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1904 United States presidential election in Louisiana

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1904 United States presidential election in Louisiana

← 1900 November 8, 1904 1908 →
 
Nominee Alton B. Parker Theodore Roosevelt
Party Democratic Republican
Home state New York New York
Running mate Henry G. Davis Charles W. Fairbanks
Electoral vote 9 0
Popular vote 47,708 5,205
Percentage 88.50% 9.66%

Parish Results
Parker
  60-70%
  70-80%
  80-90%
  90-100%


President before election

Theodore Roosevelt
Republican

Elected President

Theodore Roosevelt
Republican

The 1904 United States presidential election in Louisiana took place on November 8, 1904. All contemporary 45 states were part of the 1904 United States presidential election. State voters chose nine 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] and in the 1896 gubernatorial election a fusion candidate was undoubtedly denied by the continued fraud.[3] Consequently, the state’s plantation elite radically rewrote the state’s constitution in the next gubernatorial term with a poll tax, literacy test, grandfather clause, and a secret ballot. The consequence was a reduction in the number of registered black voters by 96 percent,[4] and virtual elimination of black voting in Acadiana until the 1950s.[a]

Louisiana consequently became a one-party state dominated by the Democratic Party, as the now-moribund Republican party lacked any white base because Louisiana completely lacked upland or German refugee whites opposed to secession.[7] After 1900, not until 1964 would another Republican serve in the state legislature.[8]

Despite this absolute single-party dominance, non-partisan tendencies remained strong among wealthy sugar planters in Acadiana, within the business elite of New Orleans,[9] and even amongst the “lily-white” “National Republican” GOP faction who supported black disenfranchisement in an effort to become respectable amongst the white elite.[10] State politics became controlled by the Choctaw Club of Louisiana, generally called the “Old Regulars”. This political machine was based in New Orleans and united with Black Belt cotton planters.[11] Although white Republicans continued to work towards taking over Federal patronage from the “black and tans”, throughout most of the 1900s Louisiana politics was under firm Choctaw control as the Populist movement weakened with the disenfranchisement of many poor whites via the poll tax.[10]

Louisiana was won by the Democratic nominees, Chief Judge Alton B. Parker of New York and his running mate Henry G. Davis of West Virginia. They defeated the Republican nominees, incumbent President Theodore Roosevelt of New York and his running mate Charles W. Fairbanks of Indiana. Parker won the state by a landslide margin of 78.84%.

With 88.5 percent of the popular vote, Louisiana would be Parker's third strongest victory in terms of percentage in the popular vote after South Carolina and neighboring Mississippi.[12]

Results

[edit]
1904 United States presidential election in Louisiana[13]
Party Candidate Votes Percentage Electoral votes
Democratic Alton B. Parker 47,708 88.50% 9
Republican Theodore Roosevelt (incumbent) 5,205 9.66% 0
Social Democratic Eugene V. Debs 995 1.85% 0
Totals 53,908 100.00% 9
Voter turnout

