1912 United States presidential election in North Carolina

The 1912 United States presidential election in North Carolina took place on November 5, 1912, as part of the 1912 United States presidential election. North Carolina voters chose 12 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. Like all former Confederate states, North Carolina would during its “Redemption” develop a politics based upon Jim Crow laws, disfranchisement of its African-American population and dominance of the Democratic Party. However, unlike the Deep South, the Republican Party possessed sufficient historic Unionist white support from the mountains and northwestern Piedmont to gain a stable one-third of the statewide vote total in general elections even after blacks lost the right to vote.^[1]

Following the Wilmington insurrection of 1898 and the collapse of its interracial coalition with the Populist Party, North Carolina’s GOP turned extremely rapidly towards a “lily-white” strategy that went sufficiently far as to exclude blacks from the state party altogether.^[2] Incumbent President Taft had been in October 1908 the first Republican candidate to tour the South.^[3] Aided by opposition by developing manufacturers to prevalent Democratic populism,^[3] and his willingness to accept black disfranchisement^[4] and even exclusion from the state GOP, Taft improved the Republican performance, especially in previously Democratic western and Piedmont counties.

North Carolina was won by Princeton University President Woodrow Wilson (D–Virginia), running with governor of Indiana Thomas R. Marshall, with 59.24 percent of the popular vote, against the 26th president of the United States Theodore Roosevelt (P–New York), running with governor of California Hiram Johnson, with 28.34 percent of the popular vote and the 27th president of the United States William Howard Taft (R–Ohio), running with Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler, with 11.95 percent of the popular vote.^[5] As of the 2020 presidential election^[update], this is the last election in which Wilkes County, Avery County, and Mitchell County did not support the Republican candidate.^[6]

^ Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 210, 242 ISBN 978-0-691-16324-6
^ Heersink, Boris; Jenkins, Jeffrey A. (March 19, 2020). Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865–1968. Cambridge University Press. pp. 241–247. ISBN 978-1107158436.
^ ^a ^b Tindall, George B.; ‘Southern Strategy: A Historical Perspective’; North Carolina Historical Review; vol. 48, no. 2 (April 1971), pp. 126-141
^ de Santis, Vincent P.; ‘Republican Efforts to “Crack” the Democratic South’; The Review of Politics, vol. 14, no. 2 (April 1952), pp. 244-264
^ "1912 Presidential Election Results — North Carolina". Dave Leip’s U.S. Election Atlas.
^ Sullivan, Robert David (June 29, 2016). "How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century". The National Catholic Review (America Magazine ed.).

[1] Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 210, 242 ISBN 978-0-691-16324-6

[Republican-2] Heersink, Boris; Jenkins, Jeffrey A. (March 19, 2020). Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865–1968. Cambridge University Press. pp. 241–247. ISBN 978-1107158436.

[Strategy-3] Tindall, George B.; ‘Southern Strategy: A Historical Perspective’; North Carolina Historical Review; vol. 48, no. 2 (April 1971), pp. 126-141

[4] Santis, Vincent P.; ‘Republican Efforts to “Crack” the Democratic South’; The Review of Politics, vol. 14, no. 2 (April 1952), pp. 244-264

[results-5] "1912 Presidential Election Results — North Carolina". Dave Leip’s U.S. Election Atlas.

[how-6] Sullivan, Robert David (June 29, 2016). "How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century". The National Catholic Review (America Magazine ed.).

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