1912 United States presidential election in New York

1912 United States presidential election in New York

← 1908 November 5, 1912 1916 →
Turnout72.1%[1] Decrease 7.6 pp
 
Nominee Woodrow Wilson William Howard Taft Theodore Roosevelt
Party Democratic Republican Progressive
Home state New Jersey Ohio New York
Running mate Thomas R. Marshall Nicholas M. Butler Hiram Johnson
Electoral vote 45 0 0
Popular vote 655,573 455,487 390,093
Percentage 41.27% 28.68% 24.56%

County Results

President before election

William Howard Taft
Republican

Elected President

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic

The 1912 United States presidential election in New York took place on November 5, 1912. All contemporary 48 states were part of the 1912 United States presidential election. Voters chose 45 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.

New York was won by the Democratic nominees, New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson and his running mate, Indiana Governor Thomas R. Marshall. Opposing him were the Republican nominees, incumbent President William Howard Taft and Vice President James S. Sherman, and the Progressive Party candidates, former President Theodore Roosevelt and his running mate California Governor Hiram Johnson. Also in the running was the Socialist Party candidate, Eugene V. Debs, who ran with Emil Seidel.

Wilson won New York with a plurality of 41.27% of the vote, Taft came in second, with 28.68%, and Roosevelt came in third, with 24.56%. Wilson's margin over Taft was thus 12.59%, whilst Debs came in fourth, with 3.99%. In terms of margin, Wilson finished 18.6 percentage points ahead of Taft nationally, but only 12.6 percentage points ahead of Taft in New York State, so New York State weighed in at about 6% more Republican than the nation in the 1912 presidential election. Wilson's vote margin of victory over Taft in the state was by 200,086 votes.

New York during the Fourth Party System was usually a Republican state in presidential elections. However the strong third party run by former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt as the Bull Moose Party candidate against the incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft split the Republican vote, enabling Woodrow Wilson as the Democratic candidate to win New York State's electoral votes in 1912 with a plurality of only 41% of the vote. Were Taft and Roosevelt voters united behind a single Republican candidate, they would have taken a combined majority of over 53% of the vote. This was the only presidential election during the Fourth Party System that New York voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.

Prior to 1912, New York had not given its electoral votes to a Democratic presidential candidate since Grover Cleveland in 1892. Wilson would lose New York State four years later in the midst of his re-election against Charles Evans Hughes in 1916, and the state would not vote Democratic again until 1932.

  1. ^ Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, part 2, p. 1072.

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