1912 United States presidential election

A Punch cartoon by Leonard Raven-Hill, depicting the perceived aggression between Taft and Roosevelt.

During Taft's administration, a rift developed between Roosevelt and Taft, and they became the leaders of the Republican Party's two wings: progressives led by Roosevelt and conservatives led by Taft. Progressives favored labor restrictions protecting women and children, promoted ecological conservation, and were more sympathetic toward labor unions. They also favored the popular election of federal and state judges over appointment by the President or governors. Conservatives supported high tariffs to encourage domestic production, but favored business leaders over labor unions and were generally opposed to the popular election of judges.

Cracks in the party began to show when Taft supported the Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act in 1909.[4] The Act favored the industrial Northeast and angered the Northwest and South, where demand was strong for tariff reductions.[5] Early in his term, President Taft had promised to stand for a lower tariff bill, but protectionism had been a major policy of the Republican Party since its founding.[6]

Taft also abandoned Roosevelt's antitrust policy.[7] While Roosevelt believed some monopolies should be preserved, Taft argued that all monopolies must be broken up. Taft also fired popular conservationist Gifford Pinchot as head of the Bureau of Forestry in 1910.[8] By 1910, the split within the party was deep, and Roosevelt and Taft turned against one another despite their personal friendship. That summer, Roosevelt began a national speaking tour, during which he outlined his progressive philosophy and the New Nationalist platform, which he introduced in a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas on August 31.[9] In the 1910 midterm elections, the Republicans lost 57 seats in the House of Representatives as the Democrats gained a majority for the first time since 1894. These results were a large defeat for the conservative wing of the party.[10] James E. Campbell writes that one cause may have been a large number of progressive voters choosing third-party candidates over conservative Republicans.[11] Nevertheless, Roosevelt continued to reject calls to run for president into the year 1911. In a January letter to newspaper editor William Allen White, he wrote, "I do not think there is one chance in a thousand that it will ever be wise to have me nominated."[12] However, speculation continued, further harming Roosevelt and Taft's relationship. After months of continually increasing support, Roosevelt changed his position, writing to journalist Henry Beach Needham in January 1912 that if the nomination "comes to me as a genuine public movement of course I will accept."[13]

• 
  President William Howard Taft
• 
  Theodore Roosevelt from New York
• 
  Senator Robert M. La Follette from Wisconsin
• 
  Senator Albert B. Cummins from Iowa

For the first time, many convention delegates were elected in presidential preference primaries. Progressive Republicans advocated primary elections as a way of breaking the control of political parties by bosses. Altogether, twelve states held Republican primaries.

Senator Robert M. La Follette won two of the first four primaries (North Dakota and his home state of Wisconsin), but Taft won a major victory in Roosevelt's home state of New York and continued to rack up delegates in more conservative, traditional state conventions.

However, on March 28, Roosevelt issued an ultimatum: if Republicans did not nominate him, he would run as an independent. Beginning with a runaway victory in Illinois on April 9, Roosevelt won nine of the last ten presidential primaries (including Taft's home state of Ohio), losing only Massachusetts.[14]

Taft also had support from the bulk of the Southern Republican organizations. Delegates from the former Confederate states supported Taft by a 5 to 1 margin. These states had voted solidly Democratic in every presidential election since 1880, and Roosevelt objected that they were given one-quarter of the delegates when they would contribute nothing to a Republican victory.

The Republican Convention convened in Chicago from June 18 to 22. In the weeks leading up to the convention, many delegates remained uncommitted to a candidate, but by the time the convention formally opened, Taft had won the support of almost every unbound delegate.[15] Roosevelt accused Taft of stealing votes and attempted to have delegates from Arizona, California, Texas, and Washington — all states supporting Taft — removed from the convention, but he was unsuccessful.[16] The delegates chose Taft supporter Elihu Root to serve as chairman of the convention, a move that signaled that Taft was likely to win the nomination.[17]

Roosevelt broke with tradition and attended the convention, where he was welcomed with great support from voters.[18] Despite Roosevelt's presence in Chicago and his attempts to disqualify Taft supporters, the incumbent ticket of Taft and James S. Sherman was renominated on the first ballot.[19] Sherman was the first sitting Vice President re-nominated since John C. Calhoun in 1828. After losing the vote, Roosevelt announced the formation of a new party dedicated "to the service of all the people."[20] This would later come to be known as the Progressive Party. Roosevelt announced that his party would hold its convention in Chicago and that he would accept their nomination if offered.[20] Meanwhile, Taft decided not to campaign before the election beyond his acceptance speech on August 1.[21]

Not since the 1884 election had there been a major schism in the Republican Party, when the Mugwump faction repudiated nominee James G. Blaine and broke with the party. The schism, in which Roosevelt had nearly participated after fighting Blaine's nomination, was a major factor in Blaine's loss to Grover Cleveland.

