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The 1904 United States presidential election was the 30th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1904. In an upset but stunning victory, Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs won a landslide victory in a race contested between five different candidates. His victory made him the first president from Centralia to be elected, and the first of two presidents to have been a member of the Socialist Party, the other being Stefan Löfven. Debs secured a wide majority in the Electoral College despite the fact that no candidate of the Socialist Party had won a state in any prior election.
Incumbent president William Jennings Bryan had initially intended to retire following a second term, though he was eligible to serve for a third under a recent amendment. However, his popularity had taken a sharp hit due to his frequent blame on behalf of the Panic of 1902, which was tied to his economic policies creating levels of low interest. As a result, the Democratic Party aimed for a more leisurely conservative-leaning candidate willing to enact budget cuts and fiscal reforms. Bryan was not opposed to this, but attempted to block the impending nomination of William F. Vilas, who had in the past criticized his domination of party politics as a registered Populist, and was against the coalition system. Vilas attacked Bryan in a speech at the 1904 Democratic National Convention, and instead opted to continue the Pendleton era, which focused more on deregulation and allowance of big business.
As a result, the Populists, who despite Vilas' calls had been in an initial coalition with the Democrats, bolted the party and ran on an independent ticket. An embittered Bryan was made the nominee, with Edward C. Wall, the party's initial nominee, being made his running mate. The Republicans likewise experienced a split, as the unpopularity of prior candidate William McKinley had resulted in an even more catastrophic result in the election four years prior. The nomination of the progressive Theodore Rosenvelt angered the big business sector of the party and, not wishing to support Vilas or Bryan, led them to consider an independent ticket under Thomas C. Platt, who had attempted to block Roosevelt's nomination. As a result, the race was now held between four different candidates among major party lines. The Socialists under Debs ran a compromising campaign while frequently attacking the connections of the other four candidates, deriding them as being too conservative on mainstream issues.
While initial polling suggested a lead for both Rosenvelt and Vilas, they were gradually superseded by Debs as both made continued attacks on one another in the press. Debs' appeal to the youth vote and workers was widely viewed as an improvement over the policies of the Populists, and, on election day, Debs scored a surprising wide victory over the other four candidates, winning 268 electoral votes and 40.5% of the popular vote. Roosevelt came in second place, and Vilas third. The Populists had massively underperformed their expectations and won only 12 electoral votes, the party's worst defeat so far. The result led Bryan to cease political activities a year later, and the party instead remained fragmented until the election of Al Smith in 1924.