1920 United States presidential election in Idaho

The 1920 United States presidential election in Idaho took place on November 2, 1920, as part of the 1920 United States presidential election. State voters chose four representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Main article: 1920 United States presidential election
1920 United States presidential election in Idaho
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 4 0
Popular vote 88,975 46,579
Percentage 65.60% 34.34%
County Results
Harding
  50–60%
  60–70%
  70–80%

President before election

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic

 Elected President

Warren G. Harding
Republican

Elections in Idaho

Background

At state level, Idaho had begun in 1902 to be very much a one-party Republican state,[1] which it has largely remained since apart from the New Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s. For a time there was also a perception that the William Jennings Bryan-led Democratic Party had failed as a “party of reform”.[2]

However, with the aid of a powerful “peace vote” due to opposition to participation in World War I,[3] and a considerable part of the substantial vote for Eugene Debs,[4] Woodrow Wilson almost completely swept the Western and Plains States in 1916, losing only South Dakota and Oregon.

However, the Democratic Party’s gains in the West were not to last. By the beginning of 1920 skyrocketing inflation and Wilson's focus upon his proposed League of Nations at the expense of domestic policy had helped make the incumbent President very unpopular[5] – besides which Wilson also had major health problems that had left First Lady Edith effectively running the nation. Political unrest seen 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.[6] Demand in the West for exclusion of Asian immigrants became even stronger than before.[7]

With the very strong interior isolationist and anti-League of Nations sentiment of Northern and Central Idaho,[8] and local senator William Borah saying that all wars should be subject to a referendum in September,[9] it was apparent that the Gem State would swing very strongly against the pro-League Cox, especially as the extremely independent Borah endorsed Harding on October 3.[10] Cox did make a brief visit to the state in mid-September,[11] The state’s opposition to Cox’s platform became further apparent when on October 24 the Democratic nominee said he did not accept that Congress should be able to veto presidential calls for war against foreign countries.[12]

Vote

As early as the end of August, Harding campaign strategists led by Washington State Senator Miles Poindexter were saying Cox’s pro-League policies would lose him the West.[13] a straw poll at the beginning of October vindicated Poindexter: Harding led Cox in Idaho by slightly less than a two-to-one margin.[14] At the end of October, Idaho was described as “absolutely certain” for Harding,[15] and such polls reflected the end result. Whereas internationalist GOP nominee Charles Evans Hughes won just five counties in 1916, Harding carried every Idaho county by double digits.

Results
Presidential Candidate Running Mate Party Electoral Vote (EV) Popular Vote (PV)[16]
Warren G. Harding Calvin Coolidge Republican 4 88,975 65.60%
James M. Cox Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic 0 46,579 34.34%
Eugene V. Debs Seymour Stedman Socialist 0 38 0.03%
Aaron S. Watkins D. Leigh Colvin Prohibition 0 32 0.02%

Results by county
County Warren Gamaliel Harding
Republican		 James Middleton Cox
Democratic		 Eugene Victor Debs[lower-alpha 1]
Socialist		 Aaron Sherman Watkins[lower-alpha 1]
Prohibition		 Margin Total votes cast[18][lower-alpha 2]
# % # % # % # % # %
Ada 8,419 66.72% 4,173 33.07% 8 0.06% 19 0.15% 4,246 33.65% 12,619
Adams 682 63.62% 390 36.38% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 292 27.24% 1,072
Bannock 4,871 62.00% 2,986 38.00% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,885 23.99% 7,857
Bear Lake 1,831 61.67% 1,138 38.33% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 693 23.34% 2,969
Benewah 1,351 62.98% 794 37.02% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 557 25.97% 2,145
Bingham 3,293 73.55% 1,184 26.45% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 2,109 47.11% 4,477
Blaine 1,169 67.57% 561 32.43% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 608 35.14% 1,730
Boise 588 61.19% 373 38.81% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 215 22.37% 961
Bonner 2,217 60.16% 1,468 39.84% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 749 20.33% 3,685
Bonneville 3,260 69.67% 1,419 30.33% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,841 39.35% 4,679
Boundary 883 62.71% 525 37.29% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 358 25.43% 1,408
Butte 646 67.15% 316 32.85% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 330 34.30% 962
Camas 400 59.08% 276 40.77% 1 0.15% 0 0.00% 124 18.32% 677
Canyon 5,633 62.53% 3,375 37.47% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 2,258 25.07% 9,008
Caribou 541 74.93% 181 25.07% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 360 49.86% 722
Cassia 2,690 69.54% 1,178 30.46% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,512 39.09% 3,868
Clark 594 76.25% 184 23.62% 1 0.13% 0 0.00% 410 52.63% 779
Clearwater 947 66.22% 482 33.71% 1 0.07% 0 0.00% 465 32.52% 1,430
Custer 808 67.22% 394 32.78% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 414 34.44% 1,202
Elmore 1,065 55.12% 867 44.88% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 198 10.25% 1,932
Franklin 1,612 64.20% 899 35.80% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 713 28.40% 2,511
Fremont 1,994 65.27% 1,061 34.73% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 933 30.54% 3,055
Gem 1,404 62.73% 832 37.18% 0 0.00% 2 0.09% 572 25.56% 2,238
Gooding 1,878 70.42% 789 29.58% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,089 40.83% 2,667
Idaho 2,386 67.90% 1,128 32.10% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,258 35.80% 3,514
Jefferson 1,794 70.77% 741 29.23% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,053 41.54% 2,535
Jerome 1,738 68.91% 784 31.09% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 954 37.83% 2,522
Kootenai 3,518 65.93% 1,818 34.07% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,700 31.86% 5,336
Latah 3,855 71.09% 1,568 28.91% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 2,287 42.17% 5,423
Lemhi 1,289 64.71% 699 35.09% 4 0.20% 0 0.00% 590 29.62% 1,992
Lewis 1,013 58.49% 712 41.11% 7 0.40% 0 0.00% 301 17.38% 1,732
Lincoln 755 63.87% 427 36.13% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 328 27.75% 1,182
Madison 1,883 65.79% 979 34.21% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 904 31.59% 2,862
Minidoka 1,622 59.09% 1,107 40.33% 16 0.58% 0 0.00% 515 18.76% 2,745
Nez Perce 2,761 64.05% 1,548 35.91% 0 0.00% 2 0.05% 1,213 28.14% 4,311
Oneida 1,500 66.61% 752 33.39% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 748 33.21% 2,252
Owyhee 971 65.34% 515 34.66% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 456 30.69% 1,486
Payette 1,690 68.04% 785 31.60% 0 0.00% 9 0.36% 905 36.43% 2,484
Power 1,155 67.31% 561 32.69% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 594 34.62% 1,716
Shoshone 3,112 64.23% 1,733 35.77% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,379 28.46% 4,845
Teton 906 68.90% 409 31.10% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 497 37.79% 1,315
Twin Falls 5,894 67.16% 2,882 32.84% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 3,012 34.32% 8,776
Valley 493 60.49% 322 39.51% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 171 20.98% 815
Washington 1,864 59.59% 1,264 40.41% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 600 19.18% 3,128
Totals88,97565.60%46,57934.34%380.03%320.02%42,39631.26%135,624

