1908 United States presidential election in North Carolina

← 1904 November 3, 1908 1912 →

Nominee William Jennings Bryan William Howard Taft Party Democratic Republican Home state Nebraska Ohio Running mate John W. Kern James S. Sherman Electoral vote 12 0 Popular vote 136,928 114,887 Percentage 54.22% 45.49%

County Results Bryan   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90%   90–100% Taft   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%

President before election Theodore Roosevelt Republican Elected President William Howard Taft Republican

The1908 United States presidential election in North Carolina took place on November 3, 1908. All contemporary 46 states were part of the1908 United States presidential election. North Carolina voters chose 12 electors to theElectoral College, which selected thepresident andvice president.

North Carolina was won by theDemocratic nominees, former RepresentativeWilliam Jennings Bryan ofNebraska and his running mateJohn W. Kern ofIndiana. They defeated theRepublican Party nominees,William Howard Taft and his running mateJames S. Sherman ofNew York. Bryan won the state by a margin of 8.73%.

Although, like all former Confederate states, North Carolina would during its “Redemption” develop a politics based uponJim Crow laws,disfranchisement of itsAfrican-American population and dominance of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party possessed sufficienthistoric Unionist white support from the mountains and northwestern Piedmont to gain a stable one-third of the statewide vote total in general elections even after blacks lost the right to vote.^[1] After the failure ofTheodore Roosevelt to reconcile with the South, new nominee Taft would in October become the first Republican candidate to tour the South.^[2] Aided by opposition by developing manufacturers to Bryan's populism,^[2] and by his willingness to accept black disfranchisement^[3] alongside a completely “lily-white” state GOP that even excluded blacks from membership,^[4] Taft gained substantially upon Theodore Roosevelt's performance in 1904, especially in previously Democratic western and Piedmont counties. He was the first Republican to ever carryCabarrus County andCatawba County – which would become solidly Republican afterWorld War I and among thirteen Tar Heel counties to backBarry Goldwater overLyndon Johnson – and alsoJackson County.^[5]

Bryan had previously won North Carolina againstWilliam McKinley in both1896 and1900.

• United States presidential elections in North Carolina

• 1908 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in North Carolina
• 1908 North Carolina 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