1916 United States presidential election in Utah
November 7, 1916
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County Results
Wilson 50–60% 60–70%
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| Elections in Utah |
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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.
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. This is the only time a Democrat swept every county in the state.
Results
| Party | Pledged to | Elector | Votes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic Party | Woodrow Wilson | Jesse Knight | 84,145 | |
| Democratic Party | Woodrow Wilson | Robert N. Baskin | 84,025 | |
| Democratic Party | Woodrow Wilson | Anthon Anderson | 83,962 | |
| Democratic Party | Woodrow Wilson | John Seaman | 83,872 | |
| Republican Party | Charles Evans Hughes | Orange Seely | 54,137 | |
| Republican Party | Charles Evans Hughes | Asa R. Hawley | 54,136 | |
| Republican Party | Charles Evans Hughes | Thomas Smart | 54,089 | |
| Republican Party | Charles Evans Hughes | David Jenson | 53,993 | |
| Socialist Party | Allan L. Benson | Charles E. Robinson | 4,460 | |
| Socialist Party | Allan L. Benson | Albert V. Wallis | 4,458 | |
| Socialist Party | Allan L. Benson | Francis J. Mallet | 4,454 | |
| Socialist Party | Allan L. Benson | Morton Alexander | 4,451 | |
| Prohibition Party | Frank Hanly | Rachel E. Waite | 149 | |
| Prohibition Party | Frank Hanly | James H. Worrall | 147 | |
| Prohibition Party | Frank Hanly | Louis Page | 145 | |
| Socialist Labor Party | Arthur E. Reimer | Eugene A. Battell | 144 | |
| Socialist Labor Party | Arthur E. Reimer | James P. Erskine | 143 | |
| Socialist Labor Party | Arthur E. Reimer | Howard Hall | 143 | |
| Socialist Labor Party | Arthur E. Reimer | Theodore Petersen | 142 | |
| Progressive Party | Woodrow Wilson | Jesse Knight | 111 | |
| Progressive Party | Woodrow Wilson | Anthon Anderson | 111 | |
| Progressive Party | Woodrow Wilson | John Seaman | 111 | |
| Progressive Party | Woodrow Wilson | Robert N. Baskin | 110 | |
| Votes cast[b] | 143,146 | |||
Results by county
| County[5][6] | Woodrow Wilson Democratic |
Charles Evans Hughes Republican |
Allan L. Benson Socialist |
Frank Hanly Prohibition |
Arthur E. Reimer Socialist Labor |
Margin | Total votes cast[b] | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Beaver | 1,291 | 58.84% | 842 | 38.38% | 61 | 2.78% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 449 | 20.46% | 2,194 |
| Box Elder | 2,958[c] | 54.70% | 2,416 | 44.67% | 34 | 0.63% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 542 | 10.02% | 5,408 |
| Cache | 5,305 | 58.03% | 3,756 | 41.09% | 75 | 0.82% | 2 | 0.02% | 4 | 0.04% | 1,549 | 16.94% | 9,142 |
| Carbon | 1,478 | 50.43% | 1,301 | 44.39% | 147 | 5.02% | 4 | 0.14% | 1 | 0.03% | 177 | 6.04% | 2,931 |
| Davis | 2,134[d] | 56.16% | 1,641 | 43.18% | 22 | 0.58% | 2 | 0.05% | 1 | 0.03% | 493 | 12.97% | 3,800 |
| Duchesne | 1,443 | 56.61% | 687 | 26.95% | 410 | 16.08% | 0 | 0.00% | 9 | 0.35% | 756 | 29.66% | 2,549 |
| Emery | 1,407[c] | 58.72% | 896 | 37.40% | 88 | 3.67% | 0 | 0.00% | 5 | 0.21% | 511 | 21.33% | 2,396 |
| Garfield | 843 | 61.26% | 516 | 37.50% | 16 | 1.16% | 1 | 0.07% | 0 | 0.00% | 327 | 23.76% | 1,376 |
| Grand | 306 | 56.77% | 213 | 39.52% | 19 | 3.53% | 0 | 0.00% | 1 | 0.19% | 93 | 17.25% | 539 |
| Iron | 1,156 | 56.09% | 825 | 40.03% | 76 | 3.69% | 0 | 0.00% | 4 | 0.19% | 331 | 16.06% | 2,061 |
| Juab | 2,221 | 61.30% | 1,248 | 34.45% | 151 | 4.17% | 0 | 0.00% | 3 | 0.08% | 973 | 26.86% | 3,623 |
| Kane | 329 | 50.85% | 304 | 46.99% | 14 | 2.16% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 25 | 3.86% | 647 |
| Millard | 1,804 | 56.23% | 1,293 | 40.31% | 94 | 2.93% | 6 | 0.19% | 11 | 0.34% | 511 | 15.93% | 3,208 |
