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1908 United States presidential election in Wisconsin

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1908 United States presidential election in Wisconsin
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The 1908 United States presidential election in Wisconsin was held on November 3, 1908, as part of the 1908 United States presidential election. State voters chose 13 electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

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Ever since the decline of the Populist movement, Wisconsin had become almost a one-party state dominated by the Republican Party.[1] The Democratic Party became entirely uncompetitive outside certain German Catholic counties adjoining Lake Michigan as the upper classes, along with the majority of workers who followed them, completely fled from William Jennings Bryan’s agrarian and free silver sympathies.[2] As Democratic strength weakened severely after 1894 – although the state did develop a strong Socialist Party to provide opposition to the GOP – Wisconsin developed the direct Republican primary in 1903 and this ultimately created competition between the “League” under Robert M. La Follette, and the conservative “Regular” faction.[3]

When William Jennings Bryan was nominated for a third presidential bid, he visited Wisconsin in early August to urge the Democrats in the state legislature to support his state policies.[4] An earlier poll had suggest Bryan gaining a substantial part of the radical La Follette following,[5] and Bryan would ridicule new Republican nominee William Howard Taft in Milwaukee during the last week of September.[6]

Despite Bryan's campaigns, October polls by the Chicago Record-Herald said that Wisconsin was certain to vote for Taft,[7] As things turned out, the Record-Herald polls were accurate, with Taft winning by eighty-one thousand votes, and carrying all but six counties. However, Taft's victory, while still large, was considerably narrower than the Republican victories in the state in the previous three elections.

Bryan had previously lost Wisconsin to William McKinley in both 1896 and 1900.

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Results

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Results by county

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Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

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See also

Notes

  1. The 1909 Blue Book gives the totals as Taft 247,747; Bryan 166,662; Debs 28,147; Chafin 11,565; Gillhaus 318; Scattering 2. Based on the Board of Canvassers report, with the exception of Taft, these numbers are simply incorrect. For the other parties, no elector on any ticket received those numbers of votes. Indeed, the Blue Book is an unreliable source for Wisconsin election data from about 1890 to 1920 and its figures frequently differ from the figures listed in the Board of Canvassers reports.
  2. In Wisconsin, the Socialist Party was still referred to as the Social Democratic Party in 1908
  3. The Socialist Labor Party ran only 4 electors on its Wisconsin ticket
  4. Includes 39 votes for August Gillhaus and 32 votes for Donald R. Monroe; these were the Socialist Labor nominees for President and Vice President, respectively. Since voters in Wisconsin chose electors directly, these were votes Gillhaus and Monroe as electors, not as presidential candidates.
  5. Based on totals for highest elector on each ticket
  6. Based on highest elector on each ticket
  7. Includes 2 Scattering votes
  8. Includes 1 Scattering vote
  9. Includes 51 Scattering votes
  10. Includes 27 Scattering votes
  11. Includes 14 Scattering votes

References

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