1920 United States presidential election in New Mexico

The 1920 United States presidential election in New Mexico took place on November 2, 1920. All contemporary forty-eight States were part of the 1920 United States presidential election. Voters chose three electors to represent them in the Electoral College, which voted for President and Vice President.

Main article: 1920 United States presidential election
1920 United States presidential election in New Mexico
November 2, 1920
 
Nominee Warren G. Harding James M. Cox
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Ohio Ohio
Running mate Calvin Coolidge Franklin D. Roosevelt
Electoral vote 3 0
Popular vote 57,634 46,668
Percentage 54.7% 44.3%
County Results
President before election

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic

 Elected President

Warren G. Harding
Republican

Elections in New Mexico
General elections
Federal elections
Presidential elections
Presidential primaries
Senate elections
House of Representatives elections
State elections
Gubernatorial elections
State Senate elections
State House elections
City of Albuquerque
Mayoral elections

Background

During the period between New Mexico's annexation by the United States and statehood, the area was divided between largely Republican machine-run highland regions and its firmly Southern Democrat and Baptist "Little Texas" region to the southeast.[1] A split in the "Old Guard" of highland Republicanism meant that in the state's inaugural presidential election in 1912 Woodrow Wilson carried the state through overwhelming "Little Texas" and southern desert support over Progressive Theodore Roosevelt and incumbent Republican William Howard Taft.[2] Four years later in 1916, Wilson gained sufficient Progressive support to narrowly hold the state against Charles Evans Hughes and the reunited Republican Party; however, in 1918, despite extremely low turnout due to the Spanish flu epidemic[3] the reunited GOP regained considerable strength.[2]

The following two years saw the Democratic Party's prospects decline still further due to skyrocketing inflation helping make President Wilson very unpopular[4] – besides which the President also had major health problems that had left First Lady Edith effectively running the nation. Political unrest observed in the Palmer Raids and the "Red Scare" further added to the unpopularity of the Democratic Party, since this global political turmoil produced considerable fear of alien revolutionaries invading the country.[5] However, owing to its Anglo population's ties to the Southern United States, New Mexico was not nearly so isolationist as Appalachia or the Midwest,[6] but the state's farmers did come to believe that the old Confederacy was gaining preferential treatment – to its disadvantage – from the Democratic administration.[7]

Vote

Neither Harding nor Cox campaigned in this electoral-vote-poor state; however, a powerful group of corporate Republicans campaigned extensively for Harding,[8] as did Senator Albert Fall, who was a very close associate of the President-to-be. The corporate and "Old Guard" Republicans[2] campaigned on a "Return to Normalcy" following World War I and the tumult of the Bolshevik Revolution and attempts to spread it across Europe.[9]

New Mexico was won by Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding, in a strong 10-percentage-point sweep against Ohio Governor James M. Cox.[10] Despite this victory, New Mexico was still sixteen percentage points more Democratic than the nation at-large, because the internationalist and traditionally Democratic Plains regions remained extremely loyal to Cox, and Fall's campaign in urban Bernalillo County was so ineffective that that county actually swung 4 percentage points towards the Democrats amidst a national 29-percentage-point swing.

Results
Electoral results
Presidential candidate Party Home state Popular vote Electoral
vote		 Running mate
Count Percentage Vice-presidential candidate Home state Electoral vote
Warren G. Harding Republican Ohio 57,634 54.68% 3 Calvin Coolidge Massachusetts 3
James M. Cox Democratic Ohio 46,668 44.27% 0 Franklin D. Roosevelt New York 0
Parley P. Christensen Farmer-Labor Illinois 1,104 1.05% 0 Maximilian Hayes Ohio 0
Total 105,406 100% 3 3
Needed to win 266 266

