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All 29 Illinois votes to the Electoral College | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 County Results
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| Elections in Illinois |
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The 1924 United States presidential election in Illinois took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. State voters chose 29 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Contents
- Primaries
- Turnout
- Democratic
- Republican
- Results
- Results by county
- Analysis
- See also
- Notes
- References
A strongly Democratic state during the Second Party System, Illinois became Republican-leaning after the American Civil War due to a combination of strong Free Soil Party heritage amongst its Yankee northern counties with the wartime conversion of some Virginian-settled rock-ribbed Democratic Southern Illinois counties [1] to Unionist Republicanism [2] à la Appalachia. [3] Between the Civil War and World War I, partisanship in Illinois – like in the Border States – largely re-fought the war, with the result that although the Democratic Party gained at least 43 percent of the statewide vote via Southern and German Catholic support in every election up to 1900, they never gained an absolute majority and carried the state's electoral votes only in 1892. [4]
Due to the Democratic Party's growing Populist and prohibitionist leanings, a decline in Democratic support after 1900 in its German Central Illinois strongholds transformed Illinois into a powerfully Republican state at all levels. [5] Even Woodrow Wilson in 1912 when the GOP was mortally divided carried the state by only a very narrow margin, and in 1920 hostility to the League of Nations and the perceived anti-German bias of both outgoing President Wilson and new Democratic nominee and former Ohio Governor James M. Cox – the latter of whom had banned German-language instruction in Ohio schools [6] – meant Harding carried Illinois by over 42 percentage points and the state was his sixth strongest in a national landslide. German Catholic Clinton County, and twelve southern-settled counties in the Illinois River valley and southward, went Republican for the first time. [7]
During the Republican National Convention, Illinosian Charles G. Dawes easily won the Vice-Presidential nomination ahead of fellow state resident Frank Lowden. [8] The first campaign in Illinois was not by Coolidge or Davis, but by radical third-party nominee, veteran Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette, who on July 4 confirmed his previous plan to run a third-party campaign when nominated by the “Conference for Progressive Political Action”. [9] La Follette on Labor Day, August 22, said he hoped to carry Illinois because he believed gubernatorial candidate Len Small would not aid the Coolidge ticket. [10] Democratic nominee John W. Davis, a conservative Southern Democrat from West Virginia, spent four days in Chicago conferring with party leaders from half-a-dozen other states, [11] but did not campaign downstate. Coolidge was urged to campaign in the state [12] after suspicions La Follette would be a severe threat in Chicago and other German-American communities. [13] Coolidge did not respond, and Dawes was viciously criticised by La Follette's running mate, Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler, for being associated with the Central Trust Company and Lorimer Street State Savings Bank. [14]
At the beginning of the campaign it was considered possible that Davis could carry Illinois if there was a strong enough vote for La Follette. [15] However, as early as mid-August it was thought that the Coolidge-Dawes ticket was certain of carrying Illinois, [16] and in mid-September it seemed likely Coolidge was a clear first with La Follette running ahead of Davis, [17] a result that would be repeated in a survey during the second week of October. [18]
