1876 United States presidential election

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1876 United States presidential election
Flag of the United States (1867-1877).svg
  1872 November 7, 1876 (1876-11-07) 1880  

369 members of the Electoral College
185 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout82.6% [1] Increase2.svg 10.5 pp
  President Rutherford Hayes 1870 - 1880 Restored (cropped).jpg Samuel Tilden. Portrait of the American politician, who served as the 25th Governor of New York, Samuel Jones Tilden (1814-1886), by Jose Maria Mora, c. 1870 (cropped).jpg
Nominee Rutherford B. Hayes Samuel J. Tilden
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Ohio New York
Running mate William A. Wheeler Thomas A. Hendricks
Electoral vote185184
States carried2117
Popular vote4,034,1424,286,808
Percentage47.9%50.9%

ElectoralCollege1876.svg
Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Hayes/Wheeler, blue denotes those won by Tilden/Hendricks. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.

President before election

Ulysses S. Grant
Republican

Elected President

Rutherford B. Hayes
Republican
via Electoral Commission

Contents

The 1876 United States presidential election was the 23rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1876. Incumbent Republican president Ulysses S. Grant declined to run for a third term, so the party chose Rutherford B. Hayes, the governor of Ohio, as its nominee. The Democratic Party nominated New York governor Samuel J. Tilden as their nominee. It was one of the most contentious presidential elections in American history. Its resolution involved negotiations between the Republicans and Democrats, resulting in the Compromise of 1877, and on March 2, 1877, the counting of electoral votes by the House and Senate occurred, confirming Hayes as president. It was the second of five U.S. presidential elections in which the winner did not win a plurality of the national popular vote. This is the first time it happened since 1824. Following President Grant's decision to retire after his second term, U.S. Representative James G. Blaine emerged as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. However, Blaine was unable to win a majority at the 1876 Republican National Convention, which settled on Governor Hayes of Ohio as a compromise candidate. The 1876 Democratic National Convention nominated Governor Tilden of New York on the second ballot.

The results of the election remain among the most disputed ever. Although it is not disputed that Tilden beat Hayes in the popular vote, there were wide allegations of electoral fraud, election violence, and disfranchisement of (predominantly Republican) black voters. After a first count of votes, Tilden won 184 electoral votes to Hayes's 165 with 20 votes from Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon unresolved. To address the resulting constitutional crisis, Congress established the Electoral Commission, a majority of which were Republicans, which awarded all twenty votes (and thus the presidency) to Hayes. Some Democratic representatives filibustered the commission's decision, hoping to prevent Hayes's inauguration, but their filibuster was ultimately ended by party leader Samuel J. Randall. The question of who should have been awarded those electoral votes is the source of the continued controversy, and historians attribute Randall's decision to drop the filibuster to the informal Compromise of 1877. [2]

To date, it remains the election that yielded the highest voter turnout of the eligible voting-age population in American history, at 82.6%. [3] [4] Tilden's 50.9% is the largest share of the popular vote received by a candidate who was not elected to the presidency. Tilden was also the last person to win a majority of the popular vote until William McKinley in 1896. As of 2024, this marks the only presidential election in which both candidates were sitting governors.

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

1876 Republican Party ticket
Rutherford B. Hayes William A. Wheeler
for Presidentfor Vice President
President Rutherford Hayes 1870 - 1880 Restored (cropped).jpg
19 William Wheeler 3x4.jpg
29th & 32nd
Governor of Ohio
(1868–1872 & 1876–1877)
U.S. Representative
for New York's 19th
(1861–1863 & 1869–1877)
Ulysses S. Grant, the incumbent president in 1876, whose second term expired on March 4, 1877 Ulysses S. Grant 1870-1880.jpg
Ulysses S. Grant, the incumbent president in 1876, whose second term expired on March 4, 1877
Hayes/Wheeler campaign poster Hayes-Wheeler.jpg
Hayes/Wheeler campaign poster

It was widely assumed during the year 1875 that incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant would run for a third term as president despite the poor economic conditions, the numerous political scandals that had developed since he assumed office in 1869, and despite a longstanding tradition set by George Washington not to stay in office for more than two terms. Grant's inner circle advised him to go for a third term and he almost did so, but on December 15, 1875, the House, by a sweeping 233–18 vote, passed a resolution declaring that the two-term tradition was to prevent a dictatorship. [7] Later that year, Grant ruled himself out of running in 1876. He instead tried to persuade Secretary of State Hamilton Fish to run for the presidency, but the 67-year-old Fish declined since he believed himself too old for that role. Grant nonetheless sent a letter to the convention imploring them to nominate Fish, but the letter was misplaced and never read to the convention. Fish later confirmed that he would have declined the presidential nomination even if it had been offered to him.

