1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota

The 1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota took place on November 4, 1924, in Minnesota as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. Voters chose twelve electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota

November 4, 1924
 
Nominee Calvin Coolidge Robert M. La Follette John W. Davis
Party Republican Progressive Democratic
Home state Massachusetts Wisconsin West Virginia
Running mate Charles G. Dawes Burton K. Wheeler Charles W. Bryan
Electoral vote 12 0 0
Popular vote 420,759 339,192 55,913
Percentage 51.2% 41.3% 6.8%

County Results

President before election

Calvin Coolidge
Republican

Elected President

Calvin Coolidge
Republican

A rapid recovery from the depression of 1920 and 1921, despite major Republican losses during the 1922 House elections[1] placed the Republican Party – who gained a record popular-vote majority in the 1920 election – in a secure position despite the death of President Warren G. Harding in 1923. Rises in wages and ebbing of discontent further solidified the GOP's hold on power.[1]

More critically, the Democratic Party was mortally divided between its rural Southern faction led by William Gibbs McAdoo and its white ethnic urban northeastern faction led by New York Governor Al Smith.[2] The rural faction was supported by the revived Ku Klux Klan and was in favour of Prohibition, whereas the white ethnic faction was firmly against the anti-Catholic Klan and opposed to Prohibition. A fierce debate ensued that saw a compromise candidate, former Congressman John W. Davis of West Virginia, nominated after one hundred and three ballots in hot summer weather at Madison Square Garden.[3] Although West Virginia was a border state whose limited African-American population had not been disenfranchised as happened in all former Confederate States,[4] Davis did share the extreme social conservatism of Southern Democrats of his era. He supported poll taxes, opposed women's suffrage, and believed in strictly limited government with no expansion in nonmilitary fields.[5]

In the liberal, heavily Scandinavian Upper Midwest, Davis' social and economic views had practically no appeal.[6] Although in September Davis underwent an extensive tour of the region and of the Great Plains,[7] and campaigned to eliminate the income tax burden of the poorer classes,[8] he received a mere 6.80% of the vote in Minnesota. This constitutes the second-smallest proportion of any state's popular vote received by an official on-ballot[lower-alpha 1] Democratic presidential nominee since the election of 1860, when the party was divided.[lower-alpha 2] The only smaller proportion was by Grover Cleveland in Nevada in 1892, when he received only 6.56% of the vote.

The conservatism of Coolidge and Davis made it inevitable that aging Wisconsin maverick Robert M. La Follette, Sr. would mount a third-party challenge – which La Follette had planned even before the Democratic Convention.[8] La Follette was formally nominated on July 4 by the "Conference for Progressive Political Action" and developed a platform dedicated to eliminating child labor and American interference in Latin American political affairs, along with a formal denunciation of the Ku Klux Klan.[9] La Follette also proposed major judicial reforms including amendments allowing congress to override judicial review and to re-enact laws declared unconstitutional.[10] La Follette also called for election of federal judges for ten-year terms.[11]

Davis and Coolidge both spent most of their campaign attacking La Follette as a political extremist,[11] but nonetheless opinion polls showed that La Follette was attracting large numbers of those German-American and Scandinavian-Americans who completely deserted Cox in 1920.[12] In September some polls had La Follette winning sufficient electoral votes to give no candidate an electoral majority and force the House to make a choice,[13] but as polling day approached newer polls suggested incumbent President Calvin Coolidge would hold the states of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nevada and Montana, which La Follette had been predicted to win in August.[13] As it turned out, Coolidge won the state over La Follette by a margin of 81,567 votes, or 9.92 percent. Nationally, the incumbent President almost equalled Harding's landslide popular vote victory, achieving a 25.22 percent lead over Davis and 382 electoral votes.

Despite Davis' shocking statewide performance – not polling twenty percent in any of Minnesota's eighty-seven counties – this election would prove the last as of 2020 when Ramsey County has not voted Democratic,[14] for La Follette's vote would turn to beaten Democratic nominee Smith in the following election and remain with the party for many decades.