• 
  Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey
• 
  Speaker of the House Champ Clark from Missouri
• 
  Governor Judson Harmon of Ohio
• 
  House Majority Leader Oscar Underwood from Alabama
• 
  Governor Eugene Foss of Massachusetts
• 
  Governor Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana
• 
  Governor Simeon E. Baldwin of Connecticut

The Democratic Convention was held in Baltimore from June 25 to July 2.

Initially, the front-runner was Speaker of the House Champ Clark of Missouri. Though Clark received the most votes on early ballots, he was unable to get the two-thirds majority required to win.

Clark's chances were hurt when Tammany Hall, the powerful New York City Democratic political machine, threw its support behind him. The Tammany endorsement caused William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic presidential candidate and leader of the party's progressives, to turn against Clark. Bryan shifted his support to reformist Governor of New Jersey Woodrow Wilson and decried Clark as the candidate of Wall Street. Wilson had consistently finished second in balloting.

Wilson had nearly given up hope and was almost freed his delegates to vote for another candidate. Instead, Bryan's defection from Clark to Wilson led many other delegates to do the same. Wilson gradually gained strength while Clark's support dwindled, and Wilson finally received the nomination on the 46th ballot.

Thomas R. Marshall, the Governor of Indiana who had swung Indiana's votes to Wilson, was named Wilson's running mate.

Progressive Party (United States, 1912) 1912 Progressive Party ticket
Theodore Roosevelt	Hiram Johnson
for President	for Vice President
26th President of the United States (1901–1909)	23rd Governor of California (1911–1917)

Progressive convention, 1912

Progressives reconvened in Chicago and endorsed the formation of a national Progressive Party. The party was funded by publisher Frank Munsey and businessman George Walbridge Perkins, who served as executive secretary. At their convention on August 5, the new party chose Roosevelt as its presidential nominee and Governor Hiram Johnson from California as his vice presidential running mate.

The Progressives promised to increase federal regulation and protect the welfare of ordinary people. At the convention, Perkins blocked an antitrust plank, shocking reformers who thought of Roosevelt as a true trust-buster. The delegates to the convention sang the hymn "Onward, Christian Soldiers" as their anthem. In his acceptance speech, Roosevelt compared the coming presidential campaign to the Battle of Armageddon and stated that the Progressives were going to "battle for the Lord."

Most progressive politicians remained in the Republican Party.

Socialist Party of America
Eugene V. Debs	Emil Seidel
for President	for Vice President
Former Indiana State Senator (1885–1889)	36th Mayor of Milwaukee (1910–1912)

Socialist candidates:

• Eugene V. Debs, former State Senator from Indiana
• Emil Seidel, Mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Charles Edward Russell, journalist from Iowa

Eugene V. Debs's 6% was an all-time high for the Socialist Party

The Socialist Party of America was a highly factionalized coalition of local parties based in industrial cities and rooted in ethnic, especially German and Finnish, communities. It had some support in formerly Populist rural and mining areas in the West, especially Oklahoma. By 1912, the party claimed more than a thousand locally elected officials in 33 states and 160 cities, especially the Midwest. Eugene V. Debs had run for president in 1900, 1904, and 1908, primarily to encourage the local effort, and he did so again in 1912 with little challenge to his nomination.[25]

The party was divided into two main factions. The conservative faction led by Congressman Victor L. Berger of Milwaukee promoted pragmatic democratic reform, fought corruption, and opposed immigration as both a wage suppressant and drain on public resources. The radical faction sought to overthrow capitalism, tried to infiltrate labor unions, and sought to cooperate with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or "Wobblies"). It supported immigration to increase ranks for the war on capitalism. With few exceptions, the party had weak or nonexistent links to local labor unions.

Many of these issues had been debated at the First National Congress of the Socialist Party in 1910 and again at the 1912 national convention in Indianapolis. At the convention, the radicals won an early test by seating IWW leader Bill Haywood on the Executive Committee and passed a resolution favoring industrial unionism. Conservatives responded by amending the party constitution to expel any who favored industrial sabotage or syndicalism (both positions of the IWW) and who refused to participate in American elections. The convention adopted a conservative platform calling for the cooperative organization of prisons, a national bureau of health, and the abolition of the Senate and the presidential veto.

Debs did not attend. He saw his mission as keeping the disparate units together in the hope that someday a common goal would be found.

