With 55.22 percent of the popular vote, Colorado proved to be Harrison's fifth strongest victory in terms of percentage in the popular vote after Vermont, Nevada, Maine and Kansas.[1] This was nonetheless the last election of an era when Colorado had, like the Plains States to its east, been solidly Republican, with that party continuously controlling the legislature and holding the governorship for five of seven terms. Widespread criticism of the national party for its monetary policy[2] in a state that was the major producer of silver in the United States[3] and was resentful of the Northeast[4] – where the Republican Party’s power base was located – would turn the state into a Populist stronghold and then a Democratic-leaning state until after World War I.
Results
1888 United States presidential election in Colorado[5]
^Ubbelohde, Carl; Benson, Maxine and Smith, Duane A.; A Colorado History, pp. 206-207 ISBN0871089424
^Larson, Robert W.; ‘Populism in the Mountain West: A Mainstream Movement’; Western Historical Quarterly; Vol. 13, No. 2 (April 1982), pp. 143-164
^Azari, Julia and Hetherington, Mark J.; ‘Back to the Future? What the Politics of the Late Nineteenth Century Can Tell Us about the 2016 Election’; The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science; Vol 667: Elections in America; (September 2016), pp. 92-109
