The one thing I've seen overlooked so far in the rosy pictures painted for Bryan is that he's a three time loser by the time 1912 rolls around, and that his message is getting shopworn if not outright tiresome. Also, there has to be something in the mind of the electorate looking at three time loser Bryan and saying to the Democrats, "Is that the best you could do?" At least with Roosevelt, he's a recent past president who went out on top and has a solid record of accomplishments. No matter how you slice it, you can't say that for Bryan.
Not sure how you'd account for the "here we go again..." factor, but I'm hard pressed to see how that wouldn't cut-significantly-into Bryan's vote totals. Faced with a choice between a relatively conservative, placid sitting president, a three time loser whose fourth verse to his theme song sounds a lot like the other three, and a dynamic former president with a pretty good record, that choice seems pretty easy to me--but then, I'll admit to a decided bias.
No one is saying that having Bryan instead of Wilson couldn't have changed a percentage point or two. But is there the slightest reason to expect more than that?
When I study the figures, what strikes me is how
little has really changed - at least at the Presidential level. The combined Taft/TR vote - 50.6% - is only 1% down on Taft's in 1908, and Wilson's 41.8% just 1.2% down on Bryan's. There has, as previously noted, been a massive drop in
turnout, but it seems to have hit both sides about equally.
In short, all those who have in the past voted for Republican Presidents, have voted for one or other of the two on offer, while those who normally vote Democratic have voted - surprise, surprise - for the Democrat. There have been no obvious defections either way.
This is, of course, deceptive. In the Congressional races, Democrats made gains even in two-way contests, which would indicate that quite a few TR supporters must have voted Democratic for the HoR. But his presence on the ballot spared them - for one election - from having to choose whether to vote for a Democratic
President. But this of course was only a reprieve. In 1916, with TR out of the game, the choice could no longer be avoided - and the Democrats soared to their highest popular vote for forty years! In short, there are the makings of a realignment in favour of the Democratic Party, but the Bull Moose intervention has made this a tad less obvious.
What I really don't understand is this persistent notion that somewhere out there are legions of Democrats ready at the drop of a hat to go Republican if the Democratic nominee is less than perfect in their eyes. Where is there the slightest evidence for this? Those Democrats who disliked Bryan to the point of joining the Republicans had already made that choice in the 1890s, and by 1912 that lode was long since mined out. And as 1904 showed, TR's appeal was essentially limited to a wing of the Republican Party. Democrats - even those who rejected Parker - showed little inclination to go over to him, and this seems to have been equally true in 1912.