Results by county
County Warren Gamail Harding[11]
Republican		 James Middleton Cox[11]
Democratic		 Parley Parker Christensen
Farmer-Labor		 Margin
% # % # % # % #
Valencia 74.59% 2,839 24.99% 951 0.42% 16 49.61% 1,888
Doña Ana 66.27% 2,627 33.25% 1,318 0.48% 19 33.02% 1,309
Rio Arriba 65.97% 3,986 34.03% 2,056 0.00% 0 31.94% 1,930
Taos 64.86% 2,519 34.99% 1,359 0.15% 6 29.87% 1,160
Santa Fe 63.92% 3,060 35.51% 1,700 0.56% 27 28.41% 1,360
Socorro 63.16% 3,150 36.23% 1,807 0.60% 30 26.93% 1,343
Torrance 60.28% 1,751 38.73% 1,125 1.00% 29 21.55% 626
McKinley 60.02% 1,525 38.92% 989 1.06% 27 21.09% 536
San Miguel 58.11% 5,535 41.89% 3,990 0.00% 0 16.22% 1,545
Lincoln 57.32% 1,456 41.22% 1,047 1.46% 37 16.10% 409
Sandoval 57.46% 1,194 42.54% 884 0.00% 0 14.92% 310
Sierra 56.79% 862 42.29% 642 0.92% 14 14.49% 220
Guadalupe 56.30% 1,599 43.10% 1,224 0.60% 17 13.20% 375
Union 54.38% 2,930 42.19% 2,273 3.43% 185 12.19% 657
Colfax 54.87% 3,351 44.36% 2,709 0.77% 47 10.51% 642
Grant 53.77% 2,230 45.31% 1,879 0.92% 38 8.46% 351
San Juan 53.39% 985 45.04% 831 1.57% 29 8.35% 154
Mora 52.89% 2,478 46.51% 2,179 0.60% 28 6.38% 299
Otero 51.36% 1,229 45.76% 1,095 2.88% 69 5.60% 134
Bernalillo 50.53% 4,969 48.90% 4,808 0.57% 56 1.64% 161
Chaves 45.54% 1,765 53.66% 2,080 0.80% 31 -8.13% -315
Luna 44.65% 834 53.53% 1,000 1.82% 34 -8.89% -166
Hidalgo 44.17% 443 54.94% 551 0.90% 9 -10.77% -108
Quay 39.15% 1,213 58.52% 1,813 2.32% 72 -19.37% -600
Eddy 37.42% 982 61.39% 1,611 1.18% 31 -23.97% -629
De Baca 36.75% 412 61.82% 693 1.43% 16 -25.07% -281
Roosevelt 31.43% 571 64.83% 1,178 3.74% 68 -33.41% -607
Curry 27.81% 884 67.41% 2,143 4.78% 152 -39.60% -1,259
Lea 25.22% 255 72.50% 733 2.27% 23 -47.28% -478

References
  1. Chilton, Lance; New Mexico: A Guide to the Colorful State, p. 95 ISBN 0826307329
  2. Hodgson, Illa D. and Garthwaite, Eloyse M.; 'New Mexico's Early Elections: Statehood to New Deal'; New Mexico Historical Review, January 1, 1995; vol. 70, issue 1, pp. 29-46
  3. Melzer, Richard; 'A Dark and Terrible Moment: The Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 in New Mexico', New Mexico Historical Review, 57 (1982), pp. 213-232
  4. Goldberg, David Joseph; Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s, p. 44 ISBN 0801860059
  5. Leuchtenburg, William E.; The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-1932, p. 75 ISBN 0226473724
  6. Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 461 ISBN 978-0-691-16324-6
  7. Morello, John A.; Albert D. Lasker, Advertising, and the Election of Warren G. Harding, p. 64 ISBN 0275970302
  8. Sanchez, Joseph P.; Spude, Robert L. and Gomez, Arthur R.; New Mexico: A History, p. 200 ISBN 0806151137
  9. Brown, Courtney; Ballots of Tumult: A Portrait of Volatility in American Voting, p. 130 ISBN 0472102508
  10. "1920 Presidential General Election Results – New Mexico". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 2018-02-17.
  11. Scammon, Richard M. (compiler); America at the Polls: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics 1920-1964; p. 304 ISBN 0405077114
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