of West Virginia. Coolidge ran with former Budget Director Charles G. Dawes of Illinois, while Davis ran with Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska. Also in the running that year was the Progressive Party nominee, Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin and his running mate Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana.


1924 United States presidential election in Florida
The 1924 United States presidential election in Florida was held on November 4, 1924. Voters chose six representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Florida, Background
Ever since the disfranchisement of blacks at the beginning of the 1890s, Florida had been a one-party state ruled by the Democratic Party. The disfranchisement of blacks and poor whites by poll taxes in 1889 had left the Republican Party – between 1872 and 1888 dependent upon black votes – virtually extinct.


1924 United States presidential election in Florida, Background
With the single exception of William Howard Taft’s win in Calhoun County in 1908 the Democratic Party won every county in Florida in every presidential election from 1892 until 1916. Only twice – and never for more than one term – did any Republican serve in either house of the state legislature between 1896 and 1928.


1924 United States presidential election in Florida, Background
Despite this Democratic dominance and the restrictions on the franchise of the poorer classes due to the poll tax, significant socialist movements were to develop and persist in Tampa and to a lesser extent over other parts of the state, especially against the powerful Ku Klux Klan. There was also a powerful Prohibitionist movements in older North Florida, which saw the Prohibition Party even win the governorship for one term under the notorious anti-Catholic minister Sidney J. Catts.


1924 United States presidential election in Florida, Background
The 1920 presidential election saw Warren Harding, aided substantially by isolationist sentiment in the region, gain more support in the former Confederacy than any Republican since black disfranchisement, in the process winning three Florida counties.


1924 United States presidential election in Florida, Vote
Owing to a decline in voter turnout, and an easing of isolationist feelings, Coolidge was unable to match Harding’s percentage of the vote. However, vis-à-vis Harding’s performance in this one-party southern state, Coolidge’s losing margin was 2.53 percentage points smaller, and he did make small gains amongst the small but increasing flow of Northeastern migrants moving to Florida’s hot climate. Although he did not manage to hold Broward County or Osceola County, where Harding gained pluralities in 1920, Coolidge did become the first Republican to ever carry Pinellas County.


1924 United States presidential election in Florida, Vote
Despite the fact that the Republican Party had never gained 31 percent of Florida’s vote in a presidential election since the poll tax was introduced, 1924 remains, as of the 2020 presidential election, the last time a Republican presidential candidate has won an election without carrying Florida. Passionate anti-Catholic feelings in the Piney Woods region would turn the presidential electoral votes of this one-party state against urban Catholic Al Smith in 1928, and the state went on to become largely a bellwether in presidential elections. Since 1928, it has only backed the losing candidate of a presidential election three times, all Republicans: 1960, 1992, and 2020.


1924 United States presidential election in Florida, Vote
Florida would prove to be the strongest state for Prohibition Party candidate Herman Faris, who won 5.04% of the popular vote.


1924 United States presidential election in Georgia
The 1924 United States presidential election in Georgia took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the wider United States Presidential election. Voters chose 14 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Georgia, Background
With the exception of a handful of historically Unionist North Georgia counties – chiefly Fannin but also to a lesser extent Pickens, Gilmer and Towns – Georgia since the 1880s had been a one-party state dominated by the Democratic Party. Disfranchisement of almost all African-Americans and most poor whites had made the Republican Party virtually nonexistent outside of local governments in those few hill counties, and the national Democratic Party served as the guardian of white supremacy against a Republican Party historically associated with memories of Reconstruction. The only competitive elections were Democratic primaries, which state laws restricted to whites on the grounds of the Democratic Party being legally a private club.


1924 United States presidential election in Georgia, Vote
The Davis/Bryan ticket carried the state of Georgia on election day.


1924 United States presidential election in Idaho
The 1924 United States presidential election in Idaho took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. State voters chose four representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Idaho, Background
At state level, Idaho had begun in 1902 to be very much a one-party Republican state, which it has largely remained since apart from the New Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s. For a time there was also a perception that the William Jennings Bryan-led Democratic Party had failed as a "party of reform".


