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531 members of the Electoral College 266 electoral votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Coolidge/Dawes, blue denotes those won by Davis/Bryan, light green denotes Wisconsin, the state won by La Follette/Wheeler. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1924 United States presidential election was the 35th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1924. In a threeway contest, incumbent Republican President Calvin Coolidge won election to a full term. Coolidge was the second vice president, after Theodore Roosevelt, to ascend to the presidency and then win a full term.
Coolidge had been vice president under Warren G. Harding and became president in 1923 upon Harding's unexpected death. Coolidge was given credit for a booming economy at home and no visible crises abroad, and he faced little opposition at the 1924 Republican National Convention. The Democratic Party nominated former Congressman and ambassador to the United Kingdom John W. Davis of West Virginia. Davis, a compromise candidate, triumphed on the 103rd ballot of the 1924 Democratic National Convention after a deadlock between supporters of William Gibbs McAdoo and Al Smith. Dissatisfied by the conservatism of both major party candidates, the newly formed Progressive Party nominated Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin.
In a 2012 book, Garland S. Tucker argues that the election marked the "high tide of American conservatism", as both major candidates campaigned for limited government, reduced taxes, and less regulation.[2] By contrast, La Follette called for the gradual nationalization of the railroads and increased taxes on the wealthy, policies that foreshadowed the New Deal.
Coolidge won a landslide victory, taking majorities in both the popular vote and the Electoral College and winning almost every state outside of the Solid South (while still making headway by winning Kentucky). La Follette won 16.6% of the popular vote, a strong showing for a third-party candidate, while Davis won the lowest share of the popular vote of any Democratic nominee in history. This was one of only three elections with more than two major candidates where any candidate received a majority of popular votes cast, the others being 1832 and 1980. This is the most recent election to date in which a thirdparty candidate won a non-southern state. This was also the US election with the lowest per capita voter turnout since records were kept.[3] This election was the last time the Democratic nominee for vice president was a sitting governor until 2024. It was also the last time a Republican won the presidency without winning any of the former Confederate states. This was also the last election that neither major party nominee was from New York until 1956.
- ^ "National General Election VEP Turnout Rates, 1789-Present". United States Election Project. CQ Press.
- ^ Garland S. Tucker III, The High Tide of American Conservatism: Davis, Coolidge and the 1924 Election (Emerald, 2010)
- ^ "Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections | The American Presidency Project". www.presidency.ucsb.edu. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
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