The 1892 presidential election occurred following a devastating midterm electoral rout for the Republican Party and fast-mounting discontent in the West. At the RNC in Minneapolis in June, Benjamin Harrison was renominated unenthusiastically and largely for lack of alternatives. The only other possible contender for the nomination was James Blaine, who resigned as Secretary of State the week of the party convention apparently in an effort to draw attention to himself. But Blaine had a loser stigma from his 1884 presidential run and his health was declining; he passed away the following January. Harrison also distrusted Blaine and had no desire to see him get the nomination.Grover Cleveland was the Democrat front-runner and as he had in fact won the popular vote in 1888, did not carry the loser stigma attached to Blaine. During his four year exile, Cleveland had returned to law practice in New York where he served a wealth clientele and became increasingly conservative in his outlook. He was enthusiastically nominated at the Democrat convention in Chicago to the chant "Grover, Grover, with him we'll be in clover!"Discontent in the Plains states and the West led to the rise of the Populist Party, which ran as their candidate a dignified old Civil War officer named James Weaver. But Weaver had been a Republican during the war and his marketability in the South was considered shaky and so Virginia Attorney General James Field was chosen as his running mate. The Populist platform included nationalized railroads and telegraphs, silver-backed currency, a Federal income tax, and postal savings banks.
The general election was a relatively quiet one that avoided the mudslinging of the previous two presidential campaigns. A few attempts were made to wave the Bloody Shirt one last time by urging Union army veterans not to vote for the party of secession and treason. Harrison continued to defend the unpopular McKinley Tariff while Cleveland promised to work out a more fair deal with lower tariffs. First Lady Caroline Harrison passed away two weeks before Election Day and all candidates suspended active campaigning out of respect for her.On Election Day November 8, Cleveland was reelected decisively with 277 electoral votes and 5.5 million popular votes to become the first president elected to non-consecutive terms (holding this distinction until the 2024 election when Donald Trump became the second one), and along with Andrew Jackson one of only two presidential candidates to win the popular vote three times. Harrison got 145 electoral votes and 5.1 million popular votes. Weaver got 22 electoral votes and 1 million popular votes. Cleveland's electoral landslide swept into states that were normally safe Republican