1924 United States presidential election in Idaho, Background
However, with the aid of a powerful "peace vote" due to opposition to participation in World War I, and a considerable part of the substantial vote for Eugene Debs, Woodrow Wilson almost completely swept the Western and Plains States in 1916 (Idaho included), losing only South Dakota and Oregon. These gains were to be lost due to growing anti-Asian and isolationist feelings in the West – James M. Cox in 1920 lost every Idaho county by double digits.


1924 United States presidential election in Idaho, Background
To further marginalize the Democrats, in 1922 "Progressive Party" nominee H.F. Samuels ran ahead of Democratic candidate and former Governor Moses Alexander.


1924 United States presidential election in Idaho, Background, Primaries
During the pre-election primaries the Democratic Party was divided between a rural, southern and Western wing led by Woodrow Wilson's son-in-law William Giibs McAdoo, opposed to an urban, immigrant and anti-Prohibition faction in major northern cities. The man who would ultimately represent this urban faction was New York Governor Al Smith, whose Catholic faith was vehemently opposed by many rural Appalachian Democrats.


1924 United States presidential election in Idaho, Background, Primaries
Even in his adopted West, McAdoo was not universally liked because of his links to Edward L. Doheny and Harding's "Teapot Dome" petroleum scandal; nonetheless there was sufficient hostility in Idaho to Smith that the state's delegation – alongside others in the West – held a parade for McAdoo at the beginning of the party's convention in New York City.


1924 United States presidential election in Idaho, Background, Primaries
Delegates in Idaho continued to support McAdoo as the convention remained undecided, until the one hundred and first ballot when they finally shifted to former Agriculture Secretary David F. Houston and then to Montana Senator Thomas J. Walsh on the one hundred and second. The one hundred and third ballot saw the Gem State switch to West Virgnian John W. Davis, who won the nomination thereon.


1924 United States presidential election in Idaho, Background, Third-party challenge
The conservatism of Coolidge and Davis resulted in Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette senior mounting a third-party challenge – which La Follette had planned even before the Democratic Convention. In agricultural western and midwestern states like Idaho, there was widespread discontent with the policies of the incumbent Coolidge Administration, and Idaho became one of La Follette's primary targets from the start of his campaign with running mate Burton K. Wheeler of Montana.


1924 United States presidential election in Idaho, Background, Third-party challenge
By the end of July the GOP was concerned that La Follette was showing strength in the Gem State, and this fear grew as the election drew nearer. It was always clear Democrat Davis had no chance in this GOP bastion, and this was backed up by polls in the middle of October, which showed Davis running third and that many of the state's small number of Democrats were backing La Follette.


1924 United States presidential election in Idaho, Background, Third-party challenge
Thinking he had won most of the West, despite polls actually showing him well behind Coolidge except in his home state, Nevada, and the northern Plains States, La Follette did not campaign in the state during October, preferring to work in the eastern states where he felt he could gain more additional support. In Idaho itself, polls in the four weeks of October showed Coolidge well ahead with around fifty percent of the vote.


