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1920 United States presidential election in New Mexico

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1920 United States presidential election in New Mexico

← 1916 November 2, 1920 1924 →
 
Nominee Warren G. Harding James M. Cox
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Ohio Ohio
Running mate Calvin Coolidge Franklin D. Roosevelt
Electoral vote 3 0
Popular vote 57,634 46,668
Percentage 54.68% 44.27%

County Results

President before election

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic

Elected President

Warren G. Harding
Republican

The 1920 United States presidential election in New Mexico took place on November 2, 1920. All contemporary forty-eight States were part of the 1920 United States presidential election. Voters chose three electors to represent them in the Electoral College, which voted for President and Vice President.

During the period between New Mexico's annexation by the United States and statehood, the area was divided between largely Republican machine-run highland regions (which were a mix of Hispanos and Anglo migrants from the Midwest and Northeast) and its firmly Southern Democrat and Baptist "Little Texas" region to the southeast.[1] A split in the "Old Guard" of highland Republicanism meant that in the state's inaugural presidential election in 1912 Woodrow Wilson carried the state through overwhelming "Little Texas" and southern desert support over Progressive Theodore Roosevelt and incumbent Republican William Howard Taft.[2] Four years later in 1916, Wilson gained sufficient Progressive support to narrowly hold the state against Charles Evans Hughes and the reunited Republican Party; however, in 1918, despite extremely low turnout due to the Spanish flu epidemic[3] the reunited GOP regained considerable strength.[2]

The following two years saw the Democratic Party's prospects decline still further due to skyrocketing inflation helping make President Wilson very unpopular[4] – besides which the President also had major health problems that had left First Lady Edith effectively running the nation. Political unrest observed in the Palmer Raids and the "Red Scare" further added to the unpopularity of the Democratic Party, since this global political turmoil produced considerable fear of alien revolutionaries invading the country.[5] However, owing to its Anglo population's ties to the Southern United States, New Mexico was not nearly so isolationist as Appalachia or the Midwest,[6] but the state's farmers did come to believe that the old Confederacy was gaining preferential treatment – to its disadvantage – from the Democratic administration.[7]

Neither Harding nor Cox campaigned in this electoral-vote-poor state; however, a powerful group of corporate Republicans campaigned extensively for Harding,[8] as did Senator Albert Fall, who was a very close associate of the President-to-be. The corporate and "Old Guard" Republicans[2] campaigned on a "Return to Normalcy" following World War I and the tumult of the Bolshevik Revolution and attempts to spread it across Europe.[9]

New Mexico was won by Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding, in a strong 10-percentage-point sweep against Ohio Governor James M. Cox.[10] Despite this victory, New Mexico was still sixteen percentage points more Democratic than the nation at-large, because the internationalist and traditionally Democratic Plains regions remained extremely loyal to Cox, and Fall's campaign in urban Bernalillo County was so ineffective that that county actually swung 4 percentage points towards the Democrats amidst a national 29-percentage-point swing.

Results

[edit]
General Election Results[11][12]
Party Pledged to Elector Votes
Republican Party Warren G. Harding E. A. Cahoon 57,634
Republican Party Warren G. Harding S. B. Davis Jr. 57,495
Republican Party Warren G. Harding Antonio Gomez 57,442
Democratic Party James M. Cox R. L. Young 46,668
Democratic Party James M. Cox James B. Priddy 46,590
Democratic Party James M. Cox Severino Martinez 46,584
Farmer-Labor Party Parley P. Christensen J. D. Hume 1,104
Farmer-Labor Party Parley P. Christensen Louis Ve Verka 1,097
Farmer-Labor Party Parley P. Christensen Donald McRae 1,089
Write-in Allen Busen 4
Write-in Helquist Norris 4
Write-in Upton Sinclair 4
Write-in E. V. Debs 2
Write-in James W. Cox 1
Votes cast[a] 105,421

