The
1896 United States presidential election was the 28th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1896. Democratic Senator George Gray of Delaware defeated Senator Shelby Moore Cullom and Congressman William Jennings Bryan. William McKinley, the incumbent, was not nominated for re-election by the Republican Party. The election took place during the Panic of 1893, an ongoing economic recession which had led to a wave of support for populist policies. It was the first election in which Idaho, Jefferson, Montana, and Wyoming cast electoral votes. While the new western states were expected to be Republican, all four cast their votes for the Populist Party. It was the first election since 1824 to require a contingent election in Congress to decide the winner.
The incumbent President, Republican William McKinley of Ohio, was extremely unpopular because of his response to the Panic of 1893, and for his support of protectionist measures, which were widely believed to have made the crisis even worse for American consumers. The midterm elections of 1894 saw many western seats flip to the Populists, and many eastern ones flip to the Democrats. McKinley's popularity dipped even within his own party, and at the Republican National Convention in St. Louis, he failed to win even half of the votes on the first ballot, and had his name withdrawn from the balloting. The other leading candidates were former Speaker of the House Thomas Bracket Reed, Senators Matthew Quay and William Allison, and Governor of New York Levi Morton.
However, after several ballots, none of these candidates gained a significant amount of support, and eventually a dark horse candidate emerged - Senator Shelby Moore Cullom
of Illinois, a former state Governor, who had also been the champion of the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act, and who was relatively moderate on tariffs compared to many historically protectionist rivals. Cullom also allowed Republicans to "wave the bloody flag" - as he had been first elected to Congress during the Civil War, in 1864, and Cullom's father, Richard, had been a close ally of Abraham Lincoln's when both served in the Illinois statehouse in the 1850s. Congressman John Dalzell was chosen as Cullom's running mate.
For the second consecutive presidential election, the Democratic Party nominated a conservative from Delaware as its candidate. While in 1892 it had been Thomas Bayard, in 1896 Senator George Gray was the candidate. A supporter of President Cleveland, and a champion of sound money and relatively low tariffs, Gray allowed the Democrats to run a scathing campaign against the incompetence of the McKinley campaign (although, in keeping with the norms of the time, Gray himself did not personally campaign.) Senator Henry Davis of West Virginia was Gray's running mate.
However, the most notable aspect of the 1896 election was the rise of the Populists, led by charismatic crusading Congressman William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, who had
challenged Gray for the Democratic nomination, winning the support of many poor southerners and westerners, especially farmers. While the strength of the liberal conservative Bourbon faction denied Bryan a realistic shot at being the Democratic nominee, he was fiercely supported by the populists, and would sweep the western states, and perform surprisingly strongly in the south, although his pro-silver and pro-inflation views limited his appeal in the midwest and northeast.
As the electoral votes were counted, Gray came up just six votes shy of the majority needed to seal the election, losing California and Texas to Bryan by a narrow margin, when either would have been enough to seal the election outright, and also losing Ohio to Cullom by less than 1.5%.
The election was sent to Congress to decide. A Democratic majority in the Senate easily elected Henry Davis as Vice President, but the vote in the House between Gray, Collum, and Bryan was more fraught. It required multiple ballots before Gray was elected, with the defection of congressmen from California and Texas, who had initially felt bound to vote for their state's choice of Bryan, but were eventually persuaded by party loyalty to switch to Gray, who would be sworn in on March 4th as the first President from Delaware.