1924 United States presidential election in Idaho, Vote
As it turned out, Coolidge actually underperformed the October polls in the Gem State, but still comfortably carried the state by a double-digit margin over La Follette. Coolidge's strong performance in the conservative, highly Mormon southeast and also in Northern Idaho ensured his victory, whilst La Follette did best in rural areas of the southwest and central mountains, where he carried eight counties.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois
The 1924 United States presidential election in Illinois took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. State voters chose 29 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information
The primaries and general elections coincided with those for other federal offices (Senate and House), as well as those for state offices.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information, Background
A strongly Democratic state during the Second Party System, Illinois became Republican-leaning after the American Civil War due to a combination of strong Free Soil Party heritage amongst its Yankee northern counties with the wartime conversion of some Virginian-settled rock-ribbed Democratic Southern Illinois counties to Unionist Republicanism à la Appalachia.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information, Background
Between the Civil War and World War I, partisanship in Illinois – like in the Border States – largely re-fought the war, with the result that although the Democratic Party gained at least 43 percent of the statewide vote via Southern and German Catholic support in every election up to 1900, they never gained an absolute majority and carried the state's electoral votes only in 1892.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information, Background
Due to the Democratic Party's growing Populist and prohibitionist leanings, a decline in Democratic support after 1900 in its German Central Illinois strongholds transformed Illinois into a powerfully Republican state at all levels.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information, Background
Even Woodrow Wilson in 1912 when the GOP was mortally divided carried the state by only a very narrow margin, and in 1920 hostility to the League of Nations and the perceived anti-German bias of both outgoing President Wilson and new Democratic nominee and former Ohio Governor James M. Cox – the latter of whom had banned German-language instruction in Ohio schools – meant Harding carried Illinois by over 42 percentage points and the state was his sixth strongest in a national landslide. German Catholic Clinton County, and twelve southern-settled counties in the Illinois River valley and southward, went Republican for the first time.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, Election information, Turnout
The total vote in the state-run primary elections (Democratic and Republican) was 1,101,583.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries
Both major parties held non-binding state-run preferential primaries on April 8.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries, Democratic
The 1924 Illinois Democratic presidential primary was held on April 8, 1924 in the U.S. state of Illinois as one of the Democratic Party's state primaries ahead of the 1924 presidential election.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries, Democratic
The preference vote was a non-binding "beauty contest". Delegates were instead elected by direct votes by congressional district on delegate candidates. Delegate candidates either were listed on the ballot with their preference on for a particular presidential candidate, or were listed as expressing no preference.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries, Democratic
The preference vote was near unanimously won by the only name on the ballot, former United States Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries, Republican
The 1924 Illinois Republican presidential primary was held on April 8, 1924 in the U.S. state of Illinois as one of the Republican Party's state primaries ahead of the 1924 presidential election.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, Primaries, Republican
The preference vote was a "beauty contest". Delegates were instead selected by direct-vote in each congressional districts on delegate candidates. Delegate candidates either were listed on the ballot with their preference on for a particular presidential candidate, or were listed as expressing no preference.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
During the Republican National Convention, Illinosian Charles G. Dawes easily won the Vice-Presidential nomination ahead of fellow state resident Frank Lowden.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
The first campaign in Illinois was not by Coolidge or Davis, but by radical third-party nominee, veteran Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette, who on July 4 confirmed his previous plan to run a third-party campaign when nominated by the “Conference for Progressive Political Action”. La Follette on Labor Day, August 22, said he hoped to carry Illinois because he believed gubernatorial candidate Len Small would not aid the Coolidge ticket.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
Democratic nominee John W. Davis, a conservative Southern Democrat from West Virginia, spent four days in Chicago conferring with party leaders from half-a-dozen other states, but did not campaign downstate. Coolidge was urged to campaign in the state after suspicions La Follette would be a severe threat in Chicago and other German-American communities. Coolidge did not respond, and Dawes was viciously criticised by La Follette's running mate, Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler, for being associated with the Central Trust Company and Lorimer Street State Savings Bank.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
At the beginning of the campaign it was considered possible that Davis could carry Illinois if there was a strong enough vote for La Follette. However, as early as mid-August it was thought that the Coolidge-Dawes ticket was certain of carrying Illinois, and in mid-September it seemed likely Coolidge was a clear first with La Follette running ahead of Davis, a result that would be repeated in a survey during the second week of October.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
After polls in mid-October suggested a trend toward him, Davis intended to campaign downstate, but never did so. As election day neared, it became clearer that Coolidge would carry Illinois, although at the beginning of the fourth week of October it was thought he would win by only half Harding's 1920 margin, even with La Follette abandoning his campaigns in the Corn Belt. Polls on October 29 further confirmed Illinois as in Coolidge's hands,


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
Ultimately Coolidge won by substantially more than the mid-October predictions, although by less than Harding had in 1920. Davis did regain seven of the thirteen counties that defected to the GOP for the first time in 1920, but still did worse than any other major party nominee in Illinois presidential election history except William Howard Taft in 1912.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
La Follette ran third below Davis, running far below his performance in his adjacent home state of Wisconsin and other states to the northwest, but nonetheless performed extremely well for a third party in German Catholic precincts and in industrial areas of the Upper Mississippi Valley adjacent to Iowa. The Wisconsin Senator did carry one county – German Catholic Clinton – which was the nation's southeasternmost county to vote for La Follette.


