1920 United States presidential election in Wisconsin

← 1916 November 2, 1920 1924 →

Nominee Warren G. Harding James M. Cox Eugene V. Debs Party Republican Democratic Socialist Home state Ohio Ohio Indiana Running mate Calvin Coolidge Franklin D. Roosevelt Seymour Stedman Electoral vote 13 0 0 Popular vote 498,576 113,422 80,635 Percentage 71.09% 16.17% 11.50%

County Results Harding   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90%

President before election Woodrow Wilson Democratic Elected President Warren G. Harding Republican

The1920 United States presidential election in Wisconsin was held on November 2, 1920, as part of the1920 United States presidential election. State voters chose 13 electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.

Wisconsin had ever since the decline ofthe Populist movement been substantially aone-party state dominated by the Republican Party.^[1] The Democratic Party became entirely uncompetitive outside certain German Catholic counties adjoiningLake Michigan as the upper classes, along with the majority of workers who followed them, completely fled fromWilliam Jennings Bryan's agrarian andfree silver sympathies.^[2] As Democratic strength weakened severely after 1894 – although the state did develop a strongSocialist Party to provide opposition to the GOP – Wisconsin developed the direct Republican primary in 1903 and this ultimately created competition between the "League" underRobert M. La Follette, and the conservative "Regular" faction.^[3]

The beginning of the 1910s would see a minor Democratic revival as many La Follette progressives endorsedWoodrow Wilson,^[4] but this flirtation would not be long-lasting as Wilson's "Anglophile" foreign policies were severely opposed by Wisconsin's largelyGerman- andScandinavian-American populace.^[5]The 1918 mid-term elections saw the Midwestern farming community largely desert the Democratic Party due to supposed preferential treatment of Southern farmers:^[6] Democratic seats in the Midwest fell from thirty-four to seventeen,^[7] whilst Scandinavian-Americans were also vigorously opposed to entering the war.^[8] Furthermore, Democratic fear of Communism seen in thePalmer Raids and "Red Scare" led to ultimate nomineeJames M. Cox, thenGovernor of Ohio, to ban German-language instruction in public schools in 1919.^[7] Still more critical for German-Americans was the view that outgoing PresidentWoodrow Wilson was deliberately trying to punishGermany andAustria for starting the war, especially via his disregard for theUnited Kingdom's continuing blockade of Germany.^[9] Stressing Harding's German ancestry, the German press drummed up the view that a vote for Harding was a vote against the persecutions suffered by German-Americans during the war.^[10]

As the campaign began after theRepublican Party had nominatedU.S. SenatorWarren G. Harding ofOhio and the Democratic Party formerOhio governorJames M. Cox, a further blow to the Democrats came when the national economy suffered a major downturn following the wartime boom, resulting in plummeting agricultural prices that were especially problematic in the Midwest.^[11] Whereas Cox travelled throughout the nation apart from the "Solid South" during September,^[12] Harding, despite having four times the budget, campaigned from his home inMarion,Ohio.

A poll by the giant Rexall drug store chain – which in 1916 had been accurate enough to predict Wilson's razor-thin wins inNew Hampshire andCalifornia^[13] – suggested Harding would win 382 electoral votes,^[14] and at the end of October, although no more opinion polls had been published, most observers were even more convinced that the Republicans would take complete control of all branches of government.^[15] Polls were similarly confident in Wisconsin, despite forecasts of a big vote for imprisoned fifth-timeSocialist nomineeEugene V. Debs.^[16] Expectations of a landslide were fully realized: whereas Charles Evans Hughes had carried Wisconsin by only 6.59 points in 1916, Harding won this arch-isolationist state by a nine-to-two majority. Wisconsin would prove to be Harding's fourth strongest state in the 1920 election terms of popular vote percentage afterNorth Dakota,Vermont andMichigan.^[17] Wisconsin would prove Cox's weakest state in the largest landslide loss in United States presidential election history, and Debs' strongest state in his last campaign for the presidency.^[17] Despite Debs' substantial vote, Harding carried all Wisconsin's counties with absolute majorities, becoming the only candidate to ever win every single Wisconsin county in a presidential election, and Cox cracked twenty-three percent of the vote in just three counties. This would be the last time a Republican presidential candidate carriedIron County untilRichard Nixon in1972.^[18]

• Brown
• Dane
• Kewaunee
• La Crosse
• Langlade
• Manitowoc
• Milwaukee
• Portage
• Racine
• Sawyer
• Waukesha

• United States presidential elections in Wisconsin

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• United States presidential elections in Wisconsin

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