When the Sixth Republican National Convention assembled in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 14, 1876, James G. Blaine appeared to be the presidential nominee. On the first ballot, Blaine was just 100 votes short of a majority. His vote began to slide after the second ballot, however, as many Republicans feared that Blaine could not win the general election. Anti-Blaine delegates could not agree on a candidate until his total rose to 41% on the sixth ballot. Leaders of the reform Republicans met privately and considered alternatives. They chose the reforming Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes, who had been gradually building support during the convention until he finished second on the sixth ballot. On the seventh ballot, Hayes was nominated for president with 384 votes, compared to 351 for Blaine and 21 for Benjamin Bristow. New York Representative William A. Wheeler was nominated for vice president by a much larger margin (366–89) over his chief rival, Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen, who later served as a member of the Electoral Commission, which awarded the election to Hayes.

Presidential Ballot
Ballot1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th
Hayes 61646768104113384
Blaine 285296293292286308351
Bristow 11311412112611411121
Morton 12412011310895850
Conkling 9993908482810
Hartranft 5863687169500
Jewell 11000000
Washburne 0113340
Wheeler 3322220
Not Voting2212120
Republican Presidential Nomination Vote by State Delegation By Ballot
Vice Presidential Ballot [8]
Ballot1st (Partial Roll-Call)
Wheeler 366
Frelinghuysen 89
Jewell 86
Woodford 70
Hawley 25
Not Called120
Republican Vice Presidential Nomination Vote by State Delegation

Democratic Party nomination

1876 Democratic Party ticket
Samuel J. Tilden Thomas A. Hendricks
for Presidentfor Vice President
SamuelJonesTilden.jpg
Thomas Andrews Hendricks.jpg
25th
Governor of New York
(1875–1876)
16th
Governor of Indiana
(1873–1877)
Campaign

Democratic candidates:

Interior of the Merchants Exchange Building of St. Louis, Missouri, during the announcement of Samuel J. Tilden as the Democratic presidential nominee 1876 Democratic National Convention - Missouri.jpg
Interior of the Merchants Exchange Building of St. Louis, Missouri, during the announcement of Samuel J. Tilden as the Democratic presidential nominee
Tilden/Hendricks campaign poster 1876DemocraticPoster.png
Tilden/Hendricks campaign poster

The Democratic Party's failure to nominate its own ticket in the previous presidential election, in which they had instead endorsed the Liberal Republican candidacy of Horace Greeley, had resulted in much debate about the party's viability. Any doubts about the party's future were dispelled firstly by the collapse of the Liberal Republicans in the aftermath of that election, and secondly by significant Democratic gains in the 1874 mid-term elections, which saw them take control of the House of Representatives for the first time in sixteen years.

The 12th Democratic National Convention assembled in St. Louis, Missouri, in June 1876, which was the first political convention ever held by one of the major American parties west of the Mississippi River. There were 5000 people jammed inside the auditorium in St. Louis amid hopes for the Democratic Party's first presidential victory in 20 years. The platform called for immediate and sweeping reforms in response to the scandals that had plagued the Grant administration. Tilden won more than 400 votes on the first ballot and the presidential nomination by a landslide on the second.

Tilden defeated Thomas A. Hendricks, Winfield Scott Hancock, William Allen, Thomas F. Bayard, and Joel Parker for the presidential nomination. Tilden overcame strong opposition from "Honest John" Kelly, the leader of New York's Tammany Hall, to obtain the presidential nomination. Thomas Hendricks was nominated for vice president since he was the only person to put forward for that position.