1924 United States presidential election in Illinois, General election
Coolidge maintained the dominance that Warren Harding had enjoyed in 1920, despite losing substantial German Catholic and Mississippi Valley industrial support to La Folette.


1924 United States presidential election in Indiana
The 1924 United States presidential election in Indiana took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose 15 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Indiana
Indiana voted for the Republican nominee, incumbent President Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, over the Democratic nominee, Ambassador John W. Davis of West Virginia. Coolidge ran with former Budget Director Charles G. Dawes of Illinois, while Davis ran with Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska. Also in the running that year was the Progressive Party nominee, Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin and his running mate Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana. However, owing to Indiana’s strong Southern leanings, the conservatism of its German Catholic counties, and the dominance of the Ku Klux Klan, the state was one of La Follette’s weakest nationally.


1924 United States presidential election in Indiana
Coolidge won the state by a margin of 16.56%; however, Indiana was easily Davis’ strongest antebellum free state, voting around 9 points more Democratic than the nation at-large. As of the 2020 presidential election this is the last occasion Indiana has voted more Democratic than the nation.


1924 United States presidential election in Iowa
The 1924 United States presidential election in Iowa took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose 13 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Iowa
Iowa voted for the Republican nominee, incumbent President Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, over Progressive nominee, Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette of and Democratic nominee, Ambassador John W. Davis of West Virginia. Coolidge ran with former Budget Director Charles G. Dawes of Illinois, while Davis ran with Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska while La Follette ran with Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler.


1924 United States presidential election in Iowa
Iowa was the most southeasterly of 12 states where Democrat Davis ran third behind both Coolidge and La Follette. Davis’ performance is the worst by any major-party nominee since Iowa became a state in 1846, whilst La Follette’s is the second-best by any third-party candidate in Iowa presidential election history behind Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.


1924 United States presidential election in Kansas
The 1924 United States presidential election in Kansas was held on November 4, 1924 as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. Kansas voters chose ten electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Kansas, Background
A rapid recovery from the depression of 1920 and 1921, despite major Republican losses during the 1922 House elections placed the Republican Party – who gained a record popular-vote majority in the 1920 election – in a secure position despite the death of President Warren G. Harding in 1923. Rises in wages and ebbing of discontent further solidified the GOP's hold on power.


1924 United States presidential election in Kansas, Background
More critically, the Democratic Party was mortally divided between its rural Southern faction led by William Gibbs McAdoo and its white ethnic urban northeastern faction led by New York Governor Al Smith. The rural faction was supported by the revived Ku Klux Klan and was in favour of Prohibition, whereas the white ethnic faction was firmly against the anti-Catholic Klan and opposed to Prohibition. A fierce debate ensued that saw a compromise candidate, former Congressman John W. Davis of West Virginia, nominated after one hundred and three ballots in hot summer weather at Madison Square Garden.


1924 United States presidential election in Kansas, Background
Although West Virginia was a border state whose limited African-American population had not been disenfranchised as happened in all former Confederate States, Davis did share the extreme social conservatism of Southern Democrats of his era. He supported poll taxes, opposed women's suffrage, and believed in strictly limited government with no expansion in nonmilitary fields.


1924 United States presidential election in Kansas, Background
The conservatism of Coolidge and Davis made it inevitable that aging Wisconsin maverick Robert M. La Follette, Sr. would mount a third-party challenge – which La Follette had planned even before the Democratic Convention. La Follette was formally nominated on July 4 by the "Conference for Progressive Political Action" and developed a platform dedicated to eliminating child labor and American interference in Latin American political affairs, along with a formal denunciation of the Ku Klux Klan. La Follette also proposed major judicial reforms including amendments allowing congress to override judicial review and to re-enact laws declared unconstitutional. La Follette also called for election of federal judges for ten-year terms.


1924 United States presidential election in Kansas, Background
Despite problems in the state's large agricultural sector, La Follette did not have the appeal in Kansas he had in more northerly areas of the Midwest, as isolationism was much weaker in this largely Anglo-Saxon Protestant state and Bryan-era pietist Democratic support struck a different cultural vein from La Follette's largely Catholic and Lutheran backers. Unlike the Bryanites, La Follette's base strongly opposed the Ku Klux Klan, which was widely popular in Kansas, and was focused on farm cooperatives.


