North Dakota participated in its first presidential election, having been admitted as the 39th state on November 2, 1889. The state was won by the Populist nominees, James B. Weaver of Iowa and his running mate James G. Field of Virginia. However, the state Democratic Party also endorsed the Weaver/Field ticket in exchange for the Populists supporting Democratic candidates for local offices, creating a fusion ticket.[1] Weaver and Field defeated the Republican nominees, incumbent PresidentBenjamin Harrison of Indiana and his running mate Whitelaw Reid of New York. Two electors from the Democratic-Populist Fusion ticket won and one Republican Elector won on a technicality during counting.[2] This created a split delegation of electors: one for Weaver, one for Harrison, and one for national Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland, who was not separately on the ballot. This is the only time in a US presidential election that a state has equally distributed its electoral votes between three candidates.
^Knoles, George Harmon; The Presidential Campaign and Election of 1892 (1942), p. 185
^Knoles; The Presidential Campaign and Election of 1892
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