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| Elections in West Virginia |
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The 1896 United States presidential election in West Virginia took place on November 3, 1896. All contemporary 45 states were part of the 1896 United States presidential election. Voters chose six electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.
West Virginia was won by the Republican nominees, former Ohio Governor William McKinley and his running mate Garret Hobart of New Jersey. They defeated the Democratic nominee, former U.S. Representative from Nebraska William Jennings Bryan and his running mate Arthur Sewall. McKinley won the state by a margin of 5.4%,
This was the first time the Republicans had carried West Virginia since Ulysses S. Grant in 1872. McKinley’s win resulted substantially from the fact that workers in West Virginia’s growing coal industry opposed Bryan’s free silver policy [1] because it would cause inflation.[2]
Bryan would lose West Virginia to McKinley again four years later and would later lose the state again in 1908 to William Howard Taft.
- ^ Shannon, Jasper Berry and McQuown, Ruth; Presidential Politics in Kentucky, 1824-1948: A Compilation of Election Statistics and an Analysis of Political Behavior (1950), p. 96
- ^ Weir, Robert E.; Workers in America: A Historical Encyclopedia, p. 320 ISBN 1598847198