United States presidential election, 1880
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| Presidential election results map. Red denotes those won by Garfield/Arthur, blue denotes states won by Hancock/English. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The United States presidential election of 1880 was a contest between Republican James A. Garfield and Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock in which the Republican Garfield prevailed. It was the 24th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 1880. The voter turnout rate was one of the highest in the nation's history. In the end, the popular vote totals of the two main candidates were separated by fewer than 2,000 votes, the smallest victory in the popular vote ever recorded. In the electoral college, however, Garfield's victory was decisive; he won nearly all of the populous Northern states to achieve a majority of 214 electoral votes to 155 for Hancock. Hancock's sweep of the Southern states was not enough for victory, but it cemented his party's dominance of the region for generations.
Incumbent president Rutherford B. Hayes did not seek re-election, keeping a promise made during the 1876 campaign. After the longest convention in the party's history, the divided Republicans chose Garfield as their standard-bearer, another Ohioan who had earlier served as a Congressman and Civil War general. The Democratic Party selected Pennsylvania-born Civil War general and career army officer Winfield Scott Hancock as their nominee. The dominance of the two major parties began to fray as an upstart left-wing party, the Greenback Party, nominated another Civil War general for president, Iowa Congressman James B. Weaver. In a campaign fought mainly over issues of Civil War loyalties, tariffs, and Chinese immigration, Garfield and Hancock each took just over 48 percent of the popular vote. Weaver and two other minor candidates, Neal Dow and John W. Phelps, together made up the remaining percentage. The election of 1880 was the sixth consecutive presidential election won by the Republicans, the second longest winning streak in American history after the Democratic-Republican Party during the period 1800-1824.
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