1896 United States presidential election in Utah
November 3, 1896
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County Results
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| Elections in Utah |
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The 1896 United States presidential election in Utah was held on November 3, 1896, as part of the 1896 United States presidential election. Voters chose three representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. This was the first time Utah participated in a presidential election, having been admitted as the 45th state on January 4 of that year.
Democrat William Jennings Bryan carried Utah by an overwhelming margin of 65.43% over Republican William McKinley—by far the strongest ever performance by any presidential nominee in the state—despite narrowly losing the national election. As such, this is the only time a Republican has won the presidency without winning Utah, starkly contrasting with the state's subsequent status as one of the most staunchly Republican states in the nation.
Utah had been established as a territory within five years of the earliest settlement by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but opposition by the Republican Party – dominant from 1860 – to Mormon polygamy meant that Utah was consistently refused statehood.[1] Consequently, Utah territorial politics until 1891 was dominated by the Mormon-hierarchy-controlled "People's Party" and the anti-Mormon "Liberal Party".[2] Those Mormons who did affiliate with national parties generally were Democrats, who lacked moral qualms associated with polygamy and slavery – although the Liberal Party did have allies within the GOP.[3] In order to achieve statehood, however, the LDS Church disbanded the "People's Party" in 1891 and most LDS members moved towards the Democratic Party.
The 1896 election in Utah was dominated by the influence of silver mine owners, who overwhelmingly supported Democrat/Populist William Jennings Bryan because he advocated coinage of free silver at a ratio of 16-to-1 with gold.[4] As a consequence, Utah voted overwhelmingly for Bryan, who won the state by 65.43 percentage points, in what remains by far the strongest-ever performance by any presidential nominee in the state. Even with Republicans overwhelmingly dominating Utah politics since the 1960s, this margin has not been approached by any party or candidate since. Bryan carried every county except Kane in the far south – where his margin of defeat remains the second-best ever by a Democrat, behind Woodrow Wilson's narrow 1916 victory – with greater than sixty-five percent of the vote, and exceeded seventy percent in all but one.
With 82.7% of the popular vote, Utah would prove to be Bryan's fourth strongest state in the 1896 presidential election after Mississippi, South Carolina and Colorado.[5]
Bryan would later lose Utah to William McKinley four years later and would lose the state again to Republican William Howard Taft in 1908. Bryan's support for many Populist goals resulted in him being nominated by both the Democratic Party and the People's Party (Populists), though with different running mates. One electoral vote from Utah was cast for the Populist Bryan-Watson ticket with Thomas E. Watson as vice-president and two votes were cast for the Bryan-Sewall ticket.
Results
| Party | Pledged to | Elector | Votes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fusion[c] | William Jennings Bryan | Henry W. Lawrence | 64,607 | |
| Fusion[c] | William Jennings Bryan | Robert C. Lund | 64,522 | |
| Fusion[d] | William Jennings Bryan | John J. Daly | 64,173 | |
| Republican Party | William McKinley | Charles W. Bennett | 13,491 | |
| Republican Party | William McKinley | Joseph A. Smith | 13,369 | |
| Republican Party | William McKinley | J. D. Page | 13,484 | |
| Write-in | Scattering | 21[e] | ||
| Votes cast[f] | 78,119 | |||
Results by county