The Democratic platform pledged to replace the corruption of the Grant administration with honest, efficient government and to end "the rapacity of carpetbag tyrannies" in the South. It also called for treaty protection for naturalized United States citizens visiting their homelands, restrictions on Asian immigration, tariff reform, and opposition to land grants for railroads. [9] It has been claimed that the voting Democrats received Tilden's presidential nomination with more enthusiasm than any leader since Andrew Jackson. [10]

Presidential Ballot [11]
1st (Before Shifts)1st (After Shifts)2nd (Before Shifts)2nd (After Shifts)Unanimous
Tilden 403.5410.5508534738
Hendricks 133.5140.585600
Hancock 777760590
Allen 565654540
Bayard 313111110
Broadhead 195000
Parker 181818180
Thurman 00220

Source: Official proceedings of the National Democratic convention, held in St. Louis, Mo., June 27th, 28th and 29th, 1876 . (September 3, 2012).

Democratic Presidential Nomination Vote by State Delegation By Ballot

Source: Official proceedings of the National Democratic convention, held in St. Louis, Mo., June 27th, 28th and 29th, 1876 . (September 3, 2012).

Vice Presidential Ballot
1st
Thomas A. Hendricks 730
Blank8

Source: Official proceedings of the National Democratic convention, held in St. Louis, Mo., June 27th, 28th and 29th, 1876 (September 3, 2012).

Greenback Party nomination

Greenback candidates:

The Greenback Party had been organized by agricultural interests in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1874 to urge the federal government to inflate the economy through the mass issuance of paper money called greenbacks. Its first national nominating convention was held in Indianapolis in the spring of 1876. Peter Cooper was nominated for president with 352 votes to 119 for three other contenders. The convention nominated Anti-Monopolist Senator Newton Booth of California for vice president. After Booth declined to run, the national committee chose Samuel Fenton Cary as his replacement on the ticket. [12] [13]

Prohibition Party nomination

The Prohibition Party, in its second national convention in Cleveland, nominated Green Clay Smith as its presidential candidate and Gideon T. Stewart as its vice presidential candidate.

American National Party nomination

This small political party used several different names, often with different names in different states. It was a continuation of the Anti-Masonic Party that met in 1872 and nominated Charles Francis Adams, Sr., for president. When Adams declined to run, the party did not contest the 1872 election.

The convention was held from June 8 to 10, 1875 in Liberty Hall, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. B.T. Roberts of New York served as chairman, and Jonathan Blanchard was the keynote speaker.

The platform supported the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution, international arbitration, the reading of the scriptures in public schools, specie payments, justice for Native Americans, abolition of the Electoral College, and prohibition of the sale of alcoholic beverages. It declared the first day of the week to be a day of rest for the United States. The platform opposed secret societies and monopolies.

The convention considered three potential presidential candidates: Charles F. Adams, Jonathan Blanchard, and James B. Walker. When Blanchard declined to run, Walker was unanimously nominated for president. The convention then nominated Donald Kirkpatrick of New York unanimously for vice president. [14] [15]

General election

Campaign

The election was hotly contested, as can be seen by this poster, which was published in 1877. Farce of 1876 poster.jpg
The election was hotly contested, as can be seen by this poster, which was published in 1877.
A certificate for the electoral vote for Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler for the State of Louisiana A certificate for the electoral vote for Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler for the State of Louisiana dated 1876 part 6.jpg
A certificate for the electoral vote for Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler for the State of Louisiana
"A truce - not a compromise, but a chance for high-toned gentlemen to retire gracefully from their very civil declarations of war." By Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, 1877 Feb 17, p. 132. Tilden election.jpg
"A truce – not a compromise, but a chance for high-toned gentlemen to retire gracefully from their very civil declarations of war." By Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly , 1877 Feb 17, p. 132.

Tilden, who had prosecuted machine politicians in New York and sent the legendary political boss William M. Tweed to jail, ran as a reform candidate against the background of the corruption of the Grant administration. Both parties backed civil service reform. Both sides mounted mudslinging campaigns, with Democratic attacks on Republican corruption being countered by Republicans raising the Civil War issue, a tactic that was ridiculed by Democrats, who called it "waving the bloody shirt." Republicans chanted, "Not every Democrat was a rebel, but every rebel was a Democrat."