| Morgan | 484 | 50.63% | 464 | 48.54% | 8 | 0.84% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 20 | 2.09% | 956 |
| Piute | 417 | 56.20% | 269 | 36.25% | 55 | 7.41% | 0 | 0.00% | 1 | 0.13% | 148 | 19.95% | 742 |
| Rich | 454 | 58.28% | 325 | 41.72% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 129 | 16.56% | 779 |
| Salt Lake | 30,707 | 61.18% | 17,593 | 35.05% | 1,778 | 3.54% | 70 | 0.14% | 41 | 0.08% | 13,114 | 26.13% | 50,189 |
| San Juan | 448 | 66.27% | 213 | 31.51% | 15 | 2.22% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 235 | 34.76% | 676 |
| Sanpete | 3,457[e] | 53.50% | 2,918 | 45.16% | 78 | 1.21% | 1 | 0.02% | 8 | 0.12% | 539 | 8.34% | 6,462 |
| Sevier | 2,052 | 53.44% | 1,720 | 44.79% | 67 | 1.74% | 0 | 0.00% | 1 | 0.03% | 332 | 8.65% | 3,840 |
| Summit | 1,498[d] | 51.00% | 1,195 | 40.69% | 240 | 8.17% | 1 | 0.03% | 3 | 0.10% | 303 | 10.32% | 2,937 |
| Tooele | 1,528 | 55.20% | 1,124 | 40.61% | 113 | 4.08% | 1 | 0.04% | 2 | 0.07% | 404 | 14.60% | 2,768 |
| Uintah | 1,465[f] | 64.37% | 712 | 31.28% | 94 | 4.13% | 4 | 0.18% | 1 | 0.04% | 753 | 33.08% | 2,276 |
| Utah | 8,248[g] | 59.39% | 5,201 | 37.45% | 410 | 2.95% | 11 | 0.08% | 17 | 0.12% | 3,047 | 21.94% | 13,887 |
| Wasatch | 885 | 51.57% | 817 | 47.61% | 14 | 0.82% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 68 | 3.96% | 1,716 |
| Washington | 1,397 | 66.40% | 703 | 33.41% | 4 | 0.19% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 694 | 32.98% | 2,104 |
| Wayne | 393 | 62.68% | 225 | 35.89% | 9 | 1.44% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 168 | 26.79% | 627 |
| Weber | 8,148[h] | 61.20% | 4,720 | 35.45% | 368 | 2.76% | 46 | 0.35% | 31 | 0.23% | 3,428 | 25.75% | 13,313 |
| Total | 84,256 | 58.86% | 54,137 | 37.82% | 4,460 | 3.12% | 149 | 0.10% | 144 | 0.10% | 30,119 | 21.04% | 143,146 |
Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic
- Beaver
- Box Elder
- Carbon
- Davis
- Emery
- Garfield
- Iron
- Juab
- Kane
- Millard
- Morgan
- Piute
- Rich
- Salt Lake
- San Juan
- Sanpete
- Sevier
- Summit
- Tooele
- Wasatch
- Wayne
Counties that flipped from Progressive to Democratic
See also
Notes
- ^ The Progressive Party had a separate ballot line in Utah in 1916 but its nominees were the Democratic nominees for all offices.
- ^ a b Based on highest elector on each ticket
- ^ a b Includes 1 vote on the Progressive ticket
- ^ a b Includes 3 votes on the Progressive ticket
- ^ Includes 75 votes on the Progressive ticket
- ^ Includes 6 votes on the Progressive ticket
- ^ Includes 13 votes on the Progressive ticket
- ^ Includes 9 votes on the Progressive ticket
References
- ^ a b c Sarasohn, David; 'The Election of 1916: Realigning the Rockies', Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (July 1980), pp. 285-305
- ^ a b Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 47 ISBN 0786422173
- ^ Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas; 1912 Presidential General Election Data – National by State: Sorted by Vote Percentage for Wilson
- ^ Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas; 1912 Presidential Election Statistics
- ^ a b Utah State Archives, Abstract of the Returns of an Election held in the State of Utah, Tuesday, November 7th, A.D. 1916 for Presidential Electors, for Representatives in the Sixty-fifth Congress of the United States, for State Officers, and for District Officers in Districts comprising more than one county, and for the Adoption of Rejection of Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of this State.
- ^ a b Mattson, David, ed. (1917). Report of the Secretary of State 1915-1916. Salt Lake City: Tribune-Reporter Printing Company. p. 134. Retrieved December 29, 2025.
- ^ "List of Nominations". The Salt Lake Tribune. Salt Lake City. November 6, 1916. p. 18. Retrieved December 29, 2025.