Results by county

[edit]
County Warren G. Harding
Republican
James M. Cox
Democratic
Parley P. Christensen
Farmer-Labor
Scattering
Write-in
Margin Total votes cast[b]
# % # % # % # % # %
Bernalillo 4,969 50.53% 4,808 48.90% 56 0.57% 0 0.00% 161 1.64% 9,833
Chaves 1,765 45.54% 2,080 53.66% 31 0.80% 0 0.00% -315 -8.13% 3,876
Colfax 3,351 54.87% 2,709 44.36% 47 0.77% 0 0.00% 642 10.51% 6,107
Curry 884 27.81% 2,143 67.41% 152 4.78% 0 0.00% -1,259 -39.60% 3,179
De Baca 412 36.75% 693 61.82% 16 1.43% 0 0.00% -281 -25.07% 1,121
Doña Ana 2,627 66.27% 1,318 33.25% 19 0.48% 0 0.00% 1,309 33.02% 3,964
Eddy 982 37.42% 1,611 61.39% 31 1.18% 0 0.00% -629 -23.97% 2,624
Grant 2,230 53.76% 1,879 45.30% 38 0.92% 1 0.02% 351 8.46% 4,148
Guadalupe 1,599 56.30% 1,224 43.10% 17 0.60% 0 0.00% 375 13.20% 2,840
Hidalgo 443 43.82% 551 54.50% 4 0.40% 13 1.29% -108 -10.68% 1,011
Lea 255 25.22% 733 72.50% 23 2.27% 0 0.00% -478 -47.28% 1,011
Lincoln 1,456 57.32% 1,047 41.22% 37 1.46% 0 0.00% 409 16.10% 2,540
Luna 834 44.65% 1,000 53.33% 34 1.82% 0 0.00% -166 -8.89% 1,868
McKinley 1,525 60.02% 989 38.92% 27 1.06% 0 0.00% 536 21.09% 2,541
Mora 2,478 52.89% 2,179 46.51% 28 0.60% 0 0.00% 299 6.38% 4,685
Otero 1,229 51.36% 1,095 45.76% 69 2.88% 0 0.00% 134 5.60% 2,393
Quay 1,213 39.15% 1,813 58.52% 72 2.32% 0 0.00% -600 -19.37% 3,098
Rio Arriba 3,986 65.97% 2,056 34.03% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,930 31.94% 6,042
Roosevelt 571 31.43% 1,178 64.83% 68 3.74% 0 0.00% -607 -33.41% 1,817
San Juan 985 53.39% 831 45.04% 28 1.52% 1 0.05% 154 8.35% 1,845
San Miguel 5,535 58.11% 3,990 41.89% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 1,545 16.22% 9,525
Sandoval 1,194 57.46% 884 42.54% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 310 14.92% 2,078
Santa Fe 3,060 63.92% 1,700 35.51% 27 0.56% 0 0.00% 1,360 28.41% 4,787
Sierra 862 56.79% 642 42.29% 14 0.92% 0 0.00% 220 14.49% 1,518
Socorro 3,150 63.16% 1,807 36.23% 30 0.60% 0 0.00% 1,343 26.93% 4,987
Taos 2,519 64.86% 1,359 34.99% 6 0.15% 0 0.00% 1,160 29.87% 3,884
Torrance 1,751 60.28% 1,125 38.73% 29 1.00% 0 0.00% 626 21.55% 2,905
Union 2,930 54.38% 2,273 42.19% 185 3.43% 0 0.00% 657 12.19% 5,388
Valencia 2,839 74.59% 951 24.99% 16 0.42% 0 0.00% 1,888 49.61% 3,806
Total 57,634 54.67% 46,668 44.27% 1,104 1.05% 15 0.01% 10,966 10.40% 105,421

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ Based on totals for highest elector on each ticket
  2. ^ Based on the highest elector on each ticket

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Chilton, Lance; New Mexico: A Guide to the Colorful State, p. 95 ISBN 0826307329
  2. ^ a b c Hodgson, Illa D. and Garthwaite, Eloyse M.; 'New Mexico's Early Elections: Statehood to New Deal'; New Mexico Historical Review, January 1, 1995; vol. 70, issue 1, pp. 29-46
  3. ^ Melzer, Richard; 'A Dark and Terrible Moment: The Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 in New Mexico', New Mexico Historical Review, 57 (1982), pp. 213-232
  4. ^ Goldberg, David Joseph; Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s, p. 44 ISBN 0801860059
  5. ^ Leuchtenburg, William E.; The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-1932, p. 75 ISBN 0226473724
  6. ^ Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 461 ISBN 978-0-691-16324-6
  7. ^ Morello, John A.; Albert D. Lasker, Advertising, and the Election of Warren G. Harding, p. 64 ISBN 0275970302
  8. ^ Sanchez, Joseph P.; Spude, Robert L. and Gomez, Arthur R.; New Mexico: A History, p. 200 ISBN 0806151137
  9. ^ Brown, Courtney; Ballots of Tumult: A Portrait of Volatility in American Voting, p. 130 ISBN 0472102508
  10. ^ "1920 Presidential General Election Results – New Mexico". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
  11. ^ New Mexico Secretary of State. The New Mexico Blue Book, or State Official Register 1921. Santa Fe, New Mexico. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
  12. ^ Tabular Statement of the aggregate cast in the State of New Mexico, for Presidential Electors, Representative to Congress and State Officers at a general election held on Tuesday, next after the first Monday in November, A.D. 1920