1924 United States presidential election in Rhode Island

The 1924 United States presidential election in Rhode Island took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose five representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

1924 United States presidential election in Rhode Island

November 4, 1924
 
Nominee Calvin Coolidge John W. Davis
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Massachusetts West Virginia
Running mate Charles G. Dawes Charles W. Bryan
Electoral vote 5 0
Popular vote 125,286 76,606
Percentage 59.63% 36.46%

County Results
Coolidge
  50-60%
  60-70%
  70-80%


President before election

Calvin Coolidge
Republican

Elected President

Calvin Coolidge
Republican

Rhode Island voted for the Republican nominee, incumbent President Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, over the Democratic nominee, Ambassador John W. Davis of West Virginia. Coolidge ran with former Budget Director Charles G. Dawes of Illinois, while Davis ran with Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska. Also in the running that year was the Progressive Party nominee, Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin and his running mate Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana. La Follette’s support base was primarily among rural German and Scandinavian Americans,[1] and he possessed little appeal in the Northeast outside a few New York and Boston anti-Prohibition precincts. This was especially true in Rhode Island where La Follette’s opposition to the League of Nations was severely unpopular,[2] and consequently Rhode Island was La Follette’s sixth-weakest state and weakest outside the former Confederacy where the lower classes were almost entirely disfranchised.

Coolidge won Rhode Island by a margin of 23.17%. His victory was also enjoyed a unique personal popularity which helped him in the state and the rest of New England. He was the epitome of a traditional New England Yankee, having been born in the small-town of Plymouth Notch, Vermont, and establishing his political career nearby as Governor of Massachusetts. Thus Coolidge remained especially popular with voters across the New England region.

The 1920s were a fiercely Republican decade in American politics, and Rhode Island in that era was a fiercely Republican state in presidential elections. The economic boom and social good feelings of the Roaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership virtually guaranteed Calvin Coolidge an easy win in the state against the conservative Southern Democrat Davis. Although Davis’ reticence on the Ku Klux Klan was opposed by large Catholic populations in Rhode Island, his status as the solitary pro-League of Nations candidate helped him in the Ocean State with its large immigrant population. Consequently Davis gained almost 4% on Cox’s 1920 vote and in fact Rhode Island was his third strongest state in the North and West (behind New Mexico and Indiana), giving Davis a vote percentage 7.64% above his national figure.

In effect, Davis’ gain would begin Rhode Island's transition from a strongly Yankee Republican state into a Democratic-leaning state, made definitive via Catholic Al Smith’s win 4 years later. Rhode Island would not vote for another Republican presidential candidate until Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, and since 1924, Republicans have only carried the state four times.

Results

1924 United States presidential election in Rhode Island[3]
Party Candidate Running mate Popular vote Electoral vote
Count % Count %
Republican Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts Charles Gates Dawes of Illinois 125,286 59.63% 5 100.00%
Democratic John William Davis of West Virginia Charles Wayland Bryan of Nebraska 76,606 36.46% 0 0.00%
Progressive Robert Marion La Follette of Wisconsin Burton Kendall Wheeler of Montana 7,628 3.63% 0 0.00%
Communist William Z. Foster of Massachusetts Benjamin Gitlow of New York 289 0.14% 0 0.00%
Socialist Labor Frank Tetes Johns of Oregon Verne L. Reynolds of New York 268 0.13% 0 0.00%
N/A Others Others 38 0.02% 0 0.00%
Total 210,115 100.00% 5 100.00%

