1900 United States presidential election in Utah

1900 United States presidential election in Utah
McKinley 50-60% 60-70% 70-80%	Bryan 50-60% 70-80%
President before election; William McKinley ; Republican	Elected President; William McKinley ; Republican

Last updated February 06, 2024

The 1900 United States presidential election in Utah took place on November 6, 1900, as part of the 1900 United States presidential election held in each of the forty-five contemporary states. State voters chose three representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

During its years as a territory the Republican Party's ancestral hostility to the polygamy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church),^[1] whose members settled Utah and have dominated the region ever since, meant that Utah territorial politics until 1891 was dominated by the Mormon-hierarchy-controlled "People's Party" and the anti-Mormon "Liberal Party".^[2] Those Mormons who did affiliate with national parties generally were Democrats, who lacked moral qualms associated with polygamy and slavery – although the Liberal Party did have allies within the GOP.^[3]

In order to achieve statehood, however, the LDS Church disbanded the "People's Party" in 1891 and most LDS members moved towards the Democratic Party. In Utah's statehood year – 1896 – Democrat/Populist William Jennings Bryan, whose "free silver" platform was immensely attractive to a state with large silver reserves, won the Mormon State by a five-to-one margin. However, by Bryan's 1900 rematch with incumbent Republican President McKinley, the Republican Party's ancestral hostility to Mormonism was beginning to dissipate,^[4] and Republican National Committee Chairman Mark Hanna was able to persuade the Mormon hierarchy that Bryan's policies – financial and otherwise – were unsound.^[5]

Consequently, although the LDS Church had not established the links to the GOP that they were after the Utah legislature elected Reed Smoot, those Utah voters who had supported Bryan overwhelmingly in 1896 deserted him to a degree that narrowly proved sufficient to give the state's three electoral votes to McKinley. Apart from Washington County in the Dixie region, McKinley was competitive everywhere and in Kane County – later a famous Republican bastion – he received over seventy percent. McKinley would win Utah by a narrow margin of 2.29% and this remains easily the closest presidential election in Utah history, and with the state voting essentially as the nation did, it was decisive in placing the Mormon State in the mainstream of US politics,^[6] where Utah remained until becoming a Republican bastion in the 1950s and 1960s.

Bryan would later lose Utah again, this time to William Howard Taft in 1908.

Results

1900 United States presidential election in Utah^[7]
Party		Candidate	Running mate	Popular vote		Electoral vote
Party		Candidate	Running mate	Count	%	Count	%
	Republican	William McKinley of Ohio	Theodore Roosevelt of New York	47,139	50.59%	3	100.00%
	Democratic	William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska	Adlai Ewing Stevenson I of Illinois	45,006	48.30%	0	0.00%
	Socialist	Eugene Victor Debs of Indiana	Job Harriman of California	720	0.77%	0	0.00%
	Prohibition	John Granville Woolley of Illinois	Henry Brewer Metcalf of Rhode Island	209	0.22%	0	0.00%
	Socialist Labor	Joseph Francis Malloney of Massachusetts	Valentine Remmel of Pennsylvania	106^{[lower-alpha 1]}	0.11%	0	0.00%
	N/A	Others	Others	9^{[lower-alpha 1]}	0.01%	0	0.00%
Total				93,189	100.00%	3	100.00%