| County[6][8][9] | William Jennings Bryan Fusion |
William McKinley Republican |
Margin | Total votes cast[f] | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Beaver | 1,057 | 83.76% | 205 | 16.24% | 852 | 67.51% | 1,262 |
| Box Elder | 1,879 | 71.88% | 735 | 28.12% | 1,144 | 43.76% | 2,614 |
| Cache | 4,395 | 83.97% | 839 | 16.03% | 3,556 | 67.94% | 5,234 |
| Carbon | 663 | 88.64% | 85 | 11.36% | 578 | 77.27% | 748 |
| Davis | 1,753 | 79.57% | 450 | 20.43% | 1,303 | 59.15% | 2,203 |
| Emery | 985 | 81.00% | 231 | 19.00% | 754 | 62.01% | 1,216 |
| Garfield | 615 | 71.18% | 249 | 28.82% | 366 | 42.36% | 864 |
| Grand | 264 | 90.41% | 28 | 9.59% | 236 | 80.82% | 292 |
| Iron | 806 | 79.72% | 205 | 20.28% | 601 | 59.45% | 1,011 |
| Juab | 2,360 | 84.32% | 439 | 15.67% | 1,921 | 68.63% | 2,799 |
| Kane | 230 | 44.40% | 288 | 55.60% | -58 | -11.20% | 518 |
| Millard | 1,384 | 89.29% | 166 | 10.71% | 1,218 | 78.58% | 1,550 |
| Morgan | 582 | 80.83% | 138 | 19.17% | 444 | 61.67% | 720 |
| Piute | 555 | 94.23% | 34 | 5.77% | 521 | 88.46% | 589 |
| Rich | 408 | 71.58% | 162 | 28.42% | 246 | 43.16% | 570 |
| Salt Lake | 18,617 | 87.75% | 2,577 | 12.15% | 16,040 | 75.61% | 21,215[g] |
| San Juan | 167 | 95.43% | 8 | 4.57% | 159 | 90.86% | 175 |
| Sanpete | 3,387 | 65.13% | 1,813 | 34.87% | 1,574 | 30.27% | 5,200 |
| Sevier | 1,858 | 78.90% | 497 | 21.10% | 1,361 | 57.79% | 2,355 |
| Summit | 3,402 | 93.28% | 245 | 6.72% | 3,157 | 86.56% | 3,647 |
| Tooele | 1,684 | 86.01% | 274 | 13.99% | 1,410 | 72.01% | 1,958 |
| Uintah | 890 | 88.82% | 112 | 11.18% | 778 | 77.64% | 1,002 |
| Utah | 7,375 | 78.34% | 2,039 | 21.66% | 5,336 | 56.68% | 9,414 |
| Wasatch | 1,333 | 96.32% | 51 | 3.68% | 1,282 | 92.63% | 1,384 |
| Washington | 1,210 | 87.68% | 170 | 12.32% | 1,040 | 75.36% | 1,380 |
| Wayne | 405 | 83.85% | 78 | 16.15% | 327 | 67.70% | 483 |
| Weber | 6,343 | 82.21% | 1,373 | 17.79% | 4,970 | 64.41% | 7,716 |
| Totals | 64,607 | 82.70% | 13,491 | 17.27% | 51,116 | 65.43% | 78,119 |
See also
Notes
- ^ Two of the three electors voted for Arthur Sewall of Maine as Vice-President.
- ^ One of the three electors voted for Thomas E. Watson of Georgia as Vice-President.
- ^ a b Democratic, People's, and Independent Republican
- ^ Democratic & Independent Republican but not People's
- ^ Some sources assign these votes to Palmer, but there is no evidence on the original documents at the state archives that these votes were intended for National Democratic electors. All of these votes were recorded in Salt Lake County; both the statewide and county canvass sheets simply list these votes as "Scattering" rather than for specific candidates whose names were written in.
- ^ a b Based on highest elector on each ticket
- ^ Includes 21 Scattering votes
References
- ^ Talbot, Christine; A Foreign Kingdom: Mormons and Polygamy in American Political Culture, 1852-1890, p. 113 ISBN 0252095359
- ^ May, Dean L. ; Utah: A People's History, pp. 120-121 ISBN 0874802849
- ^ Handy, Robert T.; Undermined Establishment: Church-State Relations in America, 1880-1920, p. 55 ISBN 1400862361
- ^ Rove, Karl; The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters, p. 148 ISBN 1476752966
- ^ "1896 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
- ^ a b Utah State Archives, Returns of an Election Held in the State of Utah, Tuesday, November 3rd, A.D. 1896 for Electors of President and Vice-President of the United States and for Representative in the Fifty-Fifth Congress of the United States.
- ^ "Sample Ballot". The Salt Lake Herald. Salt Lake City. November 2, 1896. p. 10. Retrieved December 29, 2025.
- ^ a b Rhoades, Henry E., ed. (1898). The Tribune Almanac and Political Register for 1898. New York: The Tribune Association. p. 293. Retrieved December 29, 2025.
- ^ a b Plumbe, George E., ed. (1897). The Daily News Almanac and Political Register for 1897. Chicago: The Chicago Daily News Company. p. 376. Retrieved December 29, 2025.