Results by parish

[edit]
1904 United States presidential election in Louisiana by parish[14][15]
Parish Alton Parker
Democratic
Theodore Roosevelt
Republican
Eugene Debs
Social Democratic
Margin Total votes cast
# % # % # % # %
Acadia 626 77.09% 133 16.38% 53 6.53% 493 60.71% 812
Ascension 504 74.12% 175 25.74% 1 0.15% 329 48.38% 680
Assumption 592 78.72% 160 21.28% 0 0.00% 432 57.45% 752
Avoyelles 1,054 95.30% 37 3.35% 15 1.36% 1,017 91.95% 1,106
Bienville 833 93.81% 44 4.95% 11 1.24% 789 88.85% 888
Bossier 475 97.94% 10 2.06% 0 0.00% 465 95.88% 485
Caddo 1,592 96.95% 47 2.86% 3 0.18% 1,545 94.09% 1,642
Calcasieu 1,102 69.48% 401 25.28% 83 5.23% 701 44.20% 1,586
Caldwell 198 91.67% 16 7.41% 2 0.93% 182 84.26% 216
Cameron 178 90.82% 15 7.65% 3 1.53% 163 83.16% 196
Catahoula 514 79.32% 124 19.14% 10 1.54% 390 60.19% 648
Claiborne 708 97.52% 16 2.20% 2 0.28% 692 95.32% 726
Concordia 209 95.00% 2 0.91% 9 4.09% 200[b] 90.91% 220
De Soto 908 97.63% 9 0.97% 13 1.40% 895[b] 96.24% 930
East Baton Rouge 994 95.30% 48 4.60% 1 0.10% 946 90.70% 1,043
East Carroll 211 99.06% 2 0.94% 0 0.00% 209 98.12% 213
East Feliciana 388 97.73% 7 1.76% 2 0.50% 381 95.97% 397
Franklin 347 98.30% 5 1.42% 1 0.28% 342 96.88% 353
Grant 280 74.47% 71 18.88% 25 6.65% 209 55.59% 376
Iberia 734 76.30% 205 21.31% 23 2.39% 529 54.99% 962
Iberville 515 87.73% 72 12.27% 0 0.00% 443 75.47% 587
Jackson 576 91.00% 53 8.37% 4 0.63% 523 82.62% 633
Jefferson 1,110 97.11% 25 2.19% 8 0.70% 1,085 94.93% 1,143
Lafayette 496 88.89% 41 7.35% 21 3.76% 455 81.54% 558
Lafourche 931 84.56% 168 15.26% 2 0.18% 763 69.30% 1,101
Lincoln 532 94.66% 26 4.63% 4 0.71% 506 90.04% 562
Livingston 358 88.18% 47 11.58% 1 0.25% 311 76.60% 406
Madison 150 100.00% 0 0.00% 0 0.00% 150 100.00% 150
Morehouse 526 96.16% 20 3.66% 1 0.18% 506 92.50% 547
Natchitoches 630 83.44% 125 16.56% 0 0.00% 505 66.89% 755
Orleans 16,103 89.65% 1,380 7.68% 480 2.67% 14,723 81.96% 17,963
Ouachita 669 94.36% 26 3.67% 14 1.97% 643 90.69% 709
Plaquemines 620 93.09% 38 5.71% 8 1.20% 582 87.39% 666
Pointe Coupee 505 98.06% 10 1.94% 0 0.00% 495 96.12% 515
Rapides 827 87.61% 107 11.33% 10 1.06% 720 76.27% 944
Red River 371 94.64% 12 3.06% 9 2.30% 359 91.58% 392
Richland 291 97.65% 7 2.35% 0 0.00% 284 95.30% 298
Sabine 504 87.80% 58 10.10% 12 2.09% 446 77.70% 574
Saint Bernard 424 92.58% 34 7.42% 0 0.00% 390 85.15% 458
Saint Charles 313 96.31% 12 3.69% 0 0.00% 301 92.62% 325
Saint Helena 234 88.30% 30 11.32% 1 0.38% 204 76.98% 265
Saint James 327 72.67% 99 22.00% 24 5.33% 228 50.67% 450
Saint John the Baptist 283 91.88% 24 7.79% 1 0.32% 259 84.09% 308
Saint Landry 887 92.88% 60 6.28% 8 0.84% 827 86.60% 955
Saint Martin 613 96.38% 23 3.62% 0 0.00% 590 92.77% 636
Saint Mary 749 79.18% 193 20.40% 4 0.42% 556 58.77% 946
Saint Tammany 453 83.27% 59 10.85% 32 5.88% 394 72.43% 544
Tangipahoa 623 77.39% 170 21.12% 12 1.49% 453 56.27% 805
Tensas 203 97.13% 6 2.87% 0 0.00% 197 94.26% 209
Terrebonne 702 82.49% 144 16.92% 5 0.59% 558 65.57% 851
Union 496 96.88% 15 2.93% 1 0.20% 481 93.95% 512
Vermilion 792 86.65% 111 12.14% 11 1.20% 681 74.51% 914
Vernon 469 61.31% 275 35.95% 21 2.75% 194 25.36% 765
Washington 367 90.84% 36 8.91% 1 0.25% 331 81.93% 404
Webster 698 97.08% 21 2.92% 0 0.00% 677 94.16% 719
West Baton Rouge 233 97.90% 5 2.10% 0 0.00% 228 95.80% 238
West Carroll 124 89.86% 5 3.62% 9 6.52% 115[b] 83.33% 138
West Feliciana 319 96.08% 13 3.92% 0 0.00% 306 92.17% 332
Winn 277 63.10% 128 29.16% 34 7.74% 149 33.94% 439
Totals 47,747 88.51% 5,205 9.65% 995 1.84% 42,542 78.86% 53,947

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ In the remainder of the state most blacks were already disenfranchised by intimidation[5] before the 1898 Constitution and few voted again until after the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[6]
  2. ^ a b c In this parish where Debs ran second ahead of Roosevelt, margin given is Parker vote minus Debs vote and percentage margin Parker percentage minus Debs percentage.

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. ^ Kousser. The Shaping of Southern Politics, p. 41
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ See 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.
  6. ^ 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)
  7. ^ Phillips, Kevin P. (November 23, 2014). The Emerging Republican Majority. Princeton University Press. pp. 208, 210. ISBN 9780691163246.
  8. ^ Kang, Michael S. (May 29, 2019). "Hyperpartisan Gerrymandering". Boston College Law Review. 69: 1395.
  9. ^ Schott, Matthew J. (Summer 1979). "Progressives against Democracy: Electoral Reform in Louisiana, 1894-1921". Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. 20 (3): 247–260.
  10. ^ a b 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.
  11. ^ Wall, Bennett H.; Rodriguez, John C. (January 28, 2014). Louisiana: A History. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 274–275. ISBN 978-1118619292.
  12. ^ "1904 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  13. ^ Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas; Presidential General Election Results – Louisiana
  14. ^ "Popular Vote for President, 1904". Géoelections. (.xlsx file for €15)
  15. ^ "Popular Vote for Eugene V. Debs (1904)". Géoelections. (.xlsx file for €15)