1916 United States Presidential Election (Brothers No More)

United States presidential election, 1916
All 405 electoral votes of the Electoral College; 203 electoral votes needed to win
	Electoral College results
President before election; Henry Cabot Lodge; National American	Elected President ; Henry Cabot Lodge; National American

The United States Presidential Election of 1916, the 33rd US presidential election, took place on November 7, 1916. In the midst of World War I, President Henry Cabot Lodge defeated Democrat Thomas R. Marshall to win reelection to a second term.

Background[]

This presidential election took place during World War I. The United States had entered the war in May 1915, after the sinking of the RMS Lusitania. After a year of building tension and fear on both sides of the border, the Confederate States entered the war in March 1916 on the side of Germany. The war started off with mixed results for the US, though the first eight months were generally seen as a success as the US Army managed to capture the Confederate capital and Northern Virginia. There were talks of not holding or postponing this election, as the country was in the middle of being invaded. The precedent set by Abraham Lincoln in 1864 eventually won out, and the election was held.

Democratic Nomination[]

The 1916 Democratic National Convention was held from June 15-20 in Milwaukee. Numerous candidates competed for the presidential nomination, ranging from conservative to progressive and anti-war to warhawk. Some of these candidates included James M. Cox, A. Mitchell Palmer, John W. Davis, Gilbert Hitchcock, and Thomas R. Marshall. Marshall, the vice presidential candidate in 1912, was a moderate on pretty much every issue. He won the nomination on ballot number four. Davis, a representative from West Virginia, was put forth as his running mate.

National American Nomination[]

The 1916 National American Convention was held on June 28 in Boston. While there were talks of cancelling the convention altogether (as Lodge was guaranteed to win the nomination), it was instead held with a limited field of delegates. Lodge won a unanimous nomination on the first ballot, as did Vice President Herbert S. Hadley.

Socialist Nomination[]

The socialists nominated their candidate by mail-in ballots. Perennial socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs decided to run for Congress in Indiana rather than run for president. Newspaper editor Allan Benson of New York won the nomination, with George Ross Kirkpatrick of New Jersey as his running mate.

The Campaign[]

No side, except the socialists, openly opposed the war. The electorate was more concerned with the question of who was most competent to run the war effort, and who would be a better leader. Lodge had provided mixed results in the first months of the war. On one hand, the US Army was able to successfully take Richmond and was advancing quickly into the rest of Virginia. On the other, the Confederates were having little trouble advancing in the West, already occupying a fair bit of California and half of New Mexico. The CS Army had also captured about half of Kentucky, and the war for the Mississippi River had reached a stalemate. People in the border states were generally more anti-war than the rest of the population, as it was their homeland that was being ravaged the most by warfare. Southerners in Kentucky and Missouri also still felt some kinship with the Southerners of the CSA, and so were less willing to want them dead. Southerners in the Union sometimes saw discrimination from their Northern countrymen, with many being suspected or falsely accused of working with the Confederacy. In Kentucky, where the war was quickly tearing up most of the state, many Northern soldiers often confused the local populace for Confederate soldiers. This led to more than a few unfortunate incidents.

Lodge once again did not campaign personally. He wanted to portray the image that he was hard at work winning the war. He also was actually very busy with everything going on. Marshall had the advantage, then, of being able to speak directly to the people. He did not promise that he would end the war; he only promised that he would be a better leader than Lodge. His well-known sense of humor helped him win some voters, though some of his opponents said that he wasn't taking the situation seriously.

The socialists were completely anti-war and campaigned hard on that message. They appealed mostly to laborers in urban centers and those who were frustrated with the prospect of being drafted into the military. Benson remained in New York City for most of his campaign, thinking that the city would be the best place to win votes. The mainstream candidates ignored the socialists, and most Americans attacked them as unpatriotic. They did have many supporters, though, even if many wouldn't admit it to their friends and family.

Results and Aftermath[]

The election ended up being decided by a single state, New York. The Empire State had been decided by 2%, with the socialists also taking 10% of the vote. As it was, though, Lodge ended up winning by a solid margin in the electoral college, reaffirming his popular support and the people's support of the war.

Some states were greatly affected by the fighting. New Mexico did not hold a popular election, as most of their state was under Confederate control by November. Instead, their legislature assigned all four electors to Lodge from their temporary headquarters in Denver. Kentucky held a popular vote, but over half of the possible voters were under Confederate control. Their electoral votes were counted anyway, but only after much debate in Congress.

This election would be quickly forgotten as the war waged on. US forces gained the definite upper hand as 1917 went on, driving the Confederates out of Kentucky and mostly out of California. Still, the Confederates were determined to hold out until Germany won the war in Europe and could send reinforcements their way.