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1900 United States presidential election in Louisiana

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1900 United States presidential election in Louisiana

← 1896 November 6, 1900 1904 →
 
Nominee William Jennings Bryan William McKinley
Party Democratic Republican
Home state Nebraska Ohio
Running mate Adlai Stevenson I Theodore Roosevelt
Electoral vote 8 0
Popular vote 53,668 14,234
Percentage 79.03% 20.96%

Parish Results

President before election

William McKinley
Republican

Elected President

William McKinley
Republican

The 1900 United States presidential election in Louisiana took place on November 6, 1900. All contemporary 45 states were part of the 1900 United States presidential election. State voters chose eight electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.

Following the overthrow of Reconstruction Republican government, Louisiana, like most of the former Confederacy, established a Democratic-dominated but highly fraudulent political system[1] that would from 1890 be challenged by the rise of the Populist Party due to declining conditions for farmers. Both the Populists and the earlier Greenback Party — who shared key leaders like James B. Weaver — would be supported by the state Republican Party.[2] At the same time, outside of Acadiana — where French Catholic beliefs produced less hardline attitudes towards black voting[3] — intimidation was already drastically reducing the number of black voters.

Although the state GOP was deeply divided between “black and tans” and an insurgent “lily white” faction led by Acadian sugar planters,[4] a multi-party fusion candidacy in the 1896 gubernatorial election gave a strong showing against the Democratic Party, being denied according to most analyses by the persistent fraud.[5] Fear of a return to “carpetbag” and black rule amongst the state’s plantation elite was so strong that this group radically rewrote the state’s constitution in the ensuing gubernatorial term. A poll tax, a literacy test, a grandfather clause, and a secret ballot all made voting by the lower classes much more difficult, producing a reduction in the number of registered black voters by 96 percent,[6] and virtual elimination of black voting in Acadiana until the 1950s. In the remainder of the state very few blacks could vote until after the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[7]

In Louisiana, the Republican party lacked any white base because Louisiana completely lacked upland or German refugee whites opposed to secession.[8] Consequently, the state after the elimination of its black electorate became a one-party state dominated by the Democratic Party. After 1900, not until 1964 would another Republican serve in the state legislature.[9]

Louisiana was won by the Democratic nominees, former U.S. Representative William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska and his running mate Adlai Stevenson I of Illinois. They defeated the Republican nominees, incumbent President William McKinley of Ohio and his running mate Theodore Roosevelt of New York. Bryan won the state by a landslide margin of 58.07%. With 79.03% of the popular vote, Louisiana would prove to be Bryan's third strongest state in the 1900 presidential election only after South Carolina and Mississippi.[10]

Bryan had previously won Louisiana against McKinley four years earlier and would later win the state again in 1908 against William Howard Taft. This is the last time a Republican won two terms without ever winning the state.

Results

[edit]
1900 United States presidential election in Louisiana[11]
Party Candidate Votes Percentage Electoral votes
Democratic William Jennings Bryan 53,668 79.03% 8
Republican William McKinley (incumbent) 14,234 20.96% 0
Write-ins[a] Scattered 4 0.01% 0
Totals 67,906 100.00% 8
Voter turnout

