U.S. presidential election, 1912

United States presidential election, 1912

← 1908 November 5, 1912 1916 →
All 531 electoral votes of the Electoral College 266 electoral votes needed to win
Turnout	58.8% 6.6 pp
Nominee Woodrow Wilson Theodore Roosevelt Party Democratic Progressive Home state New Jersey New York Running mate Thomas R. Marshall Hiram Johnson Electoral vote 435 88 States carried 40 6 Popular vote 6,296,284 4,122,721 Percentage 41.8% 27.4%   Nominee William Howard Taft Eugene V. Debs Party Republican Socialist Home state Ohio Indiana Running mate Nicholas M. Butler (replacing James S. Sherman) Emil Seidel Electoral vote 8 0 States carried 2 0 Popular vote 3,486,242 901,551 Percentage 23.2% 6.0%
Presidential election results map. Blue denotes those won by Wilson/Marshall, light green denotes those won by Roosevelt/Johnson, red denotes states won by Taft/Butler. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
President before election William Howard Taft Republican Elected President Woodrow Wilson Democratic

William Howard Taft
Republican

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic

The United States presidential election of 1912 was the 32nd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1912. The election was a rare four-way contest. Incumbent President William Howard Taft was renominated by the Republican Party with the support of its conservative wing. After former President Theodore Roosevelt failed to receive the Republican nomination, he called his own convention and created the Progressive Party (nicknamed the “Bull Moose Party”). It nominated Roosevelt and ran candidates for other offices in major states. Democrat Woodrow Wilson was finally nominated on the 46th ballot of a contentious convention, thanks to the support of William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate who still had a large and loyal following in 1912. Meanwhile, the Socialist Party of America renominated its perennial standard-bearer, Eugene V. Debs. It is the last election in which a former, or incumbent, President (Roosevelt) ran for the office without being nominated as either a Democrat or Republican. It is also the last election in which an incumbent president running for re-election (Taft) failed to finish either first or second in the popular vote count.

Wilson won the election, gaining a large majority in the Electoral College and winning 42% of the popular vote, while Roosevelt won 27%, Taft 23% and Debs 6%. Wilson became the only elected president from the Democratic Party between 1896 and 1932, and the second of only two Democrats to be elected president between 1860 and 1932. This was the last election in which a candidate who was not a Republican or Democrat came second in either the popular vote or the Electoral College, and the first election in which all current 48 states of the contiguous United States participated. This was also the last election in which more than one nominee had previously been elected president.