United States presidential election in California, 1920

United States presidential election in California, 1920

← 1916 November 2, 1920 1924 →
Nominee Warren G. Harding James M. Cox Eugene V. Debs Party Republican Democratic Socialist Home state Ohio Ohio Indiana Running mate Calvin Coolidge Franklin D. Roosevelt Seymour Stedman Electoral vote 13 0 0 Popular vote 624,992 229,191 64,076 Percentage 66.20% 24.28% 6.79%
County Results   Harding—<50%   Harding—50-60%   Harding—60-70%   Harding—70-80%   Harding—>90%
President before election Woodrow Wilson Democratic Elected President Warren G. Harding Republican

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic

Warren G. Harding
Republican

The 1920 United States presidential election in California took place on November 2, 1920, as part of the 1920 General Election in which all 48 states participated. California voters chose nine electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting Democratic nominee James M. Cox and his running mate, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt, against Republican challenger U.S. Senator Warren G. Harding and his running mate, Governor Calvin Coolidge.

By the beginning of 1920 skyrocketing inflation and Wilson’s focus upon his proposed League of Nations at the expense of domestic policy had helped make the incumbent President very unpopular – besides which Wilson also had major health problems that had left First Lady Edith effectively running the nation.

Political unrest observed in the Palmer Raids and the “Red Scare” further added to the unpopularity of the Democratic Party, since this global political turmoil produced considerable fear of alien revolutionaries invading the country. Demand in the West for exclusion of Asian immigrants became even stronger than it had been before. Another issue was the anti-Cox position taken by the Ku Klux Klan, and Cox’s inconsistent stance on newly-passed Prohibition – he had been a “wet” but announced he would support Prohibition enforcement in August