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 County Results
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| Elections in Michigan |
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The 1912 United States presidential election in Michigan took place on November 5, 1912, as part of the 1912 United States presidential election. Voters chose 15 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Following the Panic of 1893 and the Populist movement, Michigan would turn from a competitive Republican-leaning state into a rigidly one-party polity dominated by the Republican Party.[1] The dominance of the culture of the Lower Peninsula by anti-slavery Yankees[2] would be augmented by the turn of formerly Democratic-leaning German Catholics away from that party as a result of the remodelled party’s agrarian and free silver sympathies, which became rigidly opposed by both the upper class and workers who followed them.[3] The state Democratic Party was further crippled via the Populist movement severing its critical financial ties with business and commerce in Michigan as in other Northern states.[4] A brief turn of the strongly evangelical Cabinet Counties toward the Populist movement in the 1896 presidential election would reverse itself following the return to prosperity under President William McKinley, so that these joined in Republican hegemony until the Great Depression.
In the 1894 elections, the Democratic Party lost all but one seat in the Michigan legislature,[5] and the party would only make minor gains there for the next third of a century. Unlike the other states of the Upper Midwest, the Yankee influence on the culture of the Lower Peninsula was so strong that left-wing third parties did not provide significant opposition to the Republicans, nor was there more than a moderate degree of coordinated factionalism within the hegemonic Michigan Republican Party.[6]
The state was not seriously affected by the split within the nationally dominant Republican Party during the Taft presidency. Only two of its ten Republican Congressmen were amongst the “Insurgents” who aligned with a revived Democratic Party.[7] However, during 1911 state Governor Chase Osborn became one of the first politicians to work for a return of Theodore Roosevelt to the White House,[8] and would soon call for both incumbent President Taft and rival progressive Robert M. La Follette to withdraw for Roosevelt to gain the nomination outright.[8] Roosevelt would also soon gain the support of state party leader Frank Knox,[9] although Taft supporters would dominate the state at actual party conventions.[10] The state’s few Democratic delegates backed eventual nominee, Princeton University President Woodrow Wilson of Virginia.[11]
Former president Theodore Roosevelt and his Progressive Party campaigned extensively in the state during October[12] but early polls had Wilson making a close race even in this most Republican of states. Indeed, during October the state was viewed as close between Roosevelt and Wilson,[13] or even seeing Wilson ahead.[14] However, Michigan was actually comfortably won by Roosevelt and running mate governor of California Hiram Johnson, with 38.95 percent of the popular vote, against the incumbent president William Howard Taft (R–Ohio), and running mate Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler, with 27.63 percent of the popular vote. Wilson and running mate governor of Indiana Thomas R. Marshall finished third with 27.36 percent.[15]
- ^ Burnham, Walter Dean. "The System of 1896: An Analysis". The Evolution of American Electoral Systems. pp. 178–179. ISBN 0313213798.
- ^ English, Gustavus P.; Proceedings of the Ninth Republican National Convention (1888), p. 234
- ^ Sundquist, James. Politics and Policy: The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Years. p. 526. ISBN 0815719094.
- ^ Rogowski, Ronald (2020). Commerce and Coalitions: How Trade Affects Domestic Political Alignments. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691219435.
- ^ "Swamped! The Democrats Drowned Out by a Tremendous Republican Tidal Wave". The L'Anse Sentinel. L'Anse. November 10, 1894. p. 1.
- ^ Hansen, John Mark; Shigeo, Hirano; Snyder Jr., James M. "Parties within Parties: Parties, Factions, and Coordinated Politics, 1900-1980". In Gerber, Alan S.; Schickler, Eric (eds.). Governing in a Polarized Age: Elections, Parties, and Political Representation in America. pp. 165–168. ISBN 978-1-107-09509-0.
- ^ Baker, John D. (December 1973). "The Character of the Congressional Revolution of 1910". The Journal of American History. 60 (3): 679–691.
- ^ a b Pavord, Andrew C. (Summer 1996). "The Gamble for Power: Theodore Roosevelt's Decision to Run for the Presidency in 1912". Presidential Studies Quarterly. 26 (3): 633–647.
- ^ Mark, Steven Macdonald (1977). An American Interventionist: Frank Knox and United States Foreign Relations (Thesis). University of Maryland, College Park ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. pp. 32–55.
- ^ Chace, James (2009). 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs — The Election that Changed the Country. Simon and Schuster. pp. 109, 112. ISBN 1439188262.
- ^ Chace; 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs, p. 156
- ^ Chace; 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs, p. 229
- ^ "Wilson Leading in Nearly every State: Polls by New York Herald Indicate Victory for Democrats — Illinois and Michigan Are Exceptions". Wichita Falls Times. Wichita Falls, Texas. October 9, 1912.
- ^ "Comment and Gossip". Fremont Herald. Fremont, Nebraska. September 27, 1912. p. 3.
- ^ "1912 Presidential Election Results — Michigan".
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