1916 United States presidential election in Utah

The 1916 United States presidential election in Utah took place on November 7, 1916. All contemporary forty-eight states were part of the 1916 United States presidential election. State voters chose four electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. This was the first election featuring as a distinct voting unit Duchesne County, which had been split from Wasatch County in 1915.

1916 United States presidential election in Utah

November 7, 1916

Nominee Woodrow Wilson Charles Evans Hughes Party Democratic Republican Home state New Jersey New York Running mate Thomas R. Marshall Charles W. Fairbanks Electoral vote 4 0 Popular vote 84,145 54,137 Percentage 58.8% 37.8%

County Results Wilson   50–60%   60–70%

President before election Woodrow Wilson Democratic Elected President Woodrow Wilson Democratic

In the preceding 1912 presidential election, Utah had been one of only two states (the other being strongly Republican Vermont) to give a plurality to incumbent President William Howard Taft. However, in contrast to the East where supporters of Theodore Roosevelt's "Bull Moose" Party rapidly returned to the Republicans, in the Mountain States many if not most of these supporters turned to the Democratic Party not only in presidential elections, but also in state and federal legislative ones.[1] Another factor helping Wilson was a powerful "peace vote" in the Western states[2] due to opposition to participation in World War I, and a third was that a considerable part of the substantial vote for Socialist candidate Eugene Debs from the previous election was turned over to Wilson owing to such Progressive reforms as the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments.[1] A fourth factor was that Taft had support from the Mormon hierarchy that commanded the loyalty of most of Utah's population – which caused Utah to remain largely loyal to him amidst the GOP split – but the LDS Church did not maintain support with Hughes.[1]

The combined result was that Wilson was able to make Utah his second-strongest victory outside of the "Solid South" – in a state that four years previously had given him his seventh-lowest popular vote proportion.[3] Utah was his eleventh-best state overall and voted 17.83 percentage points more Democratic than the nation at-large. Wilson swept every county in the state, including rock-ribbed Republican Kane County, which had been Taft's third-strongest county nationwide in 1912,[4] which has never otherwise supported a Democrat for president,[2] and where otherwise only William Jennings Bryan in 1896 and Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 have as Democrats received so much as one third of the vote.

Results

1916 United States presidential election in Utah[5]
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Democratic	Woodrow Wilson	84,145	58.78%	4
	Republican	Charles Evans Hughes	54,137	37.82%	0
	Socialist	Allan L. Benson	4,460	3.12%	0
	Prohibition	Frank Hanly	149	0.10%	0
	Socialist Labor	Arthur E. Reimer	144	0.10%	0
	Progressive Party	No candidate	111	0.08%	0
Totals			64,475	100.00%	4

Results by county

County	Thomas Woodrow Wilson Democratic		Charles Evans Hughes Republican		Allan Louis Benson[6] Socialist		Various candidates[6] Other parties		Margin		Total votes cast[7]
	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%
Beaver	1,291	58.84%	842	38.38%	61	2.78%	0	0.00%	449	20.46%	2,194
Box Elder	2,957	54.68%	2,416	44.67%	34	0.65%	1	0.02%	541	10.01%	5,408
Cache	5,305	58.03%	3,756	41.09%	75	0.89%	6	0.07%	1,549	16.94%	9,142
Carbon	1,478	50.43%	1,301	44.39%	147	5.19%	5	0.17%	177	6.04%	2,931
Davis	2,131	56.08%	1,641	43.18%	22	0.74%	6	0.16%	490	12.90%	3,800
Duchesne	1,443	56.61%	687	26.95%	410	16.44%	9	0.35%	756	29.66%	2,549
Emery	1,406	58.68%	896	37.40%	88	3.92%	6	0.25%	510	21.28%	2,396
Garfield	843	61.26%	516	37.50%	16	1.24%	1	0.07%	327	23.76%	1,376
Grand	306	56.77%	213	39.52%	19	3.71%	1	0.19%	93	17.25%	539
Iron	1,156	56.09%	825	40.03%	76	3.88%	4	0.19%	331	16.06%	2,061
Juab	2,221	61.30%	1,248	34.45%	151	4.25%	3	0.08%	973	26.85%	3,623
Kane	329	50.85%	304	46.99%	14	2.16%	0	0.00%	25	3.86%	647
Millard	1,804	56.23%	1,293	40.31%	94	3.46%	17	0.53%	511	15.92%	3,208
Morgan	484	50.63%	464	48.54%	8	0.84%	0	0.00%	20	2.09%	956
Piute	417	56.20%	269	36.25%	55	7.55%	1	0.13%	148	19.95%	742
Rich	454	58.28%	325	41.72%	0	0.00%	0	0.00%	129	16.56%	779
Salt Lake	30,707	61.18%	17,593	35.05%	1,778	3.76%	111	0.22%	13,114	26.13%	50,189
San Juan	448	66.27%	213	31.51%	15	2.22%	0	0.00%	235	34.76%	676
Sanpete	3,382	52.34%	2,918	45.16%	78	2.51%	84	1.30%	464	7.18%	6,462
Sevier	2,052	53.44%	1,720	44.79%	67	1.77%	1	0.03%	332	8.65%	3,840
Summit	1,495	50.92%	1,195	40.70%	240	8.38%	7	0.24%	300	10.22%	2,936
Tooele	1,528	55.20%	1,124	40.61%	113	4.19%	3	0.11%	404	14.59%	2,768
Uintah	1,459	64.10%	712	31.28%	94	4.61%	11	0.48%	747	32.82%	2,276
Utah	8,235	59.30%	5,201	37.45%	410	3.25%	41	0.30%	3,034	21.85%	13,887
Wasatch	885	51.57%	817	47.61%	14	0.82%	0	0.00%	68	3.96%	1,716
Washington	1,397	66.40%	703	33.41%	4	0.19%	0	0.00%	694	32.99%	2,104
Wayne	393	62.68%	225	35.89%	9	1.44%	0	0.00%	168	26.79%	627
Weber	8,139	61.14%	4,720	35.45%	368	3.41%	86	0.65%	3,419	25.69%	13,313
Totals	84,145	58.78%	54,137	37.82%	4,460	3.12%	404	0.28%	30,008	20.96%	143,145

References

1. Sarasohn, David; 'The Election of 1916: Realigning the Rockies', Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (July 1980), pp. 285-305
2. Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 47 ISBN 0786422173
3. Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas; 1912 Presidential General Election Data – National by State: Sorted by Vote Percentage for Wilson
4. Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas; 1912 Presidential Election Statistics
5. "1916 Presidential General Election Results – Utah". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 2013-08-02.
6. Utah State Elections Office; Abstract of the Returns of an Election Held in the State of Utah, Tuesday, November 7th, A.D. 1916
7. Robinson, Edgar Eugene; The Presidential Vote 1896-1932, pp. 350-352 ISBN 9780804716963