Notes
  1. Some sources do not list these votes for Debs and Watkins, showing only the two major parties on the ballot[17]
  2. America at the Polls, p. 117 has different figures from these
gollark: Probably 90% of politicians, considering...
gollark: Which is, if you think about it, very worrying.
gollark: Interesting.
gollark: What units?
gollark: As planned.

References
  1. Burnham, Walter Dean; ‘The System of 1896’, in Kleppner, Paul (editor), The Evolution of American Electoral Systems, pp. 176-179 ISBN 0313213798
  2. Robinson, Edgar Eugene; ‘The Decline of the Democratic Party’; American Journal of Sociology, vol. 20, no. 3 (November 1914), pp. 313-334
  3. Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 47 ISBN 0786422173
  4. Sarasohn, David; 'The Election of 1916: Realigning the Rockies', Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (July 1980), pp. 285-305
  5. Goldberg, David Joseph; Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s, p. 44 ISBN 0801860059
  6. Leuchtenburg, William E.; The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-1932, p. 75 ISBN 0226473724
  7. Vought, Hans P. ; The Bully Pulpit and the Melting Pot: American Presidents And The Immigrant, 1897-1933, p. 167 ISBN 0865548870
  8. Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 498 ISBN 9780691163246
  9. ‘War referendum Urged by Borah: Idaho Senator Says No Other Peace Scheme is Worthy of People's Confidence’; The Washington Post, September 15, 1920, p. 1
  10. ‘Borah Spurns All Linking of Nations, but Is for Harding: Says There Is No Alternative to Voting for the Republican Nominee’; Special to the New York Times, October 5, 1920, p. 1
  11. ‘Cox Now Charges $30,000,000 Is Goal: Declares Opponents Seek That Enormous Fund to Beat Him’; Special to the New York Times, September 14, 1920, p. 1
  12. ‘Cox Would Take Reservation to Article X – No Obligation to Use Military Force Unless Congress approves in Each Case’; New York Times, October 24, 1920, p. 1
  13. ‘Claims west for Harding: Poindexter Says Cox’s Wilsonian Policy Will Not Win Votes There’; Special to the New York Times, August 27, 1920, p. 1
  14. ‘Harding Leads in the Straw Vote: Cox Weak in North and West in Rexall Balloting’; Boston Daily Globe, October 3, 1920, p. 10
  15. ‘Harding 33 Sure, Cox 114, Is Prediction: John T. Adams of G. O. P. Committee Estimates Result of Electionm Lists Doubtful Votes. Republican Nominee, He Says, Will Capture at Least 380 in Total’; San Francisco Chronicle, October 31, 1920, p. F4
  16. "1920 Presidential General Election Results – Idaho". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
  17. Scammon, Richard M. (compiler); America at the Polls: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics 1920-1964; p. 123 ISBN 0405077114
  18. Idaho Secretary of State Election Division; State of Idaho Presidential Vote Cast at the General Election November 2, 1920
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