1920 United States presidential election in Virginia

← 1916 November 2, 1920 1924 →

Nominee James M. Cox Warren G. Harding Party Democratic Republican Home state Ohio Ohio Running mate Franklin D. Roosevelt Calvin Coolidge Electoral vote 12 0 Popular vote 141,670 87,456 Percentage 61.32% 37.85%

County results Cox   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90% Harding   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%

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

The1920 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on November 2, 1920. Voters chose twelve representatives, or electors, to theElectoral College, who voted forpresident andvice president. This was also the first presidential election after the passage of theNineteenth Amendment, which grantedwomen the right to vote throughout the United States, including Virginia.

The 1900s decade had seen Virginia, like all former Confederate States, almost completelydisenfranchise its black and poor white populations through the use ofa cumulative poll tax and literacy tests.^[1] So severe was the disenfranchising effect of the new 1902 Constitution that the electorate for the 1904 presidential election was halved compared to that of previous elections, and it has been calculated that a third of those who voted were state employees and officeholders.^[1]

This limited electorate meant Virginian politics was controlled bypolitical machines based inSouthside Virginia — firstly one led byThomas Staples Martin and after he died theByrd Organization. Progressive “antiorganization” factions were rendered impotent by the inability of almost all of their potential electorate to vote.^[2] Unlike the Deep South, historicalfusion withthe “Readjuster” Democrats,^[3] defection of substantial proportions of theNortheast-aligned white electorate of theShenandoah Valley andSouthwest Virginia overfree silver,^[4] and an early move towards a“lily white”Jim Crow party^[3] meant that in general elections the Republicans retained around one-third of the small statewide electorate,^[5] with the majority of GOP support located in the western part of the state. However, in many parts of the state — like in Tennessee during the same period — the parties avoided competition by an agreed division over local offices.^[2]

Unlike North Carolina, Tennessee or Oklahoma — the other Southern states with the rudiments of a two-party system like typically contested statewide general elections — Virginia was influenced neither byAppalachian orOzark isolationism^[6] nor theNineteenth Amendment. Virginia had not given women suffrage at any level before 1920, and in Februarythe State House of Delegates rejected the Nineteenth Amendment by 62 to 22^[7] andthe state's Senate rejected it by a vote of 24 to 10.^[8] There were efforts to have women's suffrage subject to a referendum and an amendment to the state constitution after it was rejected by the legislature,^[9] but the idea was never carried out.

NeitherRepublican nominee,OhioSenatorWarren G. Harding norDemocratic nominee, formerOhioGovernorJames M. Cox campaigned in the state. Unlike Oklahoma, Tennessee and to a much lesser extent North Carolina,^[10] there never was a thought that Virginia would be vulnerable to an expected and observed Republican landslide that saw Harding win the national election with 60.32 percent of the vote. Cox would win Virginia by a margin of 23.47 percentage points — a decrease vis-à-vis Woodrow Wilson's results in the two previous elections, but much less than the Democratic Party experienced nationally.

• 1920 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in Virginia
• 1920 Virginia elections

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