With 41.26% of the popular vote, Minnesota would prove to be La Follette's third strongest state in the 1924 election in terms of popular vote percentage after Wisconsin and North Dakota.[15]

Results

1924 United States presidential election in Minnesota[16]
Party Candidate Votes Percentage Electoral votes
Republican Calvin Coolidge (incumbent) 420,759 51.18% 12
Progressive Robert M. La Follette 339,192 41.26% 0
Democratic John W. Davis 55,913 6.80% 0
Workers William Z. Foster 4,427 0.54% 0
Socialist Industrial Frank T. Johns 1,855 0.23% 0
Totals 822,146 100.00% 12

Results by county

County John Calvin Coolidge
Republican
John William Davis
Democratic
Robert M. La Follette[17]
Independent
William Z. Foster[18]
Workers
Frank Johns[18]
Socialist Industrial
Margin[lower-alpha 3] Total votes cast[19]
# % # % # % # % # % # %
Aitkin 2,720 53.67% 212 4.18% 1,959 38.65% 159 3.49% 18 0.36% 761 15.02% 5,068
Anoka 3,146 57.15% 458 8.32% 1,883 34.21% 15 0.33% 3 0.05% 1,263 22.94% 5,505
Becker 2,936 45.51% 429 6.65% 2,963 45.92% 93 1.92% 31 0.48% -27 -0.41% 6,452
Beltrami 2,960 46.22% 323 5.04% 3,053 47.67% 40 1.06% 28 0.44% -93 -1.45% 6,404
Benton 1,629 41.90% 572 14.71% 1,644 42.28% 24 1.11% 19 0.49% -15 -0.38% 3,888
Big Stone 1,524 46.14% 260 7.87% 1,508 45.66% 8 0.33% 3 0.09% 16 0.48% 3,303
Blue Earth 6,773 55.09% 1,123 9.13% 4,360 35.46% 24 0.32% 15 0.12% 2,413 19.63% 12,295
Brown 2,255 31.87% 270 3.82% 4,515 63.81% 21 0.51% 15 0.21% -2,260 -31.94% 7,076
Carlton 3,142 49.76% 303 4.80% 2,552 40.42% 300 5.02% 17 0.27% 590 9.34% 6,314
Carver 2,214 40.20% 358 6.50% 2,907 52.78% 10 0.53% 19 0.34% -693 -12.58% 5,508
Cass 2,800 54.13% 270 5.22% 2,052 39.67% 38 0.99% 13 0.25% 748 14.46% 5,173
Chippewa 2,140 42.29% 140 2.77% 2,761 54.57% 14 0.38% 5 0.10% -621 -12.28% 5,060
Chisago 2,678 52.80% 135 2.66% 2,236 44.09% 12 0.45% 11 0.22% 442 8.71% 5,072
Clay 3,081 44.55% 439 6.35% 3,357 48.54% 21 0.56% 18 0.26% -276 -3.99% 6,916
Clearwater 1,020 37.54% 86 3.17% 1,592 58.59% 12 0.70% 7 0.26% -572 -21.05% 2,717
Cook 471 67.97% 29 4.18% 189 27.27% 2 0.58% 2 0.29% 282 40.70% 693
Cottonwood 2,722 56.99% 217 4.54% 1,818 38.07% 13 0.40% 6 0.13% 904 18.92% 4,776
Crow Wing 4,230 50.07% 417 4.94% 3,725 44.09% 57 0.91% 20 0.24% 505 5.98% 8,449
Dakota 3,931 42.34% 929 10.01% 4,378 47.16% 28 0.50% 18 0.19% -447 -4.82% 9,284
Dodge 2,856 65.97% 215 4.97% 1,239 28.62% 10 0.44% 9 0.21% 1,617 37.35% 4,329
Douglas 2,424 39.15% 315 5.09% 3,430 55.39% 14 0.37% 9 0.15% -1,006 -16.24% 6,192
Faribault 4,682 58.11% 578 7.17% 2,776 34.45% 12 0.26% 9 0.11% 1,906 23.66% 8,057
Fillmore 5,550 62.75% 460 5.20% 2,797 31.62% 19 0.43% 19 0.21% 2,753 31.13% 8,845