Hayes was a virtual unknown outside his home state of Ohio, where he had served two terms as a US Representative and then two terms as governor. Henry Adams called Hayes "a third-rate nonentity whose only recommendations are that he is obnoxious to no one." Hayes had served in the Civil War with distinction as colonel of the 23rd Ohio Regiment and was wounded several times, which made him marketable to veterans. He had later been brevetted as a major-general. His most important asset was his help to the Republican ticket in carrying Ohio, a crucial swing state. On the other side, the newspaperman John D. Defrees described Tilden as "a very nice, prim, little, withered-up, fidgety old bachelor, about one-hundred and twenty-pounds avoirdupois, who never had a genuine impulse for many nor any affection for woman." [16]

The Democratic strategy for victory in the South relied on paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts and the White League. These groups saw themselves as the military wing of the Democrats. Using the strategy of the Mississippi Plan, they actively suppressed both black and white Republican voting. They violently disrupted meetings and rallies, attacked party organizers, and threatened potential voters with retaliation for voting Republican. [17] [18]

Because it was considered improper for a candidate to pursue the presidency actively, neither Tilden nor Hayes appeared publicly during the campaign. Speaking and leading rallies were left to their surrogates.

Colorado

Colorado was admitted to the Union as the 38th state on August 1, 1876; this was the first presidential election in which the state sent electors. There was insufficient time or money to organize a presidential election in the new state. Therefore, Colorado's state legislature selected the state's three Electoral College electors. The Republican Party held a slim majority in the state legislature following a closely contested election on October 3, 1876. Many of the seats in that election had been decided by only a few hundred votes. [19] On November 7, 1876, in a 50 to 24 vote, the state legislature chose Otto Mears, William Hadley, and Herman Beckurts to serve as the state's electors for president. All three of the state electors cast their votes for Hayes. [20] [21] This was the last election in which any state chose electors through its state legislature, rather than by popular vote. [22]

Electoral disputes and Compromise of 1877

Florida (with 4 electoral votes) and Louisiana (with 8) reported returns that favored Tilden, while Hayes led in South Carolina (with 7). However, the elections in each state were marked by electoral fraud and threats of violence against Republican voters. The most extreme case was in South Carolina, where an impossible 101 percent of all eligible voters in the state had their votes counted, [23] and an estimated 150 Black Republicans were murdered. [24] One of the points of contention revolved around the design of ballots. At the time, parties would print ballots or "tickets" to enable voters to support them in the open ballots. To aid illiterate voters, the parties would print symbols on the tickets, and in this election, many Democratic ballots were printed with the Republican symbol of Abraham Lincoln on them. [25] The Republican-dominated state electoral commissions subsequently rejected enough Democratic votes to award their electoral votes to Hayes.

In two Southern states, the governor recognized by the United States had signed the Republican certificates; the Democratic certificates from Florida were signed by the state attorney-general and the newly elected Democratic governor. Those from Louisiana were signed by the Democratic gubernatorial candidate and those from South Carolina by no state official. The Tilden electors in South Carolina claimed that they had been chosen by the popular vote although they were rejected by the state election board. [26]

Meanwhile, in Oregon, the vote of a single elector was disputed. The statewide result clearly favored Hayes, but the state's Democratic governor, La Fayette Grover, claimed that one of the Republican electors, Ex-Postmaster John Watts, was ineligible under Article II, Section 1, of the United States Constitution since he had been a "person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States." Grover substituted a Democratic elector in Watts's place.

The two Republican electors dismissed Grover's action and reported three votes for Hayes. However, the Democratic elector, C. A. Cronin, reported one vote for Tilden and two votes for Hayes. The two Republican electors presented a certificate signed by the secretary of state of Oregon, and Cronin and the two electors whom he appointed (Cronin voted for Tilden while his associates voted for Hayes) presented a certificate signed by the governor and attested by the secretary of state. [26]

Ultimately, all three of Oregon's votes were awarded to Hayes, who had a majority of one in the Electoral College. The Democrats claimed fraud, and suppressed excitement pervaded the country. Threats were even muttered that Hayes would never be inaugurated. In Columbus, Ohio, a shot was fired at Hayes's residence as he sat down to dinner. After supporters marched to his home to call for the President, Hayes urged the crowd that "it is impossible, at so early a time, to obtain the result." [27] Grant quietly strengthened the military force in and around Washington. [26]

The Constitution provides that "the President of the Senate shall, in presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the [electoral] certificates, and the votes shall then be counted." The Republicans held that the power to count the votes lay with the President of the Senate, with the House and Senate being mere spectators. The Democrats objected to that construction, since the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the Republican Thomas W. Ferry, could then count the votes of the disputed states for Hayes.

