The Nation Decides
1896
13,985,773 votes counted (summed from counties) · Excludes third-party votes in 1 county whose source totals are double-counted.
Per-state electoral vote detail is staged from 1976; earlier years show the national college in the bar above, and states are coloured by their county-summed popular vote.
Missouri: the source double-counts some county totals this year, so third-party vote there is understated (shown with a +).
The Map Beneath the Map
Every county that cast a ballot, shaded by its margin. Hover any county to read it; click to open its 156-year profile. Scrub the timeline above and the map redraws in place. Vote counts exist for all forty elections; the demographic lenses begin in 2000.
Drawing three thousand counties…
Who voted for whom? The survey record begins with the 1948 ANES — there is no comparable individual-level account of the 1896 electorate.
Notes on this election
- The realigning 'System of 1896' election: Bryan's free-silver crusade against McKinley's front porch. Turnout among the highest ever recorded.
- County-sum caveat: Bryan ran on both Democratic and Populist lines; fusion-line votes land in other_votes in some states, so the county file's dem_votes undercounts Bryan (~6.11M vs ~6.51M official). County-sum two-party Dem share runs ~1.7pp below official.