WI: Taft Dies from a Heart Attack in Second-to-Last Week of October 1912?

Actually, if you combine the popular vote for Taft and Roosevelt in most states, IIRC Roosevelt would win by well over 100 electoral votes.
I did a quick calculation at uselectionatlas.org, all I did was combine the votes of TR and Taft and changed states as necessary. EDIT: Green is Roosevelt, red is Wilson. I did not take into account any butterflies, so take this with a grain of salt.

Again, Roosevelt ran left of Wilson. Most GOPers would have voted for Wilson if they voted for Taft.
 
Actually, if you combine the popular vote for Taft and Roosevelt in most states, IIRC Roosevelt would win by well over 100 electoral votes.
I did a quick calculation at uselectionatlas.org, all I did was combine the votes of TR and Taft and changed states as necessary. EDIT: Green is Roosevelt, red is Wilson. I did not take into account any butterflies, so take this with a grain of salt.

I don't think it is reasonable to assume all or even the majority of Taft votes go to Teddy. Taft supporters would have had 3 viable choices--Wilson, Roosevelt or stay home.
 

Stolengood

Banned
Only reason I didn't want Wilson to win was because he was a MASSIVE step backwards; he wasn't any sort of progressive at all -- a racist "elitist" with dreams of absolute power. He never should've gotten the Presidency.
 
Only reason I didn't want Wilson to win was because he was a MASSIVE step backwards; he wasn't any sort of progressive at all -- a racist "elitist" with dreams of absolute power. He never should've gotten the Presidency.


Agreed entirely. I'd far rather Champ Clark had got it, and would happily settle for Bryan with all his faults - or even Tom Marshall.
 
Agreed entirely. I'd far rather Champ Clark had got it, and would happily settle for Bryan with all his faults - or even Tom Marshall.


Tom Marshall quotes

  • What this country really needs is a good five-cent cigar.
  • A woman had two sons, one of whom ran away and went to sea and one of whom was elected Vice President of the United States. Neither was ever heard of again.
  • The Vice-President's Chamber is adjacent to the Senate Chamber, and so small that to survive it is necessary to keep the door open in order to obtain the necessary cubic feet of air. When the vice-president is in the room [the Capitol Guides] go by with their guests, stop and point him out, as though he were a curiosity.
Seems qualified to me.
 
Ever think that the GOP might try to still encourage vote turnout and then either at the last minute, or sometime between the election and the reading of the electoral votes in February they find a new nominee (such as President Knox)? If they're able to keep the vote up in VT and UT, enough to win, those would eventually be cast for Knox in the Senate. And while Wilson still wins, it does change the dynamic of 1916, IMO (former President Knox anyone?).
 
Tom Marshall quotes

  • What this country really needs is a good five-cent cigar.
  • A woman had two sons, one of whom ran away and went to sea and one of whom was elected Vice President of the United States. Neither was ever heard of again.
  • The Vice-President's Chamber is adjacent to the Senate Chamber, and so small that to survive it is necessary to keep the door open in order to obtain the necessary cubic feet of air. When the vice-president is in the room [the Capitol Guides] go by with their guests, stop and point him out, as though he were a curiosity.
Seems qualified to me.


My favourite story is the one about his meeting with those archaeologists who wanted the government to subsidise an expedition to Guatemala in pursuit of evidence of cave men. Marshall responded that he saw no call for this, since if they were interested in prehistoric man, he could get them all the specimens they needed right there in Washington.
 
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Stolengood

Banned
Marshall would've been a great President. :D

Would that Edith Wilson would've relinquished power after Wilson's stroke, because Marshall seemed like exactly the right man to keep the White House in Democratic hands after 1920. At leat he had a sense of humor...
 
Ever think that the GOP might try to still encourage vote turnout and then either at the last minute, or sometime between the election and the reading of the electoral votes in February they find a new nominee (such as President Knox)? If they're able to keep the vote up in VT and UT, enough to win, those would eventually be cast for Knox in the Senate. And while Wilson still wins, it does change the dynamic of 1916, IMO (former President Knox anyone?).

Certainly possible but I don't think it would lead to the nomination in 1916, when he ran and lost handily. The republican dynamic in 1916 was to heal the fraction in the party. That is why they liked Charles Evans Hughes. As a Supreme Court Justice he was on neither side. With both the President and Vice President dead Knox would have become President so that might have helped his popularlity. However I would think his acceptance of the "Taft Nomination" would have been a strong negative at the 1916 Republican convention.
 
Certainly possible but I don't think it would lead to the nomination in 1916, when he ran and lost handily. The republican dynamic in 1916 was to heal the fraction in the party. That is why they liked Charles Evans Hughes. As a Supreme Court Justice he was on neither side. With both the President and Vice President dead Knox would have become President so that might have helped his popularlity. However I would think his acceptance of the "Taft Nomination" would have been a strong negative at the 1916 Republican convention.



Though if Wilson still gets re-elected, and TR still dies in 1919, Knox could well become front-runner for 1920.
 
...which pretty much guarantees that whoever is his running-mate becomes President; OTL, Knox died on October 12, 1921.


Interesting thought; suppose his VP is Harding. That means that in 1923 we get the first double vacancy in US history. If Hughes is still Sec of State, he gets the White House after all, despite losing in 1916 - but of course he might not be.
 

Stolengood

Banned
Ever think that the GOP might try to still encourage vote turnout and then either at the last minute, or sometime between the election and the reading of the electoral votes in February they find a new nominee (such as President Knox)? If they're able to keep the vote up in VT and UT, enough to win, those would eventually be cast for Knox in the Senate.
Would the GOP of that time really be so devious, though? This was, at the time, the recently-former party of Roosevelt, not the party of "Fear, Loathing, and Gumbo"... ;)
 
Ever think that the GOP might try to still encourage vote turnout and then either at the last minute, or sometime between the election and the reading of the electoral votes in February they find a new nominee (such as President Knox)? If they're able to keep the vote up in VT and UT, enough to win, those would eventually be cast for Knox in the Senate. And while Wilson still wins, it does change the dynamic of 1916, IMO (former President Knox anyone?).

First, the chances of Wilson not securing an Electoral College majority on Election Day 1912 w/a POD just a week or so before are between profoundly-slim and next-to-none.

Second, the electors in states won by the GOP may well cast their ballots that December for Knox if urged to do so by the Republican National Committee, but regardless of whether they do or don't, I simply don't see Knox, even if he's been acting President for 2-1/2 months, becoming the GOP nominee in '16. He's not the healer that the party will need.
 
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