The Democrats insisted that Congress should continue the practice followed since 1865: no vote objected to should be counted except by the concurrence of both houses. Since the House had a solid Democratic majority, rejecting the vote of one state, therefore, would elect Tilden. [26]

Facing an unprecedented constitutional crisis, the Congress passed a law on January 29, 1877, to form a 15-member Electoral Commission, which would settle the result. Five members were selected from each house of Congress, and they were joined by five members of the United States Supreme Court, with William M. Evarts serving as counsel for the Republican Party. The majority party in each house named three members and the minority party two members. As the Republicans controlled the Senate and the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, that yielded five Democratic and five Republican members of the commission. Of the Supreme Court justices, two Republicans and two Democrats were chosen, with the fifth to be selected by those four.

The justices first selected the independent Justice David Davis. According to one historian, "No one, perhaps not even Davis himself, knew which presidential candidate he preferred." [27] Just as the Electoral Commission Bill was passing Congress, the Illinois Legislature elected Davis to the Senate, and Democrats in the legislature believed that they had purchased Davis's support by voting for him. However, they had miscalculated, as Davis promptly excused himself from the commission and resigned as a Justice to take his Senate seat. [28] As all of the remaining available Justices were Republicans, Republican Justice Joseph P. Bradley, who was considered the most impartial remaining member of the court was selected. That selection proved decisive.

Results by county explicitly indicating the percentage of the winning candidate in each county. Shades of blue are for Tilden (Democratic), and shades of red are for Hayes (Republican).
Note that Ripon - the commonly recognized birthplace of the Republican Party - is in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, which voted for Tilden. PresidentialCounty1876.gif
Results by county explicitly indicating the percentage of the winning candidate in each county. Shades of blue are for Tilden (Democratic), and shades of red are for Hayes (Republican).
Note that Ripon – the commonly recognized birthplace of the Republican Party – is in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, which voted for Tilden.

Since it was drawing perilously near to Inauguration Day, the commission met on January 31. Each of the disputed state election cases (Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina) was respectively submitted to the commission by Congress. Eminent counsel appeared for each side, and there were double sets of returns from every one of the states named. [26]

The commission first decided not to question any returns that were prima facie lawful. [26] Bradley then joined the other seven Republican committee members in a series of 8–7 votes that gave all 20 disputed electoral votes to Hayes, which gave Hayes a 185–184 electoral vote victory. The commission adjourned on March 2. Hayes privately took the oath of office the next day and was publicly sworn into office on March 5, 1877, and Hayes was inaugurated without disturbance. [26]

The Compromise of 1877 might be a reason for the Democrats accepting the Electoral Commission. During intense closed-door meetings, Democratic leaders agreed reluctantly to accept Hayes as president in return for the withdrawal of federal troops from the last two Southern states that were still occupied: South Carolina and Louisiana. Republican leaders in return agreed on a number of handouts and entitlements, including federal subsidies for a transcontinental railroad line through the South. Although some of the promises were not kept, particularly the railroad proposal, that was enough for the time being to avert a dangerous standoff.

The returns accepted by the Commission put Hayes's margin of victory in South Carolina at 889 votes, the second-closest popular vote margin in a decisive state in U.S. history, after the election of 2000, which was decided by 537 votes in Florida. In 2000, the margin of victory in the Electoral College for George W. Bush was five votes, as opposed to Hayes' one vote.

Upon his defeat, Tilden said, "I can retire to public life with the consciousness that I shall receive from posterity the credit of having been elected to the highest position in the gift of the people, without any of the cares and responsibilities of the office."

Congress would eventually enact the Electoral Count Act in 1887 to provide more detailed rules for the counting of electoral votes, especially in cases of multiple slates of electors being received from a single state.

Results

According to the commission's rulings, of the 2,249 counties and independent cities making returns, Tilden won in 1,301 (57.9%), and Hayes carried only 947 (42.1%). One county (<0.1%) in Nevada split evenly between Tilden and Hayes.

The Greenback ticket did not have a major impact on the election's outcome by attracting slightly under one percent of the popular vote; nonetheless, Cooper had the strongest performance of any third-party presidential candidate since John Bell in 1860. The Greenbacks' best showings were in Kansas, where Cooper earned just over six percent of the vote, and in Indiana, where he earned 17,207 votes, which far exceeded Tilden's margin of victory of roughly 5,500 votes over Hayes in that state.

