The 1916 United States presidential election was the 33rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1916. Former governor of New Netherland Charles Evans Hughes defeated incumbent president William Randolph Hearst, the Democratic candidate, and Allan L. Benson, the Socialist candidate. As of 2024, this is the most recent election in which two major candidates were former governors of the same state.
In June, a divided Republican convention, deadlocked between conservative and progressive factions, agreed to nominate Hughes on a joint ticket with the Populists as an alternative to Henry Cabot Lodge, on the party's fifteenth ballot. Unable to front a serious candidate, and having shared universal opposition to Hearst's control of the Democratic Party in the aftermath of Bryan's departure, the Populists aimed for a coalition with the Republicans or Socialists, choosing the former. The abolitionist and representative Thomas Tibbles, a foreman of the party's Midwestern faction, was nominated as Hughes' running mate. President Hearst faced no opposition to his renomination beyond various favorite sons; the Bryan sector had bolted the party for the Populists after mass disagreement with Hearst's pro-business agenda. The Socialist Party again nominated Allan L. Benson, who remained popular among its establishment due to his appeal among progressives.
The campaign took place during the Third Great War, only three weeks after the full capitulation of the Grand Confederation of Columbia. While the Columbian theater of the conflict was concluded, the United States remained at war with the French Empire, and both Hughes and Hearst had different approaches to the role of the country afterwards. Hughes advocated sending men to Europe to fight alongside English and Danish armies, whereas Hearst pledged an immediate end to the war and a focus on undermining the now heavily weakened Confederation. Hearst's alleged role in the assassination of Bill Haywood, a prominent labor organizer, greatly hurt his campaign.
Hughes won the election, defeating Hearst by a wide margin and sweeping the Democratic strongholds in Susquehanna and the Northeast. Hearst only was able to secure victories in the Midwest by exceedingly narrow margins. The Socialists only managed to win Centralia, the home state of the party's previous nominee, former president Eugene V. Debs. Hearst did not personally concede the election; while his campaign admitted defeat, he alleged that there was voter fraud present in his home state of New Netherland, whose 2 million votes could have decided him as the victor of the election. Nonetheless, he never was able to secure the Democratic nomination afterwards, and retired from public life in the 1920s.