What If...Theodore Roosevelt Lost The Election Of 1904?

I'm thinking that, despite the myriad of other reasons, Teddy's Progressive Party lost, in part, due to the perception that he was challenging the "no third term" rule of established American politics. But could there have been a chance for the Bull Moose Party to win in 1912 had Roosevelt lost the election in 1904 to Alton B. Parker? This way, if he so chose, Roosevelt could have run for office in 1912 on the Progressive Party ticket without breaking the rule about no third term of office.
Also, what effect, if any, would the Bull Moose Party have had on American politics had it survived, not only through The Great War, but also through World War 2 up to the present day?
 
He can't win as a third-party candidate. The major ones are too firmly established. But assuming Parker was re-elected in 1908, TR wouldn't have to challenge an incumbent Republican POTUS, so might have a chance of getting the GOP nomination - though not if the party bosses can help it.
 
I'm thinking that, despite the myriad of other reasons, Teddy's Progressive Party lost, in part, due to the perception that he was challenging the "no third term" rule of established American politics. But could there have been a chance for the Bull Moose Party to win in 1912 had Roosevelt lost the election in 1904 to Alton B. Parker? This way, if he so chose, Roosevelt could have run for office in 1912 on the Progressive Party ticket without breaking the rule about no third term of office.
Also, what effect, if any, would the Bull Moose Party have had on American politics had it survived, not only through The Great War, but also through World War 2 up to the present day?
I have trouble thinking of a plausible way for Roosevelt to lose in 1904.
 
Alton Parker is the only presidential candidate from a major party to not have a biography written on him since the election he ran in. I think that conveys the sheer difficulty of having a personality like TR lose against a empty suit like Parker.
 
Alton Parker is the only presidential candidate from a major party to not have a biography written on him since the election he ran in. I think that conveys the sheer difficulty of having a personality like TR lose against a empty suit like Parker.
This. This repeated every second until the heat death of the universe.
 
I actually considered doing a series of "what if" posts on each presidential election in the twentieth century, on the theme of what would have happened if the outcome had reversed.

Of course 1904 is literally the first election in the century, and it utterly defeated me. I just couldn't come up with any plausible reason for Parker to defeat Roosevelt.

To put it in perspective, we are used to 40+ state victories, but this was really the first one of these things where a candidate got over 55% of the popular vote.

Its actually really hard to get the Democrats to win an election in any circumstances between 1896 and 1928, unless the Republicans are split.

If the Democrats had had any chance in 1904, they wouldn't have nominated Parker.
 
State wise it would have only taken Parker to have won in eight states to have won in the electoral college 240 to 236 (238 was required then to win).
Maryland, Missouri, Delaware, New York, West Virginia, Indiana, Colorado & New Jersey.
genusmap.php

Parker 240 ev
Roosevelt 236 ev
 
In Delaware, New York, West Virginia, Indiana, Colorado and New Jersey, Roosevelt won by margins of 10 percent or more. With the situation as it was on Election Day, it was mathematically impossible for the Democrats to win. Of course, most Democratic candidates would have been able to make it closer, but let's not forget this is Alton Parker we're talking about.
 
State wise it would have only taken Parker to have won in eight states to have won in the electoral college 240 to 236 (238 was required then to win).
Maryland, Missouri, Delaware, New York, West Virginia, Indiana, Colorado & New Jersey.

Of the eight states you mention, only two--Maryland and Missouri--were even close. TR carried Colorado by 55.26-41.08%, Delaware by 54.05-44.11%, Indiana by 53.99-40.22%, New York by 53.13- 42.28%, West Virginia by 55.26-42.03%, and New Jersey by 56.68-38.05%! In short, of the eight states you cite, TR carried six by ten percentage points or more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1904 Good luck reversing those--especially the 18.63 point lead in New Jersey!

The truth is that the only way Parker could have won in the Electoral College would have been to win the popular vote or at least come close to doing so. In the real world, one cannot reverse double-digit losses in state after state without making huge gains in the other states as well.
 
Actually, only three states were determined by less than about ten percent: Kentucky (for Parker) and Maryland and Missouri (for TR). Every northern state was strongly for TR, and the ex-Confederate South (as distinguished form the border states) was more solidly Democratic than ever, due in part to the disfranchisement of African Americans, which was almost complete by 1904. (Any chances TR had to make inroads into the white vote in the South were probably lost when he invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House.)

In very few presidential elections have so few states been "in play." Even in, for example, Reagan's 1984 landslide, eight states were decided by 9.18 percent of the vote or less (MN for Mondale; MA, RI, MD, PA, IA, NY and WI for Reagan). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1984
 
Its actually really hard to get the Democrats to win an election in any circumstances between 1896 and 1928, unless the Republicans are split.

Well, they did so in 1916. And see https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/NZXQky_Jgpk/OhWnTSyjfwoJ for my argument that Wilson could have defeated Taft or TR one-on-one in 1912 (though admittedly his beating TR does require a "split" of a sort, with Taft loyalists refusing to vote for TR even if the latter won the GOP nomination). I have also argued that Bryan could have won in 1896 if the Republicans had nominated a weaker candidate than McKinley. https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/JdGV9CyfZu4/kJGvh2rxv3wJ

But I agree that in 1904 it was just about impossible. Incidentally, 1904 demonstrated the futility of the Democrats thinking they could get business backing by nominating a conservative candidate. As the *New York Sun* (then considered the voice of Wall Street) put it, "We prefer the impulsive candidate of the party of conservatism to the conservative candidate of the party which the business interests regard as permanently and dangerously impulsive.” https://books.google.com/books?id=mjZwCf0fLJcC&pg=PA58
 
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