After nearly three years of debate, on July 6 1923, Warren Harding put his foot down on the matter of apportionment for the states in the 1924 election, only about a year away. He told people that if the states did not go by the normal seat increase of the last several decades, he would campaign in the south, which was his way of saying he would throw the 1924 election, which scared republicans into caving in and agreeing to the terms of the current seat changes. In the next several months, states appointed the would have been 483 seats to the nation, with 220K people per district on average. It would later not matter what Harding's threats were, as he would end up dead in August 1923, with Calvin Coolidge taking the oath of office. Many would consider this act to be Harding's only good act as president, as many people have done analysis on what the elections would have been like in the future if the electoral college stayed at 435...
In November 1923, Calvin Coolidge announced he would indeed be running for re-election, thinking that he will do a good job keeping the country together in the next four years. At the same time, 68-year-old Rob LaFollette decided he would run as a third party candidate, under the progressive party title just like Roosevelt 12 years prior. He picked a democrat as his running mate, Burton Wheeler from Montana to help him grant those 4 electoral votes, which if he had won that and Wisconsin, could give him at least 18 total. Controversy rose when people pointed out that if elected, he would be the oldest president ever elected and the first to serve into his seventies, but he countered saying that he was in great condition despite some fears.
The progressive party and republican party had easy conventions, but the democrat convention was a bit of a hectic one. One so hectic that it caused dozens of democrats to leave and join the LaFollette movement which was gaining traction, but eventually John Davis was named a compromise candidate. Despite the fact that there was no real doubt that Coolidge would win on the public eye, it was something that Coolidge feared would not happen due to how LaFollette was running his campaign, gathering up people in large crowds of people from all over the country, he felt like LaFollette would throw the election to the house, and win the election that way.
The election was going along as most would expect. With Coolidge polling ahead in the north east by landslide margins, Davis leading in the Confederacy by insurmountable margins, and LaFollette giving Coolidge a good run in the west, with Wisconsin virtually locked in for him. Most of the swing states had been considered states like Minnesota and California for LaFollete v Coolidge, and the border states and southern esque states for Coolidge v Davis. In the end, the election outcome was expected mostly, and while it was closer than Coolidge wanted, it was still enough to show him a definite victory
Calvin Coolidge - 325 electoral votes (56.2 percent) / 44.04 percent popular vote
John Davis - 205 electoral votes (35.5 percent) / 33.82 percent popular vote
Rob LaFollette - 48 electoral votes (8.3 percent) / 21.61 percent popular vote
The 1924 election was a very important election on the whole. Not only did it show how the south was officially titanium democrat even in the event of a landslide, but it also contained at the time, the second most successful third party run ever in both electoral and popular vote. LaFollette only won half the electoral percentage of Roosevelt, and about 3/4 of his popular support, but LaFollette actually won more states than Roosevelt, with seven, making him at the time the most successful third party candidate ever in terms of physical states won. Also a interesting fact about this election was how few states were won with less than 40 percent. As compared to 1912 where nearly every state outside the south was, only a few Coolidge states were won with less than 40 percent. Every single LaFollette state was won with more than 40, and every single Davis state was as well. This showed truly how united behind a candidate most states were, in that most states were clearly for one candidate.
A flip of Washington, Indiana, Nebraska, Utah and Wyoming, would have made the election go to the house of representatives as Coolidge would have 287, 3 less than needed. The final result would have been 287 Coolidge, 232 Davis, and 59 LaFollette, with the popular vote being 39.04 Coolidge, 36.32 Davis, and 24.11 LaFollette. And to cap it off, this also ended up being one of the diversively decisive county and district elections in the history of the country, where each area was mostly dominated by one party or another. It is due to the closeness of the electoral vote that Coolidge and LaFollette and Davis waited until November 7th to each give their speeches.
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That is part one of the more explained and comprehensive version of the maps. I will post a more detailed 1928, and then after that, I will do 1932 and beyond