Freeborn 6,139 63.75% 480 4.98% 2,991 31.06% 9 0.21% 11 0.11% 3,148 32.69% 9,630
Goodhue 6,849 59.05% 615 5.30% 4,113 35.46% 11 0.19% 11 0.09% 2,736 23.59% 11,599
Grant 1,674 49.21% 118 3.47% 1,601 47.06% 3 0.26% 6 0.18% 73 2.15% 3,402
Hennepin 101,120 59.02% 10,806 6.31% 58,846 34.35% 377 0.32% 178 0.10% 42,274 24.67% 171,327
Houston 2,782 53.58% 402 7.74% 1,992 38.37% 13 0.31% 3 0.06% 790 15.21% 5,192
Hubbard 1,884 57.81% 191 5.86% 1,166 35.78% 12 0.55% 6 0.18% 718 22.03% 3,259
Isanti 1,588 39.54% 79 1.97% 2,332 58.07% 7 0.42% 10 0.25% -744 -18.53% 4,016
Itasca 4,961 60.10% 496 6.01% 2,532 30.67% 232 3.22% 34 0.41% 2,429 29.43% 8,255
Jackson 2,760 48.96% 407 7.22% 2,446 43.39% 12 0.43% 12 0.21% 314 5.57% 5,637
Kanabec 1,507 47.57% 128 4.04% 1,521 48.01% 4 0.38% 8 0.25% -14 -0.44% 3,168
Kandiyohi 3,222 40.16% 222 2.77% 4,552 56.74% 15 0.32% 11 0.14% -1,330 -16.58% 8,022
Kittson 1,333 42.88% 249 8.01% 1,503 48.34% 17 0.77% 7 0.23% -170 -5.46% 3,109
Koochiching 1,536 37.42% 222 5.41% 2,304 56.13% 34 1.05% 9 0.22% -768 -18.71% 4,105
Lac qui Parle 2,860 52.26% 106 1.94% 2,481 45.33% 15 0.48% 11 0.20% 379 6.93% 5,473
Lake 1,251 46.63% 60 2.24% 1,319 49.16% 45 1.98% 8 0.30% -68 -2.53% 2,683
Lake of the Woods 703 42.71% 92 5.59% 832 50.55% 10 1.15% 9 0.55% -129 -7.84% 1,646
Le Sueur 2,475 38.19% 1,199 18.50% 2,756 42.52% 23 0.79% 28 0.43% -281 -4.33% 6,481
Lincoln 1,657 48.03% 252 7.30% 1,511 43.80% 13 0.87% 17 0.49% 146 4.23% 3,450
Lyon 3,519 53.70% 334 5.10% 2,674 40.81% 10 0.40% 16 0.24% 845 12.89% 6,553
McLeod 2,841 44.89% 563 8.90% 2,893 45.78% 16 0.35% 16 0.25% -52 -0.89% 6,329
Mahnomen 629 33.69% 122 6.53% 1,094 57.91% 13 2.33% 9 0.48% -465 -24.22% 1,867
Marshall 2,100 40.03% 290 5.53% 2,812 53.88% 25 0.33% 19 0.36% -712 -13.85% 5,246
Martin 4,238 56.24% 751 9.97% 2,529 33.50% 10 0.42% 7 0.09% 1,709 22.74% 7,535
Meeker 2,757 45.47% 365 6.02% 2,910 47.99% 20 0.53% 12 0.20% -153 -2.52% 6,064
Mille Lacs 2,413 48.79% 167 3.38% 2,348 47.47% 10 0.36% 8 0.16% 65 1.32% 4,946
Morrison 3,128 41.63% 769 10.23% 3,546 47.19% 33 0.94% 38 0.51% -418 -5.56% 7,514
Mower 5,061 55.69% 564 6.21% 3,436 37.81% 16 0.30% 11 0.12% 1,625 17.88% 9,088
Murray 2,034 45.80% 334 7.52% 2,048 46.12% 12 0.56% 13 0.29% -14 -0.32% 4,441
Nicollet 2,518 50.05% 287 5.70% 2,208 43.89% 11 0.36% 7 0.14% 310 6.16% 5,031
Nobles 2,835 46.10% 421 6.85% 2,875 46.75% 9 0.31% 10 0.16% -40 -0.65% 6,150
Norman 1,997 45.77% 171 3.92% 2,174 49.83% 16 0.48% 5 0.11% -177 -4.06% 4,363
Olmsted 5,722 56.50% 857 8.46% 3,508 34.64% 27 0.39% 13 0.13% 2,214 21.86% 10,127