1924 United States presidential election in Kansas, Vote
Kansas was won decisively by the Republican Party candidate, incumbent President Calvin Coolidge with 61.54% of the popular vote. The Democratic Party candidate, John W. Davis, garnered only 23.60% of the popular vote. La Follette, listed as an “Independent” on the Kansas ballot was not as successful as in the more northerly Plains States due to Kansas being largely devoid of the German- and Scandinavian-Americans who were his primary support base. The Wisconsin Senator did not crack a third of the vote in any county, and Coolidge replicated Harding and Theodore Roosevelt in sweeping all 105 Kansas counties.


1924 United States presidential election in Kentucky
The 1924 United States presidential election in Kentucky took place on November 4, 1924 as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. Voters chose thirteen representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Kentucky
Ever since the Civil War, Kentucky had been shaped politically by divisions created by that war between secessionist, Democratic counties and Unionist, Republican ones, although the state as a whole leaned Democratic throughout this era and the GOP had carried the state only once – in 1896 – between 1864 and 1920.


1924 United States presidential election in Kentucky
However, largely owing to loss of support for the Democratic Party in historically secessionist Northern Kentucky, and to a general decline in Democratic support from the high levels seen in 1920, due to female mobilisation after the Nineteenth Amendment, Calvin Coolidge narrowly won Kentucky by 2.95 points against John W. Davis, winning all 13 electoral votes from the state.


1924 United States presidential election in Kentucky
Also on the ballot was maverick Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette, who carried his home state and ran second in eleven states in the Midwest and West. However, La Follette had little appeal in most of conservative Kentucky, with the only exceptions being a few rapidly unionising, labor-policy-conscious mining counties in the Eastern Coalfield and more significantly in German-influenced Northern Kentucky where he ran ahead of Davis in traditionally Democratic, highly populated Kenton and Campbell Counties – in the process playing a decisive role in handing Coolidge a closely contested election. Despite his strong showings in the two northern counties, Kentucky was overall La Follette’s seventh-weakest state and, outside the former Confederacy where poll taxes prevented most of the lower classes voting, his second-weakest after pro-League of Nations Rhode Island.


1924 United States presidential election in Louisiana
The 1924 United States presidential election in Louisiana took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all contemporary forty-eight states. Voters chose ten representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Louisiana
Louisiana was won easily by John W. Davis of West Virginia over incumbent president Calvin Coolidge. It was the only state where Progressive nominee Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin was not on the ballot, although it is known that there were write-in votes cast for him. With 76.44 percent of the popular vote, Louisiana was, as was typical at this height of the “Solid South”, Davis’ third-strongest state behind South Carolina and Mississippi.


1924 United States presidential election in Maine
The 1924 United States presidential election in Maine took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose six representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Maine
Maine voted for the Republican nominee, incumbent President Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, over the Democratic nominee, Ambassador John W. Davis of West Virginia. Coolidge ran with former Budget Director Charles G. Dawes of Illinois, while Davis ran with Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska. Also in the running that year was the Progressive Party nominee, Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin and his running mate Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana.


1924 United States presidential election in Maine
La Follette’s support base was primarily among rural German and Scandinavian Americans, and he possessed little appeal in the Northeast outside a few New York and Boston anti-Prohibition precincts. Excluding the former Confederacy – where the lower classes were almost entirely disfranchised – Maine was La Follette’s seventh-weakest of thirty-seven states, and he exceeded seven percent only in heavily Québecois Androscoggin County.


1924 United States presidential election in Maine
The 1920s were a fiercely Republican decade in American politics, and Maine in that era was a fiercely Republican state in presidential elections. The economic boom and social good feelings of the Roaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership virtually guaranteed Calvin Coolidge an easy win in the state against the conservative Southern Democrat John Davis, who had little appeal in Northeastern states like Maine.


1924 United States presidential election in Maine
Coolidge won Maine by a landslide margin of 50.20%. His victory was also enjoyed a unique personal popularity which helped him in the state and the rest of New England. He was the epitome of a traditional New England Yankee, having been born in the small-town of Plymouth Notch, Vermont, and establishing his political career nearby as Governor of Massachusetts. Thus Coolidge remained especially popular with voters across the New England region.


