1908 United States presidential election information
31st quadrennial U.S. presidential election
1908 United States presidential election
← 1904
November 3, 1908
1912 →
483 members of the Electoral College 242 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout
65.7%[1] 0.2 pp
Nominee
William Howard Taft
William Jennings Bryan
Party
Republican
Democratic
Home state
Ohio
Nebraska
Running mate
James S. Sherman
John W. Kern
Electoral vote
321
162
States carried
29
17
Popular vote
7,678,395
6,408,984
Percentage
51.6%
43.1%
Presidential election results map. Red denotes those won by Taft/Sherman, blue denotes states won by Bryan/Kern. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
President before election
Theodore Roosevelt
Republican
Elected President
William Howard Taft
Republican
The 1908 United States presidential election was the 31st quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1908. Republican Party nominee William Howard Taft defeated three-time Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan.
The incumbent in 1908, Theodore Roosevelt. His second term expired at noon on March 4, 1909.
Incumbent President Theodore Roosevelt honored his promise not to seek a third term (for him, a second full term), and persuaded his close friend, Taft, to become his successor. With Roosevelt's support, Taft won the presidential nomination at the 1908 Republican National Convention on the first ballot. The Democratic Party nominated Bryan, who had been defeated twice previously, in 1896 and 1900, by Republican William McKinley.
Bryan, part of the more liberal/progressive wing of the Democratic Party, ran a vigorous campaign against the nation's business elite. But even so, he suffered the worst loss of his three presidential campaigns in his percentage of both the popular vote and electoral vote. Taft won 51.6% of the popular vote and carried most states outside of the Solid South. Taft's triumph gave Republicans their fourth consecutive presidential election victory. The Republican Party lost the presidency four years later to the Democrats, due to a party split between Taft and Roosevelt. Two third-party candidates, Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party and Eugene W. Chafin of the Prohibition Party, each took over 1% of the popular vote. This would also be the last election before Arizona and New Mexico gained statehood on January 6 and February 14, 1912.
^"National General Election VEP Turnout Rates, 1789-Present". United States Election Project. CQ Press.
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Global Information
0.2 pp