Results by parish

[edit]
1900 United States presidential election in Louisiana by parish[12]
Parish William Jennings Bryan
Democratic
William McKinley
Republican
Margin Total votes cast
# % # % # %
Acadia 577 70.02% 247 29.98% 330 40.05% 824
Ascension 824 56.36% 638 43.64% 186 12.72% 1,462
Assumption 584 53.53% 507 46.47% 77 7.06% 1,091
Avoyelles 951 85.06% 167 14.94% 784 70.13% 1,118
Bienville 889 93.19% 65 6.81% 824 86.37% 954
Bossier 635 99.06% 6 0.94% 629 98.13% 641
Caddo 1,338 96.05% 55 3.95% 1,283 92.10% 1,393
Calcasieu 1,559 70.93% 639 29.07% 920 41.86% 2,198
Caldwell 283 80.63% 68 19.37% 215 61.25% 351
Cameron 185 71.98% 72 28.02% 113 43.97% 257
Catahoula 526 78.51% 144 21.49% 382 57.01% 670
Claiborne 885 96.30% 34 3.70% 851 92.60% 919
Concordia 362 95.51% 17 4.49% 345 91.03% 379
De Soto 923 98.19% 17 1.81% 906 96.38% 940
East Baton Rouge 837 84.89% 149 15.11% 688 69.78% 986
East Carroll 176 95.65% 8 4.35% 168 91.30% 184
East Feliciana 551 96.50% 20 3.50% 531 92.99% 571
Franklin 362 92.35% 30 7.65% 332 84.69% 392
Grant 350 69.17% 156 30.83% 194 38.34% 506
Iberia 1,030 60.66% 668 39.34% 362 21.32% 1,698
Iberville 674 64.50% 371 35.50% 303 29.00% 1,045
Jackson 333 80.24% 82 19.76% 251 60.48% 415
Jefferson 1,282 95.60% 59 4.40% 1,223 91.20% 1,341
Lafayette 696 67.31% 338 32.69% 358 34.62% 1,034
Lafourche 1,230 59.77% 828 40.23% 402 19.53% 2,058
Lincoln 517 89.45% 61 10.55% 456 78.89% 578
Livingston 399 96.38% 15 3.62% 384 92.75% 414
Madison 153 96.84% 5 3.16% 148 93.67% 158
Morehouse 461 98.29% 8 1.71% 453 96.59% 469
Natchitoches 845 88.20% 113 11.80% 732 76.41% 958
Orleans 18,168 79.98% 4,549 20.02% 13,619 59.95% 22,717
Ouachita 663 93.51% 46 6.49% 617 87.02% 709
Plaquemines 567 83.14% 115 16.86% 452 66.28% 682
Pointe Coupee 586 96.38% 22 3.62% 564 92.76% 608
Rapides 1,420 81.66% 319 18.34% 1,101 63.31% 1,739
Red River 462 98.72% 6 1.28% 456 97.44% 468
Richland 304 95.90% 13 4.10% 291 91.80% 317
Sabine 543 91.26% 52 8.74% 491 82.52% 595
Saint Bernard 398 89.64% 46 10.36% 352 79.28% 444
Saint Charles 435 90.25% 47 9.75% 388 80.50% 482
Saint James 395 48.59% 418 51.41% -23 -2.83% 813
Saint John the Baptist 331 78.62% 90 21.38% 241 57.24% 421
Saint Landry 1,297 84.99% 229 15.01% 1,068 69.99% 1,526
Saint Martin 538 82.64% 113 17.36% 425 65.28% 651
Saint Mary 818 57.44% 606 42.56% 212 14.89% 1,424
Saint Tammany 515 76.41% 159 23.59% 356 52.82% 674
Tangipahoa 938 80.38% 229 19.62% 709 60.75% 1,167
Tensas 212 97.70% 5 2.30% 207 95.39% 217
Terrebonne 740 60.16% 490 39.84% 250 20.33% 1,230
Union 750 87.72% 105 12.28% 645 75.44% 855
Vermilion 625 62.75% 371 37.25% 254 25.50% 996
Vernon 522 66.67% 261 33.33% 261 33.33% 783
Washington 449 89.26% 54 10.74% 395 78.53% 503
Webster 604 98.53% 9 1.47% 595 97.06% 613
West Baton Rouge 185 82.96% 38 17.04% 147 65.92% 223
West Carroll 173 98.86% 2 1.14% 171 97.71% 175
West Feliciana 320 94.40% 19 5.60% 301 88.79% 339
Winn 293 55.60% 234 44.40% 59 11.20% 527
Saint Helena[b] N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Totals 53,668 79.03% 14,234 20.96% 39,434 58.07% 67,906

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ These write-in votes were not separated by parish
  2. ^ No returns were canvassed for Saint Helena Parish and any voters were presumably listed in totals for neighbouring parished.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Hair, William Ivy (1969). Bourbonism and agrarian protest; Louisiana politics, 1877-1900. Louisiana State University Press. pp. 114–115. ISBN 0807109088.
  2. ^ Kousser, J. Morgan (1975). The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910 (Second Printing ed.). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. p. 25. ISBN 0-300-01973-4.
  3. ^ Howard, Perry H. (1954). "A New Look at Reconstruction". Political Tendencies in Louisiana, 1812-1952; An Ecological Analysis of Voting Behavior (Thesis). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. pp. 112–113. OCLC 8115.
  4. ^ Heersink, Boris; Jenkins, Jeffrey A. (March 19, 2020). Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865-1968. Cambridge University Press. pp. 265–266. ISBN 978-1107158436.
  5. ^ Kousser. The Shaping of Southern Politics, p. 41
  6. ^ Lewinson, Paul (1965). Race, class and party; a history of Negro suffrage and white politics in the South. New York City: Grosset & Dunlap. p. 81.
  7. ^ Subcommittee No. 5 (1965). 1965 Voting Rights Act (Report). Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives. pp. 4, 139–201.{{cite report}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Phillips, Kevin P. (November 23, 2014). The Emerging Republican Majority. Princeton University Press. pp. 208, 210. ISBN 9780691163246.
  9. ^ Kang, Michael S. (May 29, 2019). "Hyperpartisan Gerrymandering". Boston College Law Review. 69: 1395.
  10. ^ "1900 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  11. ^ Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas; Presidential General Election Results – Louisiana
  12. ^ "Popular Vote for President, 1900 (.xlsx file for €15)". Géoelections.