1924 United States presidential election in Vermont
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| Elections in Vermont |
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The 1924 United States presidential election in Vermont took place on November 4, 1924, as part of the 1924 United States presidential election which was held throughout all contemporary 48 states. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Coolidge won in a massive landslide, taking 78.22% of the vote, while Davis took 15.67% for a Republican victory margin of 62.55%. La Follette came in a distant third, with 5.79%.
Vermont historically was a bastion of Northeastern Republicanism, and by 1924 it had gone Republican in every presidential election since the founding of the Republican Party. From 1856 to 1920, Vermont had had the longest streak of voting Republican of any state, having never voted Democratic before, and this tradition continued amidst a second consecutive nationwide Republican landslide in 1924.
The 1920s were a fiercely Republican decade in American politics, and Vermont in that era was a fiercely Republican state in presidential elections. The economic boom and social good feelings of the Roaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership virtually guaranteed Calvin Coolidge an easy win in the state against the conservative Southern Democrat John Davis,[1] who had practically no appeal in Northern states like Vermont. In fact, with only 15.67% of the popular vote, Davis' performance in Vermont was the weakest of any Democratic presidential candidate in the state to date.
Calvin Coolidge also enjoyed a unique personal popularity which helped him in the state.
Partly as a consequence of Coolidge's personal popularity in the state, Robert La Follette was not able to attract a large percentage of the vote in Vermont. La Follette had been a Republican Senator prior to mounting his Progressive Party presidential campaign, and in working class
Coolidge swept every county in Vermont by landslide margins, taking more than 60% of the vote in all fourteen. Coolidge broke seventy percent of the vote in eleven counties and even broke eighty percent in seven. Notably, Coolidge received more than seventy percent of the vote even in Chittenden County, the state's most populous county, home to the state's largest city, Burlington. Just four years later, in 1928, Chittenden County flipped to the Democrats and become a Democratic stronghold in the New Deal era, making Coolidge's dominance there in 1924 remarkable. It would also be the final time that Chittenden County would be won by a Republican candidate until Dwight D. Eisenhower won it in 1952.[5]
Vermont proved to be the most Republican state in the union in 1924, in terms of both vote share and victory margin.[6] Vermont weighed in as a whopping 37% more Republican than the national average in the 1924 election. No Republican presidential candidate since 1924 has managed to surpass Coolidge's performance in Vermont either in terms of vote share or victory margin. Coolidge's 78.22% of the popular vote percentage is also the fourth strongest for any Republican presidential candidate after William McKinley's 80.08% in 1896 and Ulysses S. Grant's 78.57% and 78.29% in 1868 and 1872.
Results
| 1924 United States presidential election in Vermont[7] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Republican | Calvin Coolidge (incumbent) | 80,498 | 78.22% | 4 | |
| Democratic | John W. Davis | 16,124 | 15.67% | 0 | |
Progressive
|
Robert M. La Follette
|
5,964 | 5.79% | 0 | |
| Prohibition | Herman P. Faris | 326 | 0.32% | 0 | |
| N/A | Write-ins | 5 | 0.00% | 0 | |
| Totals | 102,917 | 100.00% | 4 | ||
Results by county
| County | John Calvin Coolidge Republican |
John William Davis Democratic |
Robert M. La Follette, Sr. Progressive |
Herman Preston Faris Prohibition |
Margin | Total votes cast[note 1][8] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Addison | 4,927 | 87.68% | 557 | 9.91% | 105 | 1.87% | 30 | 0.53% | 4,370 | 77.77% | 5,619 |
| Bennington | 5,341 | 72.91% | 1,466 | 20.01% | 497 | 6.78% | 21 | 0.29% | 3,875 | 52.90% | 7,325 |
| Caledonia | 6,205 | 83.60% | 929 | 12.52% | 268 | 3.61% | 20 | 0.27% | 5,276 | 71.09% | 7,422 |
| Chittenden | 8,008 | 70.96% | 2,658 | 23.55% | 580 | 5.14% | 40 | 0.35% | 5,350 | 47.40% | 11,286 |
| Essex | 1,391 | 63.60% | 576 | 26.34% | 213 | 9.74% | 7 | 0.32% | 815 | 37.27% | 2,187 |
| Franklin | 4,594 | 67.10% | 1,649 | 24.08% | 581 | 8.49% | 23 | 0.34% | 2,945 | 43.01% | 6,847 |
| Grand Isle | 861 | 65.23% | 343 | 25.98% | 106 | 8.03% | 10 | 0.76% | 518 | 39.24% | 1,320 |
| Lamoille | 2,480 | 86.23% | 305 | 10.61% | 71 | 2.47% | 20 | 0.70% | 2,175 | 75.63% | 2,876 |
| Orange | 4,657 | 82.85% | 724 | 12.88% | 233 | 4.15% | 7 | 0.12% | 3,933 | 69.97% | 5,621 |
| Orleans | 5,006 | 85.18% | 619 | 10.53% | 218 | 3.71% | 32 | 0.54% | 4,387 | 74.65% | 5,877[note 2] |
| Rutland | 10,642 | 74.32% | 2,477 | 17.30% | 1,143 | 7.98% | 58 | 0.41% | 8,165 | 57.02% | 14,320 |
| Washington | 8,525 | 74.30% | 1,715 | 14.95% | 1,207 | 10.52% | 27 | 0.24% | 6,810 | 59.35% | 11,474 |
| Windham | 7,638 | 83.18% | 1,091 | 11.88% | 442 | 4.81% | 12 | 0.13% | 6,547 | 71.29% | 9,183 |
| Windsor | 10,223 | 88.43% | 1,015 | 8.78% | 300 | 2.60% | 19 | 0.16% | 9,208 | 79.65% | 11,560[note 3] |
| Totals | 80,498 | 78.22% | 16,124 | 15.67% | 5,964 | 5.80% | 326 | 0.32% | 64,374 | 62.55% | 102,912 |
See also
Notes
- ^ These figures show some differences from those published in Edgar Eugene Robinson’s The Presidential Vote and the Géoelections website.
- ^ In this county there were two write-in votes for a candidate not on the ballot in any state.
- Frank Tetes Johns, who was officially on the ballotin eighteen states in which he compiled a total of 28,633 votes.
References
- ISBN 0020364202
- ISBN 0895262479
- ^ Oestreicher, Richard; ‘Urban Working-Class Political Behavior and Theories of American Electoral Politics, 1870-1940’; The Journal of American History, volume 74, no. 4 (March 1988), pp. 1257-1286
- ^ Stark, Rodney and Christiano, Kevin J.; ‘Support for the American Left, 1920-1924: The Opiate Thesis Reconsidered’; Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 31, No. 1 (March, 1992), pp. 62-75
- ISBN 0786422173
- ^ "1924 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
- ^ "1924 Presidential General Election Results - Vermont". Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved August 2, 2013.
- ^ Vermont Office of the Secretary of State Elections Division; Vermont Legislative Directory Biennial Session (1925), p. 253
