AHC: Democrats win in 1920

The 1920 election was one of the biggest curb-stomps in American electoral history, with the Republicans easily beating the Democrats. But did it have to be that way? Your challenge is figuring out the right Democratic candidate and/or the wrong Republican candidate that'll allow the Democrats to win the 1920 election. POD is at earliest January 1 1919. No killing off candidates, unless they had a good chance of dying in OTL. For example a POD where Woodrow Wilson's stroke kills him in 1919 is permitted
 

samcster94

Banned
The 1920 election was one of the biggest curb-stomps in American electoral history, with the Republicans easily beating the Democrats. But did it have to be that way? Your challenge is figuring out the right Democratic candidate and/or the wrong Republican candidate that'll allow the Democrats to win the 1920 election. POD is at earliest January 1 1919. No killing off candidates, unless they had a good chance of dying in OTL. For example a POD where Woodrow Wilson's stroke kills him in 1919 is permitted
Harding's corruption is found out early?
 
I think McAdoo may have a shot. If Wilson is killed off in 1919, he doesnt tell McAdoo not to run, and because of this, McAdoo could have a much more active campaign. Then again, Tom Marshall could make a go at a full term. So i could see a constested covention between Marshall and McAdoo. Cox isnt a dark horse because President Marshall brings the US into League of Nations
 
Then again, Tom Marshall could make a go at a full term.

Marshall would be rather popular with the party if he sees the League of Nations through to ratification with the Lodge Amendments. I say he is nominated for a full term, but nonetheless loses to Harding by a narrower margin than Cox.
 
The best way to ensure a democratic victory in 1920 is for America to not go into WW1. Not only would the Irish stay loyal and vote in usual numbers for the Democratic Party, but ethnic Germans would feel grateful and vote for the Democratic Party.

Wilson keeping his promise would be seen as very positive. If Bryan was more convinced early on that the nation would stay out of the war and stays as Secretary of State he could have been Thomas marshall’s Vice presidential candidate.


Perhaps then if Germany won WW1, they may take America’s neutrality as a sort of support and America would have better trade relations with Germany than Britain or France to say the least.
 
If Bryan was more convinced early on that the nation would stay out of the war and stays as Secretary of State he could have been Thomas marshall’s Vice presidential candidate.

There's no way in hell that Bryan would be anywhere on the Democratic ticket, let alone VP. After 1908 he gave up trying to be President. In 1912 he turned down both the Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominations, he'd certainly do the same in 1920.
 
There's no way in hell that Bryan would be anywhere on the Democratic ticket, let alone VP. After 1908 he gave up trying to be President. In 1912 he turned down both the Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominations, he'd certainly do the same in 1920.


Perhaps I said. He did stop trying to in 1908 and that’s when he started openly coming out in support of issues. What I was more emphasizing is that you would see more of a celebration of the non-interventionist wing, perhaps under the Secretary of State. Issue with that is he left in 1915, but it is still a possibility if one or two things go differently.
 
Hughes unseats Wilson in 1916 and fucks up the WWI aftermath?
That seems like a good POD. It would allow the democrats to paint themselves as anti-war and Harding's "Return to Normaly" campaign would become obsolete, because his party would be blamed for joining WW1
 
Harding at the last moment is conclusively proven to have some African American ancestry? But I doubt that even that would be enough.
 
Harding's corruption is found out early?

Harding himself wasn't corrupt; that is, Teapot Dome (using that loosely as an umbrella label for the oil lease scandals) was something rigged and executed by members of his administration (Denby; Fall; Daugherty). Indeed, it's well documented Harding pretty much blew a few gaskets when he found out his Ohio friends had done so: there are multiple accounts of him pinning Daugherty against a wall, gripping his lapels, screaming "you double-crossing bastard!" in his face, and all but performing some free-hand dental work. Further, Harding acknowledged that it was his friends who were keeping him up at night, and who had betrayed his administration. To be sure, Harding was weak, but Alice Roosevelt got it right when she said "Harding wasn't a bad man. He was just a slob."

If Wilson's stroke in 1919 had proven fatal, it's debatable whether Marshall would have won the nomination in 1920, although he would have contended for it. Could McAdoo have gotten it? Sure he could, but could he have been elected? Very questionable, given the mood of the nation. But let's suppose that the GOP nominates someone who isn't as malleable / appealing as Harding--like Philander Knox, who was offered the nomination.

Problem is, Knox was almost as much a Wall Street lawyer as Elihu Root. So...McAdoo plays on the anti-Wall Street sentiments of the south, plains, and western states and hey presto, a southerner gets into the White House. And I mean a southerner who lived the first 30 years of his life in the south.

If you thought blacks didn't have it so good with Wilson in the White House, I suspect you ain't seen nothin' yet with McAdoo. The KKK will recognize they have, if not an outright friend, a sympathizer. I can imagine what McAdoo's reaction would be to the Tulsa race riots in 1921...probably something along the lines of "...they probably did something to provoke it..."

A president aligned that closely with the forces of bigotry will probably cause some seismic shifts, resulting in what look like very odd political alliances to us in the early 21st century. Ethnic voters, not the least of whom were Irish Catholic, would be put off big time, and would likely look to see what they could get from the GOP. Same goes for blacks--at least where they could vote. African-Americans would probably be more wedded than ever to the Party of Lincoln. Northern Democrats would be doing all they could to distance themselves from McAdoo, with varying degrees of success.

What I would anticipate is that McAdoo's cozy relations with the KKK would have been enough to make him a one term president--and to sour the electorate in industrialized / urban states against the Dems for some time to come.

Guessing McAdoo's successor might well have been someone who would be sufficiently outspoken to challenge McAdoo on any and all fronts: Charles Dawes. With Dawes in the White House, one has someone astute enough in banking and finance to recognize that a bubble was forming and steps needed to be taken promptly. Dawes' measures might well have mitigated the bubble bursting in 1929, although I don't know that it would have been avoided altogether. I would guess, though, that the presidency of Herbert Hoover might have been butterflied away--and that if he had run in 1932, FDR's campaign would have been decidedly different, since there wouldn't have been such dire economic condidtions to campaign agains.
 
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If Wilson's stroke in 1919 had proven fatal, it's debatable whether Marshall would have won the nomination in 1920, although he would have contended for it. Could McAdoo have gotten it? Sure he could, but could he have been elected? Very questionable, given the mood of the nation. But let's suppose that the GOP nominates someone who isn't as malleable / appealing as Harding--like Philander Knox, who was offered the nomination.

I think journalist Charles Willis Thompson got it right about 1920. In his opinion, the GOP didn't need to nominate anyone. They could just have run unpledged Presidential Electors and let them choose the POTUS. The people would still have voted for them if the only alternative was a Democrat.
 
That's too easy; in fact, it's almost become the conventional wisdom here that it would be hard for Hughes to be re-elected in 1920. E.g., https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...y-chance-of-re-election.451833/#post-17599127

Not sure if the rule about a post-WWI POD was in the OP when I first read it, but if it wasn’t, I have two young kids and they keep me up at night so I was probably really fucking tired.

In any case...maybe Marshall handles business and comes up with a good compromise for the League of Nations and he runs on that. That or a member of Wilson’s Cabinet does the same.
 
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