Ever since statehood, North Dakota had been overwhelmingly Republican at state level and in many presidential elections,[1] although progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson was able to carry the state in both his campaigns in 1912 and 1916, in the second due to his anti-war platform. In the following two elections, the state's voting would be shaped by its extreme isolationism in the aftermath of President Wilson's pushing of the nation into World War I and his “League of Nations” proposal, to which the Russian-Germans who dominated North Dakota's populace were vehemently opposed.[2] To North Dakota's predominantly German-American populace, Wilson's entry into the war and his support for the Treaty of Versailles was a betrayal, and farmers were also faced with a postwar agricultural depression as prices fell with reduced demand in Europe.[3] Consequently, North Dakota went for the isolationist Republican Warren G. Harding over the pro-League Democrat James M. Cox by four-to-one in 1920. In 1924, Robert M. La Follette under the Nonpartisan League banner attracted North Dakota's isolationist electorate so strongly that he went within two percentage points of carrying the state. When La Follette died in 1925, his family did not endorse a Republican, but rather New York City Catholic Democrat Al Smith.[4]
^Hansen, John Mark; Shigeo Hirano, and Snyder, James M. Jr.; ‘Parties within Parties: Parties, Factions, and Coordinated Politics, 1900-1980’; in Gerber, Alan S. and Schickler, Eric; Governing in a Polarized Age: Elections, Parties, and Political Representation in America, pp. 143-159 ISBN978-1-107-09509-0
^Lubell, Samuel; The Future of American Politics (1956), pp. 156-164