Results by town

Town John Calvin Coolidge
Republican
John William Davis
Democratic
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Progressive
William Z. Foster
Workers
Frank Tetes Johns
Socialist Labor
William Wallace
Commonwealth Land
Margin Total votes cast[4]
# % # % # % # % # % # % # %
Barrington 1,239 82.71% 239 15.95% 20 1.34% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,000 66.76% 1,498
Bristol 1,602 53.52% 1,313 43.87% 74 2.47% 2 0.07% 1 0.03% 1 0.03% 289 9.66% 2,993
Burrillville 1,590 51.47% 1,363 44.12% 131 4.24% 3 0.10% 2 0.06% 0 0.00% 227 7.35% 3,089
Central Falls 2,906 42.88% 3,683 54.35% 173 2.55% 10 0.15% 5 0.07% 0 0.00% -777 -11.47% 6,777
Charlestown 367 83.79% 59 13.47% 12 2.74% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 308 70.32% 438
Coventry 1,735 70.16% 692 27.98% 42 1.70% 2 0.08% 2 0.08% 0 0.00% 1,043 42.18% 2,473
Cranston 8,832 76.52% 2,344 20.31% 331 2.87% 11 0.10% 22 0.19% 2 0.02% 6,488 56.21% 11,542
Cumberland 1,766 46.11% 1,902 49.66% 148 3.86% 10 0.26% 4 0.10% 0 0.00% -136 -3.55% 3,830
East Greenwich 1,344 78.50% 339 19.80% 28 1.64% 1 0.06% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,005 58.70% 1,712
East Providence 5,962 70.12% 2,249 26.45% 277 3.26% 6 0.07% 5 0.06% 4 0.05% 3,713 43.67% 8,503
Exeter 317 87.09% 41 11.26% 6 1.65% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 276 75.82% 364
Foster 415 83.50% 77 15.49% 3 0.60% 0 0.00% 1 0.20% 1 0.20% 338 68.01% 497
Glocester 517 69.21% 219 29.32% 10 1.34% 0 0.00% 1 0.13% 0 0.00% 298 39.89% 747
Hopkinton 959 87.98% 106 9.72% 24 2.20% 1 0.09% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 853 78.26% 1,090
Jamestown 465 77.50% 109 18.17% 25 4.17% 0 0.00% 1 0.17% 0 0.00% 356 59.33% 600
Johnston 1,595 65.10% 780 31.84% 68 2.78% 1 0.04% 6 0.24% 0 0.00% 815 33.27% 2,450
Lincoln 2,203 57.47% 1,567 40.88% 50 1.30% 3 0.08% 10 0.26% 0 0.00% 636 16.59% 3,833
Little Compton 415 94.97% 20 4.58% 1 0.23% 1 0.23% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 395 90.39% 437
Middletown 495 87.30% 63 11.11% 9 1.59% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 432 76.19% 567
Narragansett 495 75.57% 154 23.51% 5 0.76% 1 0.15% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 341 52.06% 655
New Shoreham 430 92.87% 32 6.91% 1 0.22% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 398 85.96% 463
Newport 6,115 59.43% 3,545 34.45% 607 5.90% 10 0.10% 13 0.13% 0 0.00% 2,570 24.98% 10,290
North Kingstown 1,463 77.82% 373 19.84% 41 2.18% 1 0.05% 2 0.11% 0 0.00% 1,090 57.98% 1,880
North Providence 1,861 60.05% 1,138 36.72% 86 2.78% 6 0.19% 5 0.16% 3 0.10% 723 23.33% 3,099
North Smithfield 680 60.88% 391 35.00% 44 3.94% 1 0.09% 1 0.09% 0 0.00% 289 25.87% 1,117
Pawtucket 13,807 56.76% 9,622 39.56% 814 3.35% 36 0.15% 43 0.18% 3 0.01% 4,185 17.20% 24,325
Portsmouth 558 88.85% 60 9.55% 9 1.43% 1 0.16% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 498 79.30% 628
Providence 42,063 54.33% 31,667 40.90% 3,431 4.43% 123 0.16% 119 0.15% 23 0.03% 10,396 13.43% 77,426
Richmond 437 76.53% 109 19.09% 24 4.20% 0 0.00% 1 0.18% 0 0.00% 328 57.44% 571
Scituate 1,043 82.13% 205 16.14% 18 1.42% 4 0.31% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 838 65.98% 1,270
Smithfield 881 64.26% 473 34.50% 16 1.17% 0 0.00% 1 0.07% 0 0.00% 408 29.76% 1,371
South Kingstown 1,712 71.81% 631 26.47% 36 1.51% 4 0.17% 1 0.04% 0 0.00% 1,081 45.34% 2,384
Tiverton 1,130 86.66% 146 11.20% 23 1.76% 1 0.08% 4 0.31% 0 0.00% 984 75.46% 1,304
Warren 1,235 55.18% 948 42.36% 52 2.32% 1 0.04% 1 0.04% 1 0.04% 287 12.82% 2,238
Warwick 5,494 78.17% 1,355 19.28% 163 2.32% 9 0.13% 7 0.10% 0 0.00% 4,139 58.89% 7,028
West Greenwich 146 83.43% 29 16.57% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 117 66.86% 175
West Warwick 2,381 43.51% 3,014 55.08% 73 1.33% 2 0.04% 2 0.04% 0 0.00% -633 -11.57% 5,472
Westerly 2,288 69.23% 893 27.02% 110 3.33% 5 0.15% 9 0.27% 0 0.00% 1,395 42.21% 3,305
Woonsocket 6,343 54.33% 4,656 39.88% 643 5.51% 12 0.10% 20 0.17% 0 0.00% 1,687 14.45% 11,674
Totals125,28659.63%76,60636.46%7,6283.63%2680.13%2890.14%380.02%48,68023.17%210,115

See also

References

  1. 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
  2. Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 55 ISBN 0786422173
  3. "1924 Presidential General Election Results – Rhode Island". Dave Leip’s U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  4. Rhode Island Secretary of State; ‘Presidential Election, November 4, 1924 Vote of Rhode Island by Cities and Towns’; Rhode Island Manual, 1925-1926
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