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 County Results
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| Elections in Utah | ||||||
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Ballot measures
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The1896 United States presidential election in Utah was held on November 3, 1896, as part of the1896 United States presidential election. Voters chose three representatives, or electors to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president. This was the first timeUtah participated in a presidential election, having been admitted as the 45th state on January 4 of that year.
DemocratWilliam Jennings Bryan carried Utah by an overwhelming margin of 65.43% overRepublicanWilliam McKinley—by far the strongest ever performance by any presidential nominee in the state—despite narrowly losing the national election. As such, this is the only time a Republican has won the presidency without winning Utah, starkly contrasting with the state's subsequent status as one of the most staunchly Republican states in the nation.
Utah had been established asa territory within five years of the earliest settlement by theChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but opposition by the Republican Party – dominant from 1860 – to Mormon polygamy meant that Utah was consistently refused statehood.[1] Consequently, Utah territorial politics until 1891 was dominated by the Mormon-hierarchy-controlled "People's Party" and the anti-Mormon "Liberal Party".[2] Those Mormons who did affiliate with national parties generally were Democrats, who lacked moral qualms associated with polygamy and slavery – although the Liberal Party did have allies within the GOP.[3] In order to achieve statehood, however, the LDS Church disbanded the "People's Party" in 1891 and most LDS members moved towards the Democratic Party.
The 1896 election in Utah was dominated by the influence of silver mine owners, who overwhelmingly supported Democrat/Populist William Jennings Bryan because he advocated coinage of free silver at a ratio of 16-to-1 with gold.[4] As a consequence, Utah voted overwhelmingly for Bryan, who won the state by 65.43 percentage points, in what remains by far the strongest-ever performance by any presidential nominee in the state. Even with Republicans overwhelmingly dominating Utah politics since the 1960s, this margin has not been approached by any party or candidate since. Bryan carried every county exceptKane in the far south – where his margin of defeat remains the second-best ever by a Democrat, behindWoodrow Wilson's narrow1916 victory – with greater than sixty-five percent of the vote, and exceeded seventy percent in all but one.
With 82.7% of the popular vote, Utah would prove to be Bryan's fourth strongest state in the 1896 presidential election afterMississippi,South Carolina andColorado.[5]
Bryan would later lose Utah toWilliam McKinleyfour years later and would lose the state again to RepublicanWilliam Howard Taft in1908. Bryan's support for many Populist goals resulted in him being nominated by both the Democratic Party and thePeople's Party (Populists), though with different running mates. One electoral vote from Utah was cast for the Populist Bryan-Watson ticket withThomas E. Watson as vice-president and two votes were cast for the Bryan-Sewall ticket.
| 1896 United States presidential election in Utah[6] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Democratic | William Jennings Bryan | 64,610 | 82.70% | 2 | |
| Populist | William Jennings Bryan | 0 | 0.00% | 1 | |
| Total | William Jennings Bryan | 64,610[c] | 82.70% | 3 | |
| Republican | William McKinley | 13,491 | 17.27% | 0 | |
| Write-ins | Others | 21 | 0.03% | 0 | |
| Totals | 294,674 | 100.0% | 12 | ||
| County | William Jennings Bryan Democratic/Populist | William McKinley Republican | Various candidates Write-ins | Margin | Total votes cast[7] | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Beaver | 1,057 | 83.76% | 205 | 16.24% | 852 | 67.51% | 1,262 | ||
| Box Elder | 1,879 | 71.88% | 735 | 28.12% | 1,144 | 43.76% | 2,614 | ||
| Cache | 4,395 | 83.97% | 839 | 16.03% | 3,556 | 67.94% | 5,234 | ||
| Carbon | 663 | 88.64% | 85 | 11.36% | 578 | 77.27% | 748 | ||
| Davis | 1,753 | 79.57% | 450 | 20.43% | 1,303 | 59.15% | 2,203 | ||
| Emery | 985 | 81.00% | 231 | 19.00% | 754 | 62.01% | 1,216 | ||
| Garfield | 615 | 71.18% | 249 | 28.82% | 366 | 42.36% | 864 | ||
| Grand | 264 | 90.41% | 28 | 9.59% | 236 | 80.82% | 292 | ||
| Iron | 806 | 79.72% | 205 | 20.28% | 601 | 59.45% | 1,011 | ||
| Juab | 2,363 | 84.33% | 439 | 15.67% | 1,924 | 68.67% | 2,802 | ||
| Kane | 230 | 44.40% | 288 | 55.60% | -58 | -11.20% | 518 | ||
| Millard | 1,384 | 89.29% | 166 | 10.71% | 1,218 | 78.58% | 1,550 | ||
| Morgan | 582 | 80.83% | 138 | 19.17% | 444 | 61.67% | 720 | ||
| Piute | 555 | 94.23% | 34 | 5.77% | 521 | 88.46% | 589 | ||
| Rich | 408 | 71.58% | 162 | 28.42% | 246 | 43.16% | 570 | ||
| Salt Lake | 18,617 | 87.75% | 2,577 | 12.15% | 21 | 0.10% | 16,040 | 75.61% | 21,215 |
| San Juan | 167 | 95.43% | 8 | 4.57% | 159 | 90.86% | 175 | ||
| Sanpete | 3,387 | 65.13% | 1,813 | 34.87% | 1,574 | 30.27% | 5,200 | ||
| Sevier | 1,858 | 78.90% | 497 | 21.10% | 1,361 | 57.79% | 2,355 | ||
| Summit | 3,402 | 93.28% | 245 | 6.72% | 3,157 | 86.56% | 3,647 | ||
| Tooele | 1,684 | 86.01% | 274 | 13.99% | 1,410 | 72.01% | 1,958 | ||
| Uintah | 890 | 88.82% | 112 | 11.18% | 778 | 77.64% | 1,002 | ||
| Utah | 7,375 | 78.34% | 2,039 | 21.66% | 5,336 | 56.68% | 9,414 | ||
| Wasatch | 1,333 | 96.32% | 51 | 3.68% | 1,282 | 92.63% | 1,384 | ||
| Washington | 1,210 | 87.68% | 170 | 12.32% | 1,040 | 75.36% | 1,380 | ||
| Wayne | 405 | 83.85% | 78 | 16.15% | 327 | 67.70% | 483 | ||
| Weber | 6,343 | 82.21% | 1,373 | 17.79% | 4,970 | 64.41% | 7,716 | ||
| Totals | 64,610 | 82.70% | 13,491 | 17.27% | 21 | 0.03% | 51,119 | 65.43% | 78,122 |
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