The election of 1876 was the last one held before the end of the Reconstruction era, which sought to protect the rights of African Americans in the South, who usually voted for Republican presidential candidates. No antebellum slave state would be carried by a Republican again until the 1896 realignment, which saw William McKinley carry Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, and Kentucky. This is the closest electoral college result in American history, and the second-closest victory in the tipping point state with South Carolina being decided by 889 votes (only the 2000 election in Florida was closer).

No Republican presidential candidate until Warren G. Harding in 1920 would carry any states that seceded and joined the Confederacy. That year, he carried Tennessee, which had never experienced a long period of occupation by federal troops and had been completely "reconstructed" well before the first presidential election of the Reconstruction period (1868). None of the Southern states that experienced long periods of occupation by federal troops was carried by a Republican again until Herbert Hoover in 1928, when he won Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, and that proved the last election in which the Republican candidate won Louisiana until 1956, when it was carried by Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the last in which the Republican candidate won South Carolina until 1964, when Barry Goldwater did. The next time those two states voted against the Democrats was their support of the "Dixiecrat" candidate Strom Thurmond in 1948.

Although 1876 marked the last competitive two-party election in the South before the Democratic dominance of the South until 1948 and of the Border States until 1896, it was also the last presidential election (as of 2020) in which the Democrats won the wartime Unionist Mitchell County, North Carolina; [29] Wayne County, Tennessee; Henderson County, Tennessee; and Lewis County, Kentucky. [30] Hayes was also the only Republican president ever to be elected who failed to carry Indiana, and the first to win without New York and Connecticut.

United States Electoral College 1876.svg

Electoral results
Presidential candidatePartyHome statePopular vote [31] Electoral
vote [32]
Running mate
CountPercentageVice-presidential candidateHome stateElectoral vote [33]
Rutherford B. Hayes Republican Ohio 4,034,14247.92%185 William A. Wheeler New York 185
Samuel J. Tilden Democratic New York 4,286,80850.92%184 Thomas A. Hendricks Indiana 184
Peter Cooper Greenback New York 83,7260.99%0 Samuel Fenton Cary Ohio 0
Green Clay Smith Prohibition Washington, D.C. 6,9450.08%0 Gideon T. Stewart Ohio 0
James Walker American National Party Illinois 4630.01%0 Donald Kirkpatrick New York 0
Other6,5750.08%Other
Total8,418,659100%369369
Needed to win185185
Popular vote
Tilden
50.92%
Hayes
47.92%
Cooper
0.99%
Others
0.17%
Electoral vote
Hayes
50.14%
Tilden
49.86%

Geography of results

1876 Electoral Map.png

Results by state

Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836–1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57. [34]