1924 United States presidential election in Maine
With 72.03% of the popular vote, Maine would prove to be Coolidge's third strongest state in the 1924 election in terms of popular vote percentage after Vermont and Michigan.


1924 United States presidential election in Maryland
The 1924 United States presidential election in Maryland took place on November 4, 1924. All contemporary 48 states were part of the 1924 United States presidential election. State voters chose 8 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Maryland
Maryland was won by the Republican nominee, incumbent President Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, over the Democratic nominee, Ambassador John W. Davis of West Virginia. Coolidge ran with former Budget Director Charles G. Dawes of Illinois, while Davis ran with Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska. Also in the running that year was the Progressive Party nominee, Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin and his running mate Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana.


1924 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
The 1924 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 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.


1924 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
Massachusetts was won in a landslide by incumbent Republican President Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, who was running against Democratic Ambassador John W. Davis of West Virginia and the Progressive Party’s Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin. Coolidge’s running mate was former Budget Director Charles G. Dawes of Illinois and Davis ran with Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska, while La Follette ran with Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana.


1924 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
Coolidge carried his home state overwhelmingly with 62.26% of the vote to Davis's 24.86%, a Republican victory margin of 37.41%. La Follette finished a strong third in the state with 12.50%.


1924 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
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 third party 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.


1924 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
Calvin Coolidge, a traditional Yankee Republican born in neighboring Vermont, had served as a popular former Governor of Massachusetts, and thus easily was able to dominate the state on the presidential level. Even in the midst of the nationwide Republican landslide, Massachusetts weighed in as a solid 12% more Republican than the national average.


1924 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
The 1920s were a fiercely Republican decade in American politics, and Massachusetts in that era was a fiercely Republican state in presidential elections. The economic boom and social good feelings of the Roaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership virtually guaranteed Calvin Coolidge an easy win in the state against the conservative Southern Democrat John Davis, who had little appeal in Northern states like Massachusetts. Coolidge won a strong majority statewide even with the Republican vote being split by the strong third party candidacy of Robert La Follette, a Republican Senator who ran as the Progressive Party candidate and peeled away the votes of many progressive Republicans.


1924 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
Coolidge swept every county in the state of Massachusetts, and his 65.34% of the popular vote would prove to be his fifth strongest state in the 1924 election in terms of popular vote percentage after neighboring Vermont, Michigan, Maine and Pennsylvania. To date, this is the last time a Republican presidential candidate has carried every county in Massachusetts as well as the last election in which a Republican presidential candidate has won Suffolk County, home to the state's capital and largest city, Boston. No Republican has reached 60% of the vote since.


1924 United States presidential election in Massachusetts
From his time as governor, Coolidge remained relatively popular, for a Republican, among Irish Catholics and the other ethnic immigrant groups who populated Boston. Many of these voters would defect to the Democrats for Catholic Al Smith in 1928 and become reliable Democratic voters after that, making Boston a reliably Democratic city in every election that followed.


1924 United States presidential election in Michigan
The 1924 United States presidential election in Michigan took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. Voters chose 15 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Michigan
Michigan supported Republican Party incumbent Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts in the state's largest landslide in a presidential race as of the 2020 election. Coolidge received over 75% of the popular vote and won every county, while Democratic nominee John W. Davis of West Virginia garnered only 13.13%. Third-party candidate Robert M. La Follette Sr. of the Progressive Party collected 10% of the vote.


1924 United States presidential election in Michigan
With 75.37% of the popular vote, Michigan would prove to be Coolidge's second strongest state in the 1924 election in terms of popular vote percentage after his birth state of Vermont.


1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota
The 1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota took place on November 4, 1924, in Minnesota as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. Voters chose 12 electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota
A rapid recovery from the depression of 1920 and 1921, despite major Republican losses during the 1922 House elections placed the Republican Party – who gained a record popular-vote majority in the 1920 election – in a secure position despite the death of President Warren G. Harding in 1923. Rises in wages and ebbing of discontent further solidified the GOP's hold on power.


