1900 United States presidential election in Virginia

← 1896 November 6, 1900 1904 →

Nominee William Jennings Bryan William McKinley Party Democratic Republican Home state Nebraska Ohio Running mate Adlai Stevenson I Theodore Roosevelt Electoral vote 12 0 Popular vote 146,079 115,769 Percentage 55.29% 43.82%

County Results Bryan   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80% McKinley   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%

President before election William McKinley Republican Elected President William McKinley Republican

The1900 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on November 6, 1900, as part of the1900 United States presidential election. Voters chose 12 representatives, or electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.

Following the state's delayed readmission to the Union,Virginia was unique among ex-Confederate states in not having a period of Republican control duringReconstruction, due to the failure of the Underwood Constitution to pass in 1868^[1] and the consequent support for theConservative Party that fused prewar Democrats andWhigs in the first postwar elections and consistently controlled the state legislature after readmission. From 1879, however,a fusion with the“Readjuster” faction of the state Democratic Party would revitalize the Republicans^[1] until 1883, although the state GOP would remain competitive in statewide elections, only narrowly failing to carry the state in1888,^[1] until theCleveland Administration eliminated federal oversight while the Walton Act created the secret ballot and began large-scaleblack disenfranchisement.^[2]

However, despite its dominant position, the Democratic Party would become deeply divided between the conservative Gold Democrats of a state whose economy was already substantially influenced by the rapidly industrializingNortheast, and aPopulist-influenced faction centered in the state's rural areas.^[2] Many Virginia farmers still depended upon atobaccomonoculture and had been affected severely by consistently declining prices, poor harvests^[3] and the evolving rift between growingNorthern andSouthwest Virginia which were deeply tied culturally tothe border states, and the declining, agrarianSouthside. This divide strengthened a now“lily-white”Jim Crow state Republican Party^[2] in the1896 election cycle, as the old Whig minority in Southwest Virginia was less attached to party labels and strongly supported RepublicanWilliam McKinley. Consequently, Southwest Virginia would become the GOP's stronghold in the state during the first half of the twentieth century, allowing it to remain more viable than in any other ex-Confederate state other than North Carolina and Tennessee where extremely loyalUnionist Republicanism remained.^[4]

Neither candidate campaigned in the state, which had voted Democratic at every election since1876. In October, it was generally thought that Bryan would be sure to carry the state,^[5] and unlike in 1896,^[6] even pro-Republican journalists did not believe McKinley possessed any chance.

Virginia voted for theDemocratic candidate, formerU.S. RepresentativeWilliam Jennings Bryan over theRepublican candidate, incumbentPresidentWilliam McKinley. Bryan won the state by a margin of 11.47 percentage points. McKinley was the last Republican untilDonald Trump in2024 to win two terms in the White House without carrying Virginia either time.

Along with having defeated McKinley in Virginia four years earlier, Bryan would later win the state again in1908 againstWilliam Howard Taft.

• United States presidential elections in Virginia

• 1900 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in Virginia
• 1900 Virginia elections

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use American English from June 2025
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English
• Use mdy dates from September 2023
• Elections using electoral votes
• Pages using sidebar with the child parameter