WI: President Cleveland Runs in '96 as a Gold Democrat

When the Gold Democrats bolted following Bryan's nomination in 1896, they first offered their own nomination to Cleveland, who declined. What if he had accepted?
 

Japhy

Banned
Not much of anything, on one hand he can gain moderates (of the Stevenson and Parker mold) who stayed with Bryan even while not believing in the rhetoric of the Populists, but at the same time he's facing a good amount of unpopularity and is trying for a third term. Perhaps a slight gain for the Gold Democrats but as that party was working as an annex of the GOP, the gains will be aimed to hurt Bryan more, where they can get them.

After that, the Gold Democrats and Bryan himself are probably all beaten down for the running in 1900.
 
Not much of anything, on one hand he can gain moderates (of the Stevenson and Parker mold) who stayed with Bryan even while not believing in the rhetoric of the Populists, but at the same time he's facing a good amount of unpopularity and is trying for a third term. Perhaps a slight gain for the Gold Democrats but as that party was working as an annex of the GOP, the gains will be aimed to hurt Bryan more, where they can get them.

After that, the Gold Democrats and Bryan himself are probably all beaten down for the running in 1900.

The thing is, despite Cleveland being unpopular, he would have had access to the main financiers of the Democratic Party at that time, who in OTL refused to contribute any funds to Bryan's campaign, and may have very likely instead funded McKinley. For example, the Democrats in 1892 managed to gather together $2,350 thousands of dollars, while in 1896 they only managed $675 thousands. The Republicans on the other hand in 1892 had taken in $1,700 thousands, while in 1896 that amount increased to $3,350 thousands. It is possible that a lot of the financial power within the Democratic party could have sat out entirely, but the data does hint to aforementioned idea.

You would also have the German and Irish Democrats likely remaining, in least in large part, with Cleveland given they would be alienated by Bryan's policies and now have another choice beyond McKinley. I'm not certain exactly how prominent they would have been in certain regions at that time, but that would certainly lock Bryan out of the Northeast entirely if not eliminate him, and would remove parts of the Midwest from contention.

Labour workers, despite being a core Democratic constituency at that time, would likely still go for McKinley though by a smaller margin. Cleveland during the last four years of his tenure would have managed to alienate them given his conduct during the various strikes conducted on his watch, while they were just as wary of Bryan given their opposition to the proposals of Free-Silver.

McKinley would win, but I'm not actually certain which way to the South would go; Cleveland or Bryan?
 
I looked at the state by state results and ultimately decided, based on the performance of the OTL Gold Democrats compared to how they did nationally, that Cleveland would be the one to win their support. The split between the two however would be fatal to one another, resulting in quite a few additional easy pickups by the Republicans, considering even if Bryan is running as a Populist in the South he would draw a good chunk of their vote (based on the Populist performance there in 1892). Cleveland comes ahead of Bryan in both the popular and the electoral vote, though far behind McKinley.

genusmap.php


Former Governor William McKinley (R-OH) / NJ Senate President Gary Hobart (R-NJ) - 44.7% PV | 354 EV
President Grover Cleveland (ND-NY) / Vice President Adlai Stevenson (ND-IL) - .............30.2% PV | .77 EV
Former Congressmen William J. Bryan (D-NE) / Shipbuilder Arthur Sewall (D-ME) - ......23.6% PV | .16 EV

 

Japhy

Banned
You have a point about funding but Cleveland is a spent force. I would suggest though that a more viable candidate for what you want would be Senators William Villas and David B. Hill or Secretary of State Richard Olney.

Further its worth pointing out that Fianancial Support did shift to the Republicans not just because Bryan was the Republican nominee but because the Republicans were a party both more likely to attract big business based on its ideology. Another large part of that growth in funding came from Mark Hanna's work for McKinley tapping previously unused sources due to fears of Bryan. Those financiers arn't going to be interested in backing a candidate who could meaningfully split the Anti-Bryan vote. Now, Cleveland or the three I've suggested could draw up more funding than Palmer was able to but at the end of the day the National Democratic ticket was never meant to win, only to keep the "real" party going long enough to rebound in 1900 which is why neither Cleveland or the three had anything to do with running it.
 
No way does the Hoover of that generation get second place in the popular vote while running for a third term.

With a clearer Democratic split, Hanna's going to get a lot less money as it is.
 
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