Wisconsin during the Third Party System was a Republican-leaning but competitive state whereby historically anti-Civil War German Catholic counties stood opposed to highly pro-war and firmly Republican Yankee areas.[1] However, following the Populist movement, whose inflationary monetary policies were opposed by almost all urban classes and viewed as dangerously radical by rural German Catholics,[2] Wisconsin’s upper classes, along with the majority of workers who followed them, completely fled from William Jennings Bryan’s agrarian and free silver sympathies.[3] Although in 1892Grover Cleveland had become the first Democrat to carry the state since the formation of the Republican Party, in 1896 Wisconsin would prove to be Republican William McKinley’s strongest state outside the Northeast, as Bryan’s free silver monetary policy gained little support from dairy farmers who were less affected by drought or debt than wheat growers.[4]
Wisconsin would henceforth become almost a one-party polity dominated by the Republican Party.[5] The Democratic Party became entirely noncompetitive outside the previously anti-Yankee areas adjoining Lake Michigan in the eastern part of the state. In response to Democratic strength weakening severely after 1894, however, challenges within the state Republican Party from Robert M. La Follette would emerge rapidly, with the progressive reformer being elected Governor coincident with the presidential election.[6]
Despite McKinley’s large win in 1896, Wisconsin was considered doubtful at the beginning of the 1900 campaign.[7] However, by the middle of October expert opinion suggested strongly that McKinley would carry the state, and that the state’s Democrats were abandoning nominee William Jennings Bryan for the second consecutive election.[8] This was confirmed by polls just before Election Day,[9] and as it turned out McKinley essentially repeated his three-to-two success of 1896, winning by 24.05% and carrying all but four counties. McKinley's popular vote share of 60.04% broke his own record from the previous election for the largest by any candidate in Wisconsin to that point. Once again, this record would be broken in the next election.
^The 1901 Blue Book gives the totals as McKinley 265,760; Bryan 159,163; Woolley 10,027; Debs 7,048; and Maloney 503. Based on the Board of Canvassers report, these totals are simply incorrect; no elector on the Republican, Democratic, or Prohibition tickets received those numbers of votes. Indeed, the Blue Book is an unreliable source for Wisconsin election data from about 1890 to 1920 and its figures frequently differ from the figures listed in the Board of Canvassers reports.
^This stated total seems likely to be a mistake; the county figures add up to 159,079. If it is a mistake, then Rosch would be the highest Democratic elector. The Wisconsin Board of Canvassers reports for presidential electors often have mistakes (oddly, however, the reports for congressmen and state officers rarely have mistakes), though the 1900 election is unusual in that the report has mistakes for the highest electors on some tickets.
^Based on totals for highest elector on each ticket
^Burnham, Walter Dean; 'The System of 1896: An Analysis'; in The Evolution of American Electoral Systems, pp. 178-179 ISBN0313213798
^Cooper, John Milton jr.; ‘Why Wisconsin? The Badger State in the Progressive Era’; The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol. 87, No. 3 (Spring, 2004), pp. 14-25
^‘An Election Forecast’; Courier-Democrat (Langdon, North Dakota), September 6, 1900, p. 4
^‘Wisconsin Democrats Abandining Bryan’; The Craig News (Craig, Nebraska), October 19, 1900, p. 7
^‘Four Years More of M‘Kinley’; Evening Times-Republican (Marshalltown, Iowa); November 6, 1900, p. 1
^ abWisconsin Historical Society, Tabular Statement of votes given for President and Vice President of the United States at the general election held in the several towns, wards, villages, and election districts in the several counties of the State of Wisconsin, on the Tuesday next succeeding the first Monday, being the sixth day of November A.D. 1900