Results by county

County	William McKinley Republican		William Jennings Bryan Democratic		Various candidates Other parties		Margin		Total votes cast^[8]
County	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	Total votes cast^[8]
Beaver	682	51.90%	629	47.87%	3	0.23%	53	4.03%	1,314
Box Elder	1,635	52.72%	1,460	47.08%	6	0.19%	175	5.64%	3,101
Cache	2,820	47.59%	3,082	52.02%	23	0.39%	-262	-4.43%	5,925
Carbon	748	54.16%	621	44.97%	12	0.87%	127	9.19%	1,381
Davis	1,238	47.05%	1,380	52.45%	13	0.49%	-142	-5.40%	2,631
Emery	666	45.40%	798	54.40%	3	0.20%	-132	-9.00%	1,467
Garfield	649	62.16%	395	37.84%	0	0.00%	254	24.32%	1,044
Grand	178	46.11%	204	52.85%	4	1.04%	-26	-6.74%	386
Iron	628	46.94%	708	52.91%	2	0.15%	-80	-5.97%	1,338
Juab	1,532	42.52%	1,986	55.12%	85	2.36%	-454	-12.60%	3,603
Kane	392	70.89%	161	29.11%	0	0.00%	231	41.78%	553
Millard	938	52.55%	844	47.28%	3	0.17%	94	5.27%	1,785
Morgan	391	51.72%	363	48.02%	2	0.26%	28	3.70%	756
Piute	330	53.92%	280	45.75%	2	0.33%	50	8.17%	612
Rich	387	57.76%	282	42.09%	1	0.15%	105	15.67%	670
Salt Lake	13,496	50.30%	12,840	47.86%	493	1.84%	656	2.44%	26,829
San Juan	81	51.92%	72	46.15%	3	1.92%	9	5.77%	156
Sanpete	3,575	59.15%	2,441	40.39%	28	0.46%	1,134	18.76%	6,044
Sevier	1,581	54.88%	1,261	43.77%	39	1.35%	320	11.11%	2,881
Summit	1,555	46.67%	1,763	52.91%	14	0.42%	-208	-6.24%	3,332
Tooele	1,259	52.70%	1,114	46.63%	16	0.67%	145	6.07%	2,389
Uintah	639	45.13%	773	54.59%	4	0.28%	-134	-9.46%	1,416
Utah	5,698	50.98%	5,391	48.24%	87	0.78%	307	2.74%	11,176
Wasatch	723	47.94%	781	51.79%	4	0.27%	-58	-3.85%	1,508
Washington	409	28.93%	1,003	70.93%	2	0.14%	-594	-42.00%	1,414
Wayne	324	53.38%	282	46.46%	1	0.16%	42	6.92%	607
Weber	4,585	52.36%	4,092	46.73%	79	0.90%	493	5.63%	8,756
Totals	47,139	50.59%	45,006	48.30%	929	0.99%	2,133	2.29%	93,189^{[lower-alpha 1]}

Notes

1 2 3 Neither the 106 votes for Malloney nor the nine write-in votes were tabulated by county, but only for Utah as a whole

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References

↑ Talbot, Christine; A Foreign Kingdom: Mormons and Polygamy in American Political Culture, 1852-1890, p. 113 ISBN 0252095359
↑ May, Dean L. ; Utah: A People's History, pp. 120-121 ISBN 0874802849
↑ Handy, Robert T.; Undermined Establishment: Church-State Relations in America, 1880-1920, p. 55 ISBN 1400862361
↑ Perry, Luke and Cronin, Christopher; Mormons in American Politics: From Persecution to Power, p. 52 ISBN 1440804087
↑ Rutland, Robert Allan (editor); The Republicans: From Lincoln to Bush, p. 128 ISBN 0826210902
↑ Balmer, Randall and Riess, Janet (editors); Mormonism and American Politics (Religion, Culture, and Public Life), pp. 135-137 ISBN 0231540892
↑ "1900 Presidential General Election Results – Utah". U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved June 10, 2017.
↑ Robinson, Edgar Eugene; The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932 (second edition); pp. 223-224 Published 1947 by Stanford University Press

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[SocialistLabor-8] 1 2 3 Neither the 106 votes for Malloney nor the nine write-in votes were tabulated by county, but only for Utah as a whole

[1] Talbot, Christine; A Foreign Kingdom: Mormons and Polygamy in American Political Culture, 1852-1890, p. 113 ISBN 0252095359

[2] May, Dean L. ; Utah: A People's History, pp. 120-121 ISBN 0874802849

[3] Handy, Robert T.; Undermined Establishment: Church-State Relations in America, 1880-1920, p. 55 ISBN 1400862361

[Mormons-4] Perry, Luke and Cronin, Christopher; Mormons in American Politics: From Persecution to Power, p. 52 ISBN 1440804087

[5] Rutland, Robert Allan (editor); The Republicans: From Lincoln to Bush, p. 128 ISBN 0826210902

[6] Balmer, Randall and Riess, Janet (editors); Mormonism and American Politics (Religion, Culture, and Public Life), pp. 135-137 ISBN 0231540892

[results-7] "1900 Presidential General Election Results – Utah". U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved June 10, 2017.

[9] Robinson, Edgar Eugene; The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932 (second edition); pp. 223-224 Published 1947 by Stanford University Press

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