1896 United States presidential election in North Dakota explained

See main article: 1896 United States presidential election.

The 1896 United States presidential election in North Dakota took place on November 3, 1896. All contemporary 45 states were part of the 1896 United States presidential election. Voters chose three electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.

Although the state had been carried by a fusion ticket under the “Populist” label in 1892, unlike the other Mountain and Plains states, North Dakota was largely Catholic and Lutheran and opposed Populist and Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan’s evangelistic Protestantism.^[1] In spite of the fact that this predominantly wheat-growing state was severely hit by drought, high interest rates and problems of poor transportation,^[2] hostility to Bryan’s fundamentalism amongst the Russian-Germans of the southern part of the state was intense, while the Catholic Church under the influence of John Ireland also condemned Bryan’s free silver policy at the same time as Bryan toured North Dakota in October.^[3] There was also fear that if Bryan were elected the nation would split as severely as it had in 1861 after the election of Abraham Lincoln,^[4] and Archbishop Ireland pointed out that Bryan’s election might create class war.

For these reasons, Bryan was able to carry only the rural Scandinavian-American counties in the Red River Valley and the north of the state adjacent to Minnesota and Canada. In the predominantly German remainder of the state, Republican nominees, former Ohio Governor William McKinley and his running mate Garret Hobart of New Jersey established a Republican dominance of the state’s presidential politics that would prove permanent except during the Prohibition and New Deal era.

McKinley won North Dakota by a margin of 11.92 percentage points, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to win the state. He repeated this much more decisively four years later. Bryan would also later lose the state to William Howard Taft in 1908. Bryan would be the only Democrat to carry any of North Dakota’s counties until Woodrow Wilson in 1912^[5] and the only one to obtain a majority in a North Dakota county until Wilson in 1916. This is the only election ever where North Dakota and Kansas didn't choose the same candidate.

Results

1896 United States presidential election in North Dakota[6]
Party		Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Electoral votes
	Republican	William McKinley	26,335	55.57%	3
	Democratic	William Jennings Bryan	20,686	43.65%	0
	Prohibition	Joshua Levering	358	0.76%	0
	Write-ins	Scattered	12	0.03%	0
Totals			47,391	100.00%	3
Voter turnout					—

Results by county

County[7]	William McKinley Republican		William Jennings Bryan Democratic		John Granville Woolley Prohibition		Margin		Total votes cast
	data-sort-type="number"		data-sort-type="number"	%	data-sort-type="number"		data-sort-type="number"	%		data-sort-type="number"		data-sort-type="number"	%	data-sort-type="number"		data-sort-type="number"	%
	Barnes		986		49.62%		977		49.17%		24		1.21%		9		0.45%		1,987
	Benson		549		70.11%		227		28.99%		7		0.89%		322		41.12%		783
	Billings		78		73.58%		27		25.47%		1		0.94%		51		48.11%		106
	Bottineau		369		48.36%		389		50.98%		5		0.66%		-20		-2.62%		763
	Burleigh		729		68.13%		338		31.59%		3		0.28%		391		36.54%		1,070
	Cass		3,050		58.80%		2,089		40.27%		48		0.93%		961		18.53%		5,187
	Cavalier		730		38.42%		1,158		60.95%		12		0.63%		-428		-22.53%		1,900
	Dickey		619		51.07%		587		48.43%		6		0.50%		32		2.64%		1,212
	Eddy		278		53.15%		243		46.46%		2		0.38%		35		6.69%		523
	Emmons		300		63.69%		168		35.67%		3		0.64%		132		28.03%		471
	Foster		216		59.83%		143		39.61%		2		0.55%		73		20.22%		361
	Grand Forks		2,432		55.72%		1,893		43.37%		40		0.92%		539		12.35%		4,365
	Griggs		318		46.42%		360		52.55%		7		1.02%		-42		-6.13%		685
	Kidder		176		62.86%		104		37.14%		0		0.00%		72		25.71%		280
	LaMoure		460		53.30%		401		46.47%		2		0.23%		59		6.84%		863
	Logan		70		73.68%		25		26.32%		0		0.00%		45		47.37%		95
	McHenry		217		56.51%		166		43.23%		1		0.26%		51		13.28%		384
	McIntosh		336		83.58%		66		16.42%		0		0.00%		270		67.16%		402
	McLean		124		61.08%		79		38.92%		0		0.00%		45		22.17%		203
	Mercer		115		80.42%		28		19.58%		0		0.00%		87		60.84%		143
	Morton		752		65.51%		393		34.23%		3		0.26%		359		31.27%		1,148
	Nelson		616		50.45%		603		49.39%		2		0.16%		13		1.06%		1,221
	Oliver		59		50.43%		58		49.57%		0		0.00%		1		0.85%		117
	Pembina		1,687		47.57%		1,807		50.96%		52		1.47%		-120		-3.38%		3,546
	Pierce		222		74.50%		75		25.17%		1		0.34%		147		49.33%		298
	Ramsey		869		55.78%		665		42.68%		12		0.77%		204		13.09%		1,558
	Ransom		766		56.49%		579		42.70%		11		0.81%		187		13.79%		1,356
	Richland		1,843		61.13%		1,160		38.47%		12		0.40%		683		22.65%		3,015
	Rolette		306		47.44%		331		51.32%		8		1.24%		-25		-3.88%		645
	Sargent		587		47.84%		636		51.83%		4		0.33%		-49		-3.99%		1,227
	Stark		530		70.86%		216		28.88%		2		0.27%		314		41.98%		748
	Steele		572		63.49%		322		35.74%		7		0.78%		250		27.75%		901
	Stutsman		705		54.44%		578		44.63%		12		0.93%		127		9.81%		1,295
	Towner		303		42.74%		394		55.57%		12		1.69%		-91		-12.83%		709
	Traill		1,673		70.68%		674		28.47%		20		0.84%		999		42.21%		2,367
	Walsh		1,707		44.18%		2,134		55.23%		23		0.60%		-427		-11.05%		3,864
	Ward		299		60.28%		193		38.91%		4		0.81%		106		21.37%		496
	Wells		584		64.25%		317		34.87%		8		0.88%		267		29.37%		909
	Williams		103		54.79%		83		44.15%		2		1.06%		20		10.64%		188
Totals	26,335	55.57%	20,686	43.65%	358	0.76%	5,649	11.92%	47,391

See also

• United States presidential elections in North Dakota

Notes and References

1. [Kevin Phillips (political commentator)|Phillips, Kevin P.]
2. Web site: Populists at the Polls: Economic Factors in the 1896 Presidential Election. National Bureau of Economic Research. Barry Eichengreen. Michael R. Haines. Matthew S. Jaremski. David Leblang.
3. Harpine, William D.; From the Front Porch to the Front Page: McKinley and Bryan in the 1896 Presidential Campaign, pp. 166-167
4. Web site: The Election of 1896 and the Restructuring of Civil War Memory. Patrick J. Kelly. Kent State University Press.
5. Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, pp. 271-273
6. Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas; Presidential General Election Results – North Dakota
7. Géoelections; Popular Vote at the Presidential Election for 1896 (.xlsx file for €30 including full minor party figures)