1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota
More critically, the Democratic Party was mortally divided between its rural Southern faction led by William Gibbs McAdoo and its white ethnic urban northeastern faction led by New York Governor Al Smith. The rural faction was supported by the revived Ku Klux Klan and was in favour of Prohibition, whereas the white ethnic faction was firmly against the anti-Catholic Klan and opposed to Prohibition. A fierce debate ensued that saw a compromise candidate, former Congressman John W. Davis of West Virginia, nominated after one hundred and three ballots in hot summer weather at Madison Square Garden.


1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota
Although West Virginia was a border state whose limited African-American population had not been disenfranchised as happened in all former Confederate States, Davis did share the extreme social conservatism of Southern Democrats of his era. He supported poll taxes, opposed women's suffrage, and believed in strictly limited government with no expansion in nonmilitary fields.


1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota
In the liberal, heavily Scandinavian Upper Midwest, Davis' social and economic views had practically no appeal. Although in September Davis underwent an extensive tour of the region and of the Great Plains, and campaigned to eliminate the income tax burden of the poorer classes, he received a mere 6.80% of the vote in Minnesota. This constitutes the second-smallest proportion of any state's popular vote received by an official on-ballot Democratic presidential nominee since the election of 1860, when the party was divided. The only smaller proportion was by Grover Cleveland in Nevada in 1892, when he received only 6.56% of the vote.


1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota
The conservatism of Coolidge and Davis made it inevitable that aging Wisconsin maverick Robert M. La Follette, Sr. would mount a third-party challenge – which La Follette had planned even before the Democratic Convention. La Follette was formally nominated on July 4 by the "Conference for Progressive Political Action" and developed a platform dedicated to eliminating child labor and American interference in Latin American political affairs, along with a formal denunciation of the Ku Klux Klan. La Follette also proposed major judicial reforms including amendments allowing congress to override judicial review and to re-enact laws declared unconstitutional. La Follette also called for election of federal judges for ten-year terms.


1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota
Davis and Coolidge both spent most of their campaign attacking La Follette as a political extremist, but nonetheless opinion polls showed that La Follette was attracting large numbers of those German-American and Scandinavian-Americans who completely deserted Cox in 1920. In September some polls had La Follette winning sufficient electoral votes to give no candidate an electoral majority and force the House to make a choice, but as polling day approached newer polls suggested incumbent President Calvin Coolidge would hold the states of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nevada and Montana, which La Follette had been predicted to win in August. As it turned out, Coolidge won the state over La Follette by a margin of 81,567 votes, or 9.92 percent. Nationally, the incumbent President almost equalled Harding's landslide popular vote victory, achieving a 25.22 percent lead over Davis and 382 electoral votes.


1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota
Despite Davis' shocking statewide performance – not polling twenty percent in any of Minnesota's eighty-seven counties – this election would prove the last as of 2020 when Ramsey County has not voted Democratic, for La Follette's vote would turn to beaten Democratic nominee Smith in the following election and remain with the party for many decades.


1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota
With 41.26% of the popular vote, Minnesota would prove to be La Follette's third strongest state in the 1924 election in terms of popular vote percentage after Wisconsin and North Dakota.


1924 United States presidential election in Mississippi
The 1924 United States presidential election in Mississippi took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all contemporary forty-eight states. Voters chose ten representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Mississippi
Mississippi was won easily by John W. Davis of West Virginia over incumbent president Calvin Coolidge and Progressive nominee Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin. With 89.3% of the popular vote, Mississippi was Davis' 2nd strongest state.


1924 United States presidential election in Missouri
The 1924 United States presidential election in Missouri took place on November 4, 1924 as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. Voters chose 18 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Missouri
Calvin Coolidge narrowly won Missouri by 5.79 points against John W. Davis, winning all 18 of the electoral votes in the state. To date, this is the last time that the city of St. Louis voted for the Republican candidate in a presidential election.


1924 United States presidential election in Montana
The 1924 United States presidential election in Montana took place on November 4, 1924 as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Montana
Montana voted for the Republican nominee, President Calvin Coolidge, over the liberal third-party candidate Robert La Follette who ran locally as a "La Follette-Wheeler Independent" and the Democratic nominee, former United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom John W. Davis. Coolidge won Montana by a margin of 4.59%.