Otter Tail 7,557 55.45% 568 4.17% 5,346 39.23% 137 1.16% 21 0.15% 2,211 16.22% 13,629
Pennington 1,126 31.20% 146 4.05% 2,320 64.28% 13 0.47% 4 0.11% -1,194 -33.08% 3,609
Pine 2,706 42.03% 469 7.28% 3,196 49.64% 44 1.04% 23 0.36% -490 -7.61% 6,438
Pipestone 2,066 48.16% 219 5.10% 1,984 46.25% 14 0.49% 7 0.16% 82 1.91% 4,290
Polk 5,027 43.94% 663 5.80% 5,695 49.78% 37 0.48% 18 0.16% -668 -5.84% 11,440
Pope 2,079 45.88% 151 3.33% 2,284 50.41% 8 0.38% 9 0.20% -205 -4.53% 4,531
Ramsey 39,566 47.66% 8,407 10.13% 34,684 41.78% 262 0.44% 100 0.12% 4,882 5.88% 83,019
Red Lake 643 35.19% 213 11.66% 956 52.33% 11 0.82% 4 0.22% -313 -17.14% 1,827
Redwood 3,342 50.66% 443 6.72% 2,778 42.11% 18 0.52% 16 0.24% 564 8.55% 6,597
Renville 3,405 42.66% 641 8.03% 3,898 48.84% 21 0.46% 16 0.20% -493 -6.18% 7,981
Rice 5,883 61.26% 1,199 12.49% 2,454 25.55% 35 0.70% 32 0.33% 3,429 35.71% 9,603
Rock 2,065 51.98% 261 6.57% 1,637 41.20% 6 0.25% 4 0.10% 428 10.78% 3,973
Roseau 1,300 38.99% 148 4.44% 1,862 55.85% 13 0.72% 11 0.33% -562 -16.86% 3,334
Saint Louis 37,033 57.31% 2,577 3.99% 23,166 35.85% 1,385 2.86% 462 0.71% 13,867 21.46% 64,623
Scott 1,324 29.29% 829 18.34% 2,327 51.48% 24 0.88% 16 0.35% -1,003 -22.19% 4,520
Sherburne 1,961 63.65% 180 5.84% 925 30.02% 6 0.49% 9 0.29% 1,036 33.63% 3,081
Sibley 1,749 34.57% 341 6.74% 2,935 58.00% 21 0.69% 14 0.28% -1,186 -23.43% 5,060
Stearns 6,469 37.36% 1,354 7.82% 9,385 54.20% 64 0.61% 42 0.24% -2,916 -16.84% 17,314
Steele 3,598 59.50% 796 13.16% 1,632 26.99% 13 0.35% 8 0.13% 1,966 32.51% 6,047
Stevens 1,553 48.99% 238 7.51% 1,362 42.97% 12 0.54% 5 0.16% 191 6.02% 3,170
Swift 1,654 33.60% 334 6.79% 2,918 59.28% 9 0.33% 7 0.14% -1,264 -25.68% 4,922
Todd 4,441 53.00% 557 6.65% 3,339 39.85% 17 0.50% 25 0.30% 1,102 13.15% 8,379
Traverse 1,002 39.32% 202 7.93% 1,330 52.20% 9 0.55% 5 0.20% -328 -12.88% 2,548
Wabasha 2,834 44.93% 644 10.21% 2,811 44.57% 12 0.29% 6 0.10% 23 0.36% 6,307
Wadena 1,900 54.83% 182 5.25% 1,265 36.51% 109 3.41% 9 0.26% 635 18.32% 3,465
Waseca 2,081 37.13% 442 7.89% 3,057 54.54% 11 0.45% 14 0.25% -976 -17.41% 5,605
Washington 4,482 52.40% 699 8.17% 3,351 39.18% 12 0.25% 9 0.11% 1,131 13.22% 8,553
Watonwan 2,297 53.57% 279 6.51% 1,703 39.72% 5 0.21% 4 0.09% 594 13.85% 4,288
Wilkin 1,342 47.17% 245 8.61% 1,250 43.94% 4 0.28% 4 0.14% 92 3.23% 2,845
Winona 5,670 43.53% 1,111 8.53% 6,183 47.47% 15 0.48% 47 0.36% -513 -3.94% 13,026
Wright 4,349 47.52% 567 6.20% 4,172 45.59% 41 0.69% 22 0.24% 177 1.93% 9,151
Yellow Medicine 2,278 38.70% 151 2.56% 3,440 58.43% 13 0.31% 5 0.08% -1,162 -19.73% 5,887
Totals420,75951.18%55,9136.80%339,19241.26%4,4270.76%1,8550.23%81,5679.92%822,146

