1920 Democratic Party presidential primaries

1920 Democratic Party presidential primaries

← 1916 March 9 to June 5, 1920 1924 →
1,097 delegates to the Democratic National Convention 732 (two-thirds) votes needed to win
Candidate A. Mitchell Palmer James M. Cox William G. McAdoo Home state Pennsylvania Ohio California Delegate count 104 (256) 74 (134) 10 (266) Contests won 2 2 1 Popular vote 140,010 86,194 74,987 Percentage 19.32% 11.89% 10.35%   Candidate James Watson Gerard Robert Latham Owen Edward I. Edwards Home state New York Oklahoma New Jersey Contests won 2 2 1
First place by popular vote[a] First place by convention roll call[b]      McAdoo      Palmer      Cox      Gerard      Owen      Edwards      Uncommitted      Various[b][a]
Previous Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson Democratic nominee James M. Cox

From March 9 to June 5, 1920, voters of the Democratic Party elected delegates to the 1920 Democratic National Convention, for the purposing of choosing a nominee for president in the 1920 United States presidential election.^[1]

The race for delegates was made under a cloud of uncertainty because the party's two leading names, President Woodrow Wilson and three-time nominee William Jennings Bryan, withheld their intentions; both men privately hoped for the nomination, but neither's name was formally submitted before the voters or the convention as a candidate.

The delegate elections were inconclusive, with Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo, and Ohio governor James A. Cox leading the candidate field. With no clear front-runner, many states withheld their delegates from any one candidate, instead sending an uncommitted slate of delegates or preferring to back a favorite son on the first ballot. At the convention, Cox was ultimately nominated on the forty-fourth ballot.

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