What if Woodrow Wilson dies in 1912, Teddy wins?

What if Woodrow Wilson had died in a train crash, giving teddy the election? How does this presidency look like, with the first progressive president? Does the progressive party stay or eventually merge back with the republicans? Finally how does this affect ww1?
 
If Wilson dies, the democrats reconvene, hurriedly make a new nomination, and proceed to win anyways. Roosevelt was a long shot.
 
The Democratic National Committee meets and either (1) "bumps" Marshall up to the presidential candidacy, or (2) chooses Champ Clark as presidential candidate with Marshall still the vice-presidential candidate. In either case, the Democrats still win the White House--either Clark or Marshall will hold the core Democratic vote, which is all the Democrats need to do to win in 1912 with the TR-Taft split.
 
all the Democrats need to do to win in 1912 with the TR-Taft split.

If you really want Teddy in 1912, just have him the Republican nomination. It was a close match and Taft wouldn't have been a spoiler if he lost the nomination. In a straight contest between Roosevelt and Wilson, TR has a better than even chance of winning.
 
The Democratic National Committee meets and either (1) "bumps" Marshall up to the presidential candidacy, or (2) chooses Champ Clark as presidential candidate with Marshall still the vice-presidential candidate.



Which they go for might depend on the timing. Basically, I suspect that the closer to election day this happens, the more likely they are to go for Marshall. If it's early enough to recall the convention, then Clark is in with a fair chance, but if it's late enough that the DNC have to choose, they may well take the line of least resistance.

If it's Marshall, that raises the question of his VP. They'll probably offer the second spot to Clark, but he may well decline if he feels he has more clout as Speaker than as Vice. One possibility is that they might make gesture of "courtesy" to Wilson's state by picking Senator James Martine of NJ, but I don't know enough about how he was regarded to say how likely that is.
 
If you really want Teddy in 1912, just have him the Republican nomination. It was a close match and Taft wouldn't have been a spoiler if he lost the nomination. In a straight contest between Roosevelt and Wilson, TR has a better than even chance of winning.

Perhaps if TR did not run for president, Taft would win the election by a large margin. This would be more interesting due to the more obscure nature of Taft.
 
Perhaps if TR did not run for president, Taft would win the election by a large margin. This would be more interesting due to the more obscure nature of Taft.

Forget it.

If Taft had a realistic chance of winning, TR would not have challenged him, but waited for 1916. The Republicans had already been creamed in the 1919 midterms, and showed no sign of recovery. For good or ill, the next POTUS would be named at the Democratic Convention. November was a formality.
 
He leads a united party to victory. He signs the same progressive legislation that Wilson did. He gets in trouble for being too pro Entente.

By 1912 there wasn't a dog's chance of a united Republican Party. Even four years later they still hadn't pulled themselves together sufficiently to win.

Wilson v TR would be closer run than Wilson v Taft, but Wilson probably still wins.
 
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