At a campaign stop in Milwaukee on October 14, John Flammang Schrank, a saloonkeeper from New York, shot Roosevelt in the chest. The bullet penetrated his steel eyeglass case and a 50-page single-folded copy of his speech Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual and became lodged in his chest. Schrank was immediately disarmed and captured.[27] Schrank had been stalking Roosevelt. He was demented and said the ghost of President McKinley ordered him to kill Roosevelt to prevent a third term.[28]

Roosevelt shouted for Schrank to remain unharmed and assured the crowd he was all right, then ordered police to take charge of Schrank and ensure no violence was done to him.[29] Roosevelt, an experienced hunter and anatomist, correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung. He declined suggestions to go to the hospital and instead delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt.[30] His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose." He spoke for 90 minutes before completing his speech and accepting medical attention.[31][32]

Afterward, probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle, but did not penetrate the pleura. Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to attempt to remove it, and Roosevelt carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life.[33][34]

Taft was not campaigning and focused on his presidential duties. Wilson briefly suspended his campaigning. By October 17, Wilson was back on the campaign trail but avoided any criticism of Roosevelt or his party.[35] He spent two weeks recuperating before returning to the campaign trail with a major speech on October 30, designed to reassure his supporters he was strong enough for the presidency.[36]

Vice President James S. Sherman died on October 30, less than one week before the election, leaving Taft without a running mate. By this point it was widely accepted that Taft was certain to lose re-election, and so the party did not bother formally selecting a replacement for Sherman. Nicholas M. Butler was eventually designated to receive electoral votes that would have been cast for Sherman.

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. "1912 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved July 28, 2005.

Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 31, 2005.

Wilson's raw vote total was less than William Jennings Bryan totaled in any of his three campaigns.[37] In only two regions, New England and the Pacific, was Wilson's vote greater than the greatest Bryan vote.[38]

The 1912 election was the first to include all 48 of the current contiguous United States.

In a plurality of 1,396 counties, no candidate obtained a majority.[39]

Wilson won 1,969 counties but held a majority in only 1,237, less than Bryan had had in any of his campaigns.[38]

"Other(s)", mostly Roosevelt, won a plurality in 772 counties and a majority in 305 counties. Most of them in Pennsylvania (48), Illinois (33), Michigan (68), Minnesota (75), Iowa (49), South Dakota (54), Nebraska (32), Kansas (51), Washington (38), and California (44).

Debs carried four counties: Lake and Beltrami in Minnesota, Burke in North Dakota, and Crawford in Kansas. These are the only counties ever to vote for the Socialist presidential nominee.

Taft won a plurality in only 232 counties and a majority in only 35. In addition to South Dakota and California, where there was no Taft ticket, Taft carried no counties in Maine, New Jersey, Minnesota, Nevada, Arizona, and seven "Solid South" states.[38]

Nine counties did not record any votes due to either black disenfranchisement or being inhabited only by Native Americans, who would not gain full citizenship for twelve more years.

As of 2021, 1912 remains the last election in which the key Indiana counties of Hamilton and Hendricks, along with Walworth County, Wisconsin, Pulaski and Laurel Counties in Kentucky and Hawkins County, Tennessee have given a plurality to the Democratic candidate.[40]

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Democratic)

1. Greenville County, South Carolina 100.00%
2. Marlboro County, South Carolina 100.00%
3. Hampton County, South Carolina 100.00%
4. Jasper County, South Carolina 100.00%
5. Reagan County, Texas 100.00%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Progressive)

1. Scott County, Tennessee 75.15%
2. Campbell County, South Dakota 74.93%
3. Avery County, North Carolina 72.69%
4. Hutchinson County, South Dakota 67.84%
5. Hamlin County, South Dakota 66.79%

Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Republican)

1. Zapata County, Texas 80.89%
2. Valencia County, New Mexico 77.25%
3. Kane County, Utah 75.40%
4. Clinton County, Kentucky 64.79%
5. Huerfano County, Colorado 63.36%

• 
  Results by state
• 
  Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote
• 
  Results by county, shaded according to percentage of the vote for Wilson
• 
  Results by county, shaded according to percentage of the vote for Taft
• 
  Results by county, shaded according to percentage of the vote for all others
• 
  A continuous cartogram of the 1912 United States presidential election
• 
  Cartogram shaded according to percentage of the vote for Wilson
• 
  Cartogram shaded according to percentage of the vote for Taft
• 
  Cartogram shaded according to percentage of the vote for all others

• Bryan, William Jennings. A Tale of Two Conventions: Being an Account of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions of June, 1912, with an Outline of the Progressive National Convention of August in the Same Year (Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1912). online
• Chester, Edward W A guide to political platforms (1977) online
• Pinchot, Amos. What's the Matter with America: The Meaning of the Progressive Movement and the Rise of the New Party. (Amos Pinchot, 1912).
• Roosevelt, Theodore. Theodore Roosevelt's Confession of Faith Before the Progressive National Convention, August 6, 1912 (Progressive Party, 1912) online.
• Roosevelt, Theodore. Bull Moose on the Stump: The 1912 Campaign Speeches of Theodore Roosevelt Ed. Lewis L. Gould. (UP of Kansas, 2008).
• Wilson, Woodrow (1956). John Wells Davidson (ed.). A Crossroads of Freedom, the 1912 Campaign Speeches.
• Porter, Kirk H. and Donald Bruce Johnson, eds. National party platforms, 1840-1964 (1965) online 1840-1956