| Turnout | 56.6%[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The1924 United States presidential election in Massachusetts took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the1924 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose 18 representatives, or electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president.
Massachusetts was won in a landslide by incumbentRepublican PresidentCalvin Coolidge ofMassachusetts, who was running againstDemocratic AmbassadorJohn W. Davis ofWest Virginia and theProgressive Party'sSenatorRobert M. La Follette ofWisconsin. Coolidge's running mate was formerBudget DirectorCharles G. Dawes ofIllinois and Davis ran withGovernorCharles W. Bryan ofNebraska, while La Follette ran with SenatorBurton K. Wheeler ofMontana.Wheeler was born in Hudson,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%.
Massachusetts had long been a typical Yankee Republican bastion in the wake of theCivil War, having voted Republican in every election since1856, except in1912, when former Republican PresidentTheodore Roosevelt had run as aProgressive candidate against incumbent Republican PresidentWilliam Howard Taft, splitting the Republican vote and allowing DemocratWoodrow Wilson to win Massachusetts with a plurality of only 35.53% of the vote.
Calvin Coolidge, a traditional Yankee Republican born in neighboringVermont, had served as a popular formerGovernor 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.
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 theRoaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership virtually guaranteed Calvin Coolidge an easy win in the state against the conservativeSouthern Democrat John Davis,[2] who had little appeal in Northern states like Massachusetts. Coolidge won a strong majority statewide even with the Republican vote being split by the strongthird 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.
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 neighboringVermont,Michigan,Maine andPennsylvania.[3] 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 wonSuffolk County, home to the state's capital and largest city,Boston. No Republican has reached 60% of the vote since.[4] It is also the last time that the towns ofHadley andHatfield and the cities ofBoston,Cambridge,Chelsea,Chicopee,Lawrence, andRevere voted Republican. 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 CatholicAl Smith in1928 and become reliable Democratic voters after that, making Boston a reliably Democratic city in every election that followed.
This was the last time Massachusetts voted for a Republican candidate untilDwight D. Eisenhower won the state in1952. Until2024, this was the last time thatFall River would vote Republican in a presidential election, and this remains the last time a Republican won a majority in Fall River.
| 1924 United States presidential election in Massachusetts[5] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Republican | Calvin Coolidge (incumbent) | 703,476 | 62.26% | 18 | |
| Democratic | John W. Davis | 280,831 | 24.86% | 0 | |
| Progressive | Robert M. La Follette | 141,225 | 12.50% | 0 | |
| Communist | William Z. Foster | 2,635 | 0.23% | 0 | |
| Socialist Labor | Frank T. Johns | 1,668 | 0.15% | 0 | |
| Write-ins | Write-ins | 2 | 0.00% | 0 | |
| Totals | 1,129,837 | 100.00% | 18 | ||
| County[6] | Calvin Coolidge Republican | John W. Davis Democratic | Robert M. La Follette Progressive | Various candidates Other parties | Total votes cast | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Barnstable | 7,333 | 85.50% | 881 | 10.27% | 339 | 3.95% | 24 | 0.28% | 8,577 |
| Berkshire | 21,106 | 58.93% | 10,956 | 30.59% | 3,637 | 10.15% | 116 | 0.32% | 35,815 |
| Bristol | 58,929 | 66.23% | 19,802 | 22.25% | 9,624 | 10.82% | 625 | 0.70% | 88,980 |
| Dukes | 1,182 | 86.91% | 108 | 7.94% | 69 | 5.07% | 1 | 0.07% | 1,360 |
| Essex | 92,918 | 66.58% | 25,635 | 18.37% | 20,390 | 14.61% | 607 | 0.43% | 139,550 |
| Franklin | 11,350 | 77.12% | 2,089 | 14.19% | 1,253 | 8.51% | 25 | 0.17% | 14,717 |
| Hampden | 46,489 | 59.97% | 19,079 | 24.61% | 11,683 | 15.07% | 264 | 0.34% | 77,515 |
| Hampshire | 13,918 | 66.23% | 5,037 | 23.97% | 2,014 | 9.58% | 45 | 0.21% | 21,014 |
| Middlesex | 162,530 | 63.68% | 64,544 | 25.29% | 27,510 | 10.78% | 651 | 0.26% | 255,235 |
| Nantucket | 708 | 79.64% | 167 | 18.79% | 12 | 1.35% | 2 | 0.22% | 889 |
| Norfolk | 57,948 | 71.12% | 15,014 | 18.43% | 8,269 | 10.15% | 247 | 0.30% | 81,478 |
| Plymouth | 34,728 | 68.97% | 8,863 | 17.60% | 6,549 | 13.01% | 215 | 0.43% | 50,355 |
| Suffolk | 104,658 | 47.14% | 78,702 | 35.45% | 37,574 | 16.93% | 1,059 | 0.48% | 221,993 |
| Worcester | 89,679 | 67.14% | 31,171 | 23.34% | 12,302 | 9.21% | 424 | 0.32% | 133,576 |
| Totals | 703,476 | 62.26% | 280,831 | 24.86% | 141,225 | 12.50% | 4,305 | 0.38% | 1,129,837 |