References

  1. Ayers, Edward; Gould, Lewis; Oshinsky, David and Soderlund, Jean; American Passages: A History of the United States, Volume II: Since 1865, p. 677 ISBN 0547166354
  2. Grantham, Dewey; The South in Modern America A Region at Odds, p. 106 ISBN 1610753895
  3. Paulson, Arthur C.; Realignment and Party Revival: Understanding American Electoral Politics at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, p. 51 ISBN 0275968650
  4. Ranney, Joseph A.; In the Wake of Slavery: Civil War, Civil Rights, and the Reconstruction of Southern Law; p. 141 ISBN 0275989720
  5. Newman, Roger K.; The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law, p. 153 ISBN 0300113005
  6. Stark, Rodney and Christiano, Kevin J.; 'Support for the American Left, 1920-1924: The Opiate Thesis Reconsidered'; Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 31, No. 1 (March, 1992), pp. 62-75
  7. Tucker, Garland; High Tide of American Conservatism: Davis, Coolidge, and the 1924 Election, p. 191 ISBN 193711029X
  8. Richardson, Danny G.; Others: "Fighting Bob" La Follette and the Progressive Movement: Third-Party Politics in the 1920s, p. 180 ISBN 0595481264
  9. Richardson; Others, pp. 182-183
  10. Moreno, Paul D.; The American State from the Civil War to the New Deal: The Twilight of Constitutionalism and the Triumph of Progressivism, p. 205 ISBN 1107067715
  11. Parrish, Michael E.; Anxious Decades: America in Prosperity and Depression, 1920-1941, pp. 70-71 ISBN 0393311341
  12. Tucker; High Tide of American Conservatism, p. 181
  13. Tucker; High Tide of American Conservatism, p. 231
  14. Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016
  15. "1924 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 2018-03-05.
  16. "1924 Presidential General Election Results – Minnesota". Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  17. Géoelections; Popular Vote for Robert LaFollette (xlsx file for €15)
  18. Minnesota Office of the Secretary of State Elections; The Legislative Manual for the State of Minnesota (1925), p. 318
  19. Robinson, Edgar Eugene; The Presidential Vote 1896-1932, pp. 234-241 ISBN 9780804716963

Notes

  1. In Wyoming, North Dakota, Colorado, Kansas and Idaho, Grover Cleveland was not on the ballot in 1892, whilst neither Harry S. Truman in 1948 nor Lyndon Johnson 1964 were on the ballot in Alabama.
  2. "Southern Democrat" John Cabell Breckinridge received less than Davis' 1924 Minnesota vote share in eleven free states, whilst "Northern Democrat" Stephen A. Douglas received a smaller proportion than Davis' 1924 Minnesota share in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Maryland and Delaware.
  3. Because Coolidge and La Follette ran in the top two places in Minnesota and in every county within the state, all margins given are Coolidge vote minus La Follette vote and Coolidge percentage minus La Follette percentage.
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