1924 United States presidential election in Montana
Coolidge was credited for the booming economy while the Democratic electorate was divided between the conservative Davis and the liberal third-party candidate Robert La Follette who ran as a Progressive and chose Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler as his running mate. As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last election in which Deer Lodge County voted for a Republican Presidential candidate.


1924 United States presidential election in Montana
With 37.91 percent of the popular vote, Montana would prove to be La Follette's fourth strongest state in the 1924 election in terms of popular vote percentage after Wisconsin, North Dakota and Minnesota. North Dakota and Montana were the only two states that La Follette lost by less than 5%, so that had he won the two states he was close to winning La Follette would have gained 22 electoral votes in total.


1924 United States presidential election in Nebraska
The 1924 United States presidential election in Nebraska took place on November 4, 1924 as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. Voters chose 8 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Nebraska
Nebraska was won by incumbent Republican president, Calvin Coolidge with a margin of 18.49%.


1924 United States presidential election in Nevada
The 1924 United States presidential election in Nevada was held on November 4, 1924 as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. State voters chose three electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in Nevada
Nevada was won by President Calvin Coolidge (R–Massachusetts), running with Senator Charles G. Dawes, with 41.76% of the popular vote, against Senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. (I–Wisconsin), running with Senator Burton K. Wheeler, with 36.29% of the popular vote. Democratic nominee John W. Davis came third, although Ormsby County was the westernmost county in the nation to give him a plurality of its ballots.


1924 United States presidential election in New Hampshire
The 1924 United States presidential election in New Hampshire took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in New Hampshire
New Hampshire voted for the Republican nominee, incumbent President Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, over the Democratic nominee, Ambassador John W. Davis of West Virginia. Coolidge ran with former Budget Director Charles G. Dawes of Illinois, while Davis ran with Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska. Also in the running that year was the Progressive Party nominee, Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin and his running mate Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana.


1924 United States presidential election in New Hampshire
La Follette’s support base was primarily among rural German and Scandinavian Americans, and he possessed little appeal in the Northeast outside a few New York and Boston anti-Prohibition precincts. Excluding the former Confederacy where the lower classes were almost entirely disfranchised, New Hampshire would prove La Follette’s third-weakest state – and overall the Granite State was La Follette’s tenth-weakest of 48.


1924 United States presidential election in New Hampshire
Coolidge won New Hampshire by a margin of 25.11% of the vote, although this was marginally lower than his national margin of 25.22% over Davis.


1924 United States presidential election in New Hampshire
The 1920s were a fiercely Republican decade in American politics, and New Hampshire in that era was a fiercely Republican state in presidential elections. The economic boom and social good feelings of the Roaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership virtually guaranteed Calvin Coolidge an easy win in the state against the conservative Southern Democrat John Davis, who had little appeal in Northern states like New Hampshire apart from being the only pro-League of Nations candidate. New Hampshire would still prove Davis’ third-strongest antebellum free state behind Indiana and Rhode Island. Due to La Follette’s lack of appeal vis-à-vis his Midwest and Western support base, both Coolidge and Davis exceeded their national vote share by around five percent in the Granite State.


1924 United States presidential election in New Hampshire
Coolidge also enjoyed a unique personal popularity which helped him in the state and the rest of New England. He was the epitome of a traditional New England Yankee, having been born in the small-town of Plymouth Notch in neighboring Vermont, and establishing his political career in neighboring Massachusetts as the state's governor. Thus Coolidge remained especially popular with voters across the New England region.


1924 United States presidential election in New Jersey
The 1924 United States presidential election in New Jersey took place on November 4, 1924. All contemporary 48 states were part of the 1924 United States presidential election. Voters chose 14 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.


1924 United States presidential election in New Jersey
New Jersey was won in a landslide by the Republican nominees, incumbent President Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts and his running mate Budget Director Charles G. Dawes of Illinois. Coolidge and Dawes defeated the Democratic nominees, Ambassador John W. Davis of West Virginia and his running mate Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska. Also in the running was the Progressive Party nominee, Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin and his running mate Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana.