1904 United States presidential election in North Carolina

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Nominee Alton B. Parker Theodore Roosevelt Party Democratic Republican Home state New York New York Running mate Henry G. Davis Charles W. Fairbanks Electoral vote 12 0 Popular vote 124,091 82,442 Percentage 59.71% 39.67%

County Results Parker   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90%   90–100% Roosevelt   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%

President before election Theodore Roosevelt Republican Elected President Theodore Roosevelt Republican

The1904 United States presidential election in North Carolina took place on November 8, 1904. All contemporary 45 states were part of the1904 United States presidential election. Voters chose 12 electors to theElectoral College, which selected thepresident andvice president.

Following the overthrow of itsPopulist/Republicanfusion government by white Democrats in the1898 Wilmington coup d'état,North Carolina would see a radical restructuring of its politics due to thedisenfranchisement of its large African-American population. These African-American voters had provided a substantial proportion of Republican Party support ever since that party first appeared in the state followingReconstruction. However, unlike theDeep South, even without black voting the Republican Party retained substantial support from whites in the mountain and northwesternPiedmont areas that had resisted secession and viewed the Democratic Party as a “war party”.^[1] This would allow the GOP, without threatening statewide Democratic hegemony, to gain one-third of the statewide vote in general elections.^[2]

This radically altered Republican Party would turn almost overnight towards a “lily-white” strategy based on attempting to appeal to businessmen who found the Democratic Party too anti-business and too favorable to using low-cost black labor instead of whites.^[3] The GOP had to some extent followed this strategy in the years before black disenfranchisement because it wanted to appeal to the state's budding industrialists, who were critical of Democratic policies favoring free trade over high tariffs.^[4] Although this strategy had allowedWilliam McKinley to retain almost the same share of North Carolina's reduced electorate in 1900 that he had won with large-scale black voting in 1896, Republican nomineeTheodore Roosevelt would decline substantially in 1904, due to a shift to a more pro-business Democratic candidate and opposition to Roosevelt's hosting ofBooker T. Washington.^[5] The Republicans were reduced to their traditionally Unionist mountain strongholds, with the exception of former Populist SenatorMarion Butler's home county ofSampson, which persisted in its newfound Republican orientation.

North Carolina was won by theDemocratic nominees,Chief JudgeAlton B. Parker ofNew York and his running mateHenry G. Davis ofWest Virginia. They defeated theRepublican nominees, incumbent PresidentTheodore Roosevelt ofNew York and his running mate SenatorCharles W. Fairbanks ofIndiana. Parker won the state by a margin of 20.04%.

• United States presidential elections in North Carolina

• 1904 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in North Carolina
• 1904 North Carolina elections

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