1900 United States presidential election in Tennessee

November 6, 1900

Nominee William Jennings Bryan William McKinley Party Democratic Republican Home state Nebraska Ohio Running mate Adlai Stevenson I Theodore Roosevelt Electoral vote 12 0 Popular vote 145,240 123,108 Percentage 53.03% 44.95%

County Results Bryan   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90%   90-100% McKinley   40-50%   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90%

President before election William McKinley Republican Elected President William McKinley Republican

Elections in Tennessee
Federal government U.S. President 1796 1800 1804 1808 1812 1816 1820 1824 1828 1832 1836 1840 1844 1848 1852 1856 1860 1864 1868 1872 1876 1880 1884 1888 1892 1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 1916 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024 Presidential primaries Democratic 2004 2008 2016 2020 2024 Republican 2008 2020 2024 U.S. Senate 1796 1798 1803 1809 1823 1826 1829 1833 1835 1841 1844 1847 1851 1853 1858 1866 1867 1875 1877 1883 1887 1889 1893 1895 1899 1901 1905 1907 1911 1913 1916 1918 1922 1924 1928 1930 1934 1936 1940 1942 1946 1948 1952 1954 1958 1960 1964 1966 1970 1972 1976 1978 1982 1984 1988 1990 1994 1996 2000 2002 2006 2008 2012 2014 2018 2020 2024 2026 U.S. House 1796 1797 1799 1801 1803 1805 1807 1809 1811 1813 1815 1817 1819 1821 1823 1825 1827 1829 1831 1833 1835 1837 1839 1841 1842 1843 1845 1847 1849 1851 1853 1855 1857 1859 1861 1865 1867 1868 1870 1872 1874 1876 1878 1880 1882 1884 1886 1888 1890 1892 1894 1896 1898 1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1914 1916 1918 1920 1922 1924 1926 1928 1930 1932 1934 1936 1938 1940 1942 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 Special elections Senate 1797 1798 1799 1809 1811 1815 1817 1819 1821 1825 1829 1838 1839 1840 1843 1857 1877 1898 1905 1913 1930 1934 1938 1964 1994 House At-large 1797 1801 1st 1910 1961 2nd 1815 1891 1939 1964 1988 3rd 1939 4th 1837 1874 1875 5th 1814 1975 1988 6th 1939 7th 1932 1939 8th 1845 1958 1969 9th 1940
State government State elections 2020 2022 Gubernatorial elections 1799 1801 1803 1805 1807 1859 1865 1867 1869 1870 1872 1874 1876 1878 1880 1882 1884 1886 1888 1890 1892 1894 1896 1898 1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1914 1916 1918 1920 1922 1924 1926 1928 1930 1932 1934 1936 1938 1940 1942 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1958 1962 1966 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022 State Senate elections 2018 2020 2022 House of Representatives elections 2018 2020 2022 Ballot measures 2006 Amendment 1 2014 Amendment 1 2022 Amendment 1 2022 Amendment 3
Knoxville Mayoral elections 1987 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023
Memphis Mayoral elections 2015 2019 2023
Murfreesboro Mayoral elections 2014 2018 2022
Nashville Mayoral elections 2011 2015 2018 (sp) 2019 2023
Chattanooga Mayoral elections 2013 2017 2021 2025
Clarksville Mayoral elections 2018 2022 2026
Government

The 1900 United States presidential election in Tennessee took place on November 6, 1900. All contemporary 45 states were part of the 1900 United States presidential election. Voters chose 12 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.

For over a century after the Civil War, Tennessee’s white citizenry was divided according to partisan loyalties established in that war. Unionist regions covering almost all of East Tennessee, Kentucky Pennyroyal-allied Macon County, and the five West Tennessee Highland Rim counties of Carroll, Henderson, McNairy, Hardin and Wayne^[1] voted Republican – generally by landslide margins – as they saw the Democratic Party as the “war party” who had forced them into a war they did not wish to fight.^[2] Contrariwise, the rest of Middle and West Tennessee who had supported and driven the state’s secession was equally fiercely Democratic as it associated the Republicans with Reconstruction.^[3] After the state’s white landowning class re-established its rule in the early 1870s, blacks and Unionist whites combined to give a competitive political system for two decades,^[4] although in this era the Republicans could only capture statewide offices when the Democratic Party was divided on this issue of payment of state debt.^[4]

White Democrats in West Tennessee were always aiming to eliminate black political influence, which they first attempted to do by election fraud in the middle 1880s and did so much more successfully at the end of that decade by instituting in counties with significant black populations a secret ballot that prevented illiterates voting,^[5] and a poll tax throughout the state, which cut turnout by at least a third in the 1890s.^[6] Although the poll tax was supposedly relaxed or paid by party officials in Unionist Republican areas,^[6] turnout would continue to decline seriously in later years, although overall presidential partisan percentages did not change substantially as the GOP attempted to attract Democrats who would benefit from tariffs.^[7]

Tennessee on election would be won by the Democratic nominees, former U.S. Representative and 1896 Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan and his running mate, former Vice President Adlai Stevenson I. They defeated the Republican nominees, incumbent President William McKinley of Ohio and his running mate Theodore Roosevelt of New York. Bryan won the state by a margin of 8.08%, an increase of 2.32 percent on his 1896 margin over McKinley, a small change but a substantial one given the extremely deep partisan loyalties of white Tennesseeans. His increased margin reflected more complete black disenfranchisement and reduced suspicion of his free-silver policies in the major urban areas, which saw him carry normally Republican Knox County. McKinley is the only Republican to win two terms in the White House without carrying Tennessee either time. . Neither McKinley nor Bryan campaigned in Tennessee, and by the fourth week of October the state was generally contested, as it had consistently gone since 1872, to the Democrats.^[8]

Along with having won Tennessee four years earlier against McKinley, Bryan would later win the state again against William Howard Taft in 1908.

Results

See also

• United States presidential elections in Tennessee

Notes

References