Higher turnout in 1912

The 1912 election is one of the "hardy perennials" of AH, and a subject of endless fascination to people on this websidte, yet if the stats are any guide, it seems to have been far less inspiring to those actually called upon to vote in it.

Not only was the turnout well down from 1908 - 58.8% as against 65.4% for the Taft-Bryan contest - but had CA and WA not doubled their electorates by adopting women's suffrage, then the absolute numbers would also have been down. And even more remarkable is the huge disparity between the 19.2 million who voted in elections for the HoR, and the barely 15 million who bothered to cast a vote for POTUS. Despite the "Heinz 57 varieties" of candidates on offer, some 22 percent of those voting spurned the Presidential race altogether, and voted only for Congress and (I
would imagine) State and local offices.

Is it possible to make any assessment of who the 22% were? Did some Republicans scorn to cast a meaningless vote in a contest for second place? Did Clark supporters feel he had been "robbed" and withhold votes from Wilson? Did some of Bryan's faithful consider Wilson too "establishment" a figure, while being unwilling to vote Socialist? Or could there have been some Conservatives out there who found even Taft a bit too liberal?

Question - Is there any way to bring the Presidential vote up to the level of the Congressional one (perhaps if some of the candidatea are different) and if so who is likely to benefit from the increased turnout.
 

Sabot Cat

Banned
House of Reps, 1912

Democrats 8,446,624 [43.1%]
Republicans 6,849,927 [34.99%]
Progressives 2,609,578 [13.3%]
Socialists 1,259,273 [6.4%]
Prohibitionists 244,919 [1.25%]

Total- 19,579,385 [100%]

Presidents, 1912

Democrat 6,296,284 [41.8%] -2,150,340
Progressive 4,122,721 [27.4%] +1,513,143
Republican 3,486,242 [23.2%] -3,363,685
Socialist 901,551 [6.0%] -357,722
Prohibition 208,156 [1.38%] -36,763

Total- 15,048,834 [100%] -4,530,551

640px-PresidentialCounty1912Colorbrewer.gif


1912, Republican Primaries

Roosevelt- 1,183,238
Taft- 800,441
Robert Marion La Follette- 327,357

500px-1912_Rep_Primaries.svg.png


1908, Presidential Election

555px-1908nationwidecountymapshadedbyvoteshare.svg.png



Entirely speculating, but my guess is that it's mostly Roosevelt voters who are nonetheless staunch Republicans, and thus cast votes for GOP Congressional elections, refused to vote Progressive, but likewise refused to support Taft. A possible POD is for the rules of the Republican primaries to be that the candidate with the most/a majority of the votes is the one that gets the nomination, allowing Roosevelt to run for the Republicans.
 
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Thande

Donor
And even more remarkable is the huge disparity between the 19.2 million who voted in elections for the HoR, and the barely 15 million who bothered to cast a vote for POTUS. Despite the "Heinz 57 varieties" of candidates on offer, some 22 percent of those voting spurned the Presidential race altogether, and voted only for Congress and (I
would imagine) State and local offices.

That's really interesting, I hadn't come across that before. It does seem illogical on the face of it (especially considering how many House elections were unopposed in the South!) but there must be a reason. I wonder if any analysis has been done on this in the past.
 
Entirely speculating, but my guess is that it's mostly Roosevelt voters who are nonetheless staunch Republicans, and thus cast votes for GOP Congressional elections, refused to vote Progressive, but likewise refused to support Taft. A possible POD is for the rules of the Republican primaries to be that the candidate with the most/a majority of the votes is the one that gets the nomination, allowing Roosevelt to run for the Republicans.



That could account for some of it, but in that case it's strange that in the HoR races, the Democratic vote lags behind the combined Republican and Progressive vote by only five percentage points, as opposed to about nine points in the Presidential race. Leaves me wondering if there were some Clark supporters (or old Bryan ones) who couldn't stomach a choice between Wilson and Debs.
 

Sabot Cat

Banned
That could account for some of it, but in that case it's strange that in the HoR races, the Democratic vote lags behind the combined Republican and Progressive vote by only five percentage points, as opposed to about nine points in the Presidential race. Leaves me wondering if there were some Clark supporters (or old Bryan ones) who couldn't stomach a choice between Wilson and Debs.

Would Wilson supporters be as unhappy to support Clark though?
 
Would Wilson supporters be as unhappy to support Clark though?

Depends on how he gets nominated. If they feel their man has been "robbed" of victory then they might. And from what I know about Clark, his personality might have appealed less in the Northeast - though this is not certain as iirc he won the MA Primary quite handily, and in any event he might have had more appeal than Wilson further west.
 
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