States/districts won by Tilden/Hendricks
States/districts won by Hayes/Wheeler
Samuel J. Tilden
Democratic
Rutherford B. Hayes
Republican
Peter Cooper
Greenback
Green Smith
Prohibition
MarginState Total
Stateelectoral
votes
# %electoral
votes
# %electoral
votes
# %electoral
votes
# %electoral
votes
# %total votes
cast
 %
Alabama 10102,98959.981068,70840.02−34,281−19.97171,6992.04%AL
Arkansas 658,08659.92638,64939.872110.22−19,437−20.0596,9461.15%AR
California 676,46049.0879,25850.886470.032,7981.80155,7841.85%CA
Colorado * 33-CO
Connecticut 661,92750.70659,03348.337740.633740.31−2,894−2.37122,1341.45%CT
Delaware 313,38155.45310,75244.55−2,629−10.8924,1330.29%DE
Florida 422,92749.0123,84950.9949221.9746,7760.56%FL
Georgia 11130,15772.031150,53327.97−79,624−44.07180,6902.15%GA
Illinois 21258,61146.66278,23250.202117,2073.1019,6213.54554,2276.58%IL
Indiana 15213,52648.6515208,01147.3917,2333.931410.03−5,515−1.26438,9115.21%IN
Iowa 11112,12138.28171,32658.50119,4313.2259,20520.21292,8783.48%IA
Kansas 537,90230.5378,32463.1057,7706.261100.0940,42232.56124,1341.47%KS
Kentucky 12160,06061.411297,56837.44−62,492−23.98260,6263.10%KY
Louisiana 870,50848.3575,31551.6584,8073.30145,8231.73%LA
Maine 749,91742.6566,30056.64716,38314.00117,0451.39%ME
Maryland 891,77956.05871,98043.95−19,799−12.09163,7591.95%MD
Massachusetts 13108,77741.90150,06457.801341,28715.90259,6203.08%MA
Michigan 11141,68544.49166,90152.41119,0232.837660.2425,2167.92318,4503.78%MI
Minnesota 548,58739.1672,95558.8052,3891.931440.1224,36819.64124,0751.47%MN
Mississippi 8112,17368.08852,60331.92−59,570−36.15164,7761.96%MS
Missouri 15202,08657.6415145,02741.363,4971.00−57,059−16.27350,6104.16%MO
Nebraska 317,41335.3031,91564.70314,50229.4049,3280.59%NE
Nevada 39,30847.2710,38352.7331,0755.4619,6910.23%NV
New Hampshire 538,51048.0541,54051.8353,0303.7880,1410.95%NH
New Jersey 9115,96252.669103,51747.017140.32−12,445−5.65220,1932.62%NJ
New York 35521,94951.4035489,20748.171,9780.192,3690.23−32,742−3.221,015,50312.06%NY
North Carolina 10125,42753.6210108,48446.38−16,943−7.24233,9112.78%NC
Ohio 22323,18249.07330,69850.21223,0570.461,6360.257,5161.14658,6497.82%OH
Oregon 314,15747.3815,21450.9235101.711,0573.5429,8810.35%OR
Pennsylvania 29366,20448.25384,18450.62297,2040.951,3180.1717,9802.37758,9939.02%PA
Rhode Island 410,71240.2315,78759.294680.26600.235,07519.0626,6270.32%RI
South Carolina 790,89749.7691,78650.2478890.49182,6832.17%SC
Tennessee 12133,17759.791289,56640.21−43,611−19.58222,7432.65%TN
Texas 8104,75570.04844,80029.96−59,955−40.09149,5551.78%TX
Vermont 520,25431.3844,09168.30523,83736.9364,5530.77%VT
Virginia 11140,77059.581195,51840.42−45,252−19.15236,2882.81%VA
West Virginia 556,54656.75541,99742.151,1041.11−14,549−14.6099,6471.18%WV
Wisconsin 10123,92648.19130,06750.57101,5090.59270.016,1412.39257,1773.05%WI
TOTALS:3694,286,80850.921844,034,14247.9218583,7260.996,9450.08-252,666-3.008,418,659100%US

States that flipped from Republican to Democratic

Close states

Margin of victory less than 1% (7 electoral votes):

  1. South Carolina, 0.5%(889 votes) (tipping point state)

Margin of victory less between 1% and 5% (164 electoral votes):

  1. Ohio, 1.1% (7,516 votes)
  2. Indiana, 1.3% (5,515 votes)
  3. California, 1.8% (2,798 votes)
  4. Florida, 2.0% (922 votes)
  5. Pennsylvania, 2.4% (17,980 votes)
  6. Connecticut, 2.4% (2,894 votes)
  7. Wisconsin, 2.4% (6,141 votes)
  8. New York, 3.2% (32,742 votes)
  9. Louisiana, 3.3% (4,807 votes)
  10. Oregon, 3.5% (1,057 votes)
  11. Illinois, 3.5% (19,621 votes)
  12. New Hampshire, 3.8%(3,030 votes)

Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (33 electoral votes):

  1. Nevada, 5.5% (1,075 votes)
  2. New Jersey, 5.7% (12,445 votes)
  3. North Carolina, 7.2% (16,943 votes)
  4. Michigan, 7.9%(25,216 votes)

Cultural references

See also

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References

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  10. They Also Ran
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  17. The violent origin of the term bulldoze as a means of intimidation came from this election. To "bulldose" or "bulldoze" meant to intimidate by violent means, sometimes by whipping or flogging. Bulldozing was used by some groups of Republicans and Democrats around the country to intimidate political opponents and to intimidate blacks in the South, particularly in Louisiana.
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  22. Schalit, Naomi (October 1, 2020). "Could a few state legislatures choose the next president?". The Conversation. Retrieved November 2, 2020.
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Sources

Further reading

Primary sources