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The American Political Almanac
RECONSTRUCTION & THE GILDED AGETHE SYSTEM OF 1896THE NEW DEAL ORDERTHE LONG REALIGNMENTPOLARIZED ERA1868RRRRD1888RDRRRR1912DDRR1928RDDDD1948DRRDD1968RRDRR1988RDDRR2008DDRD2024R

The Nation Decides

Electoral votes, the popular vote, and how every state moved
✓ Won
Woodrow Wilson
Democrat
Woodrow Wilson
435
Electoral votes
41.8% · 6,339,441
President · The System of 1896

1912

Wilson def. Taft, 435–8
vote totals summed from county returns
William Howard Taft
Republican
William Howard Taft
8
Electoral votes
23.2% · 3,499,756
Theodore Roosevelt
Progressive
Theodore Roosevelt
27.4% of the vote · 88 electoral votes
Eugene V. Debs
Socialist
Eugene V. Debs
6.0% of the vote
Electoral college — 266 to win (531 electors)435 D · 8 R · 88 other
Popular vote — a three-cornered race41.8% · 23.2% · other 35.0% · margin D+18.6

15,020,066 votes counted (summed from counties) · Excludes third-party votes in 3 counties whose source totals are double-counted.

Electoral map — one tile per state · coloured by county-summed popular vote
MEVTNHWAIDMTNDMNWIMINYMARIORNVWYSDIAILINOHPANJCTCAUTCONEMOKYWVVAMDDEAZNMKSARTNNCSCOKLAMSALGATXFL
R+40D+40third party won

Grey states were carried by a third-party ticket — the two-party margin shading does not apply there.

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.

Kansas, Missouri: the source double-counts some county totals this year, so third-party vote there is understated (shown with a +).

The swing from last time
Change in each state’s margin since 1908 · ← toward Republicans · toward Democrats →

The Map Beneath the Map

Three thousand counties, and the demography of the divide

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.

County margin

Drawing three thousand counties…

R+40D+40no returns

Who voted for whom? The survey record begins with the 1948 ANES — there is no comparable individual-level account of the 1912 electorate.

Notes on this election

  • The Republican split: Roosevelt's Bull Moose run beat Taft into third — the best third-party finish in U.S. history. Mean county 'other' share is 0.29 this year; two-party measures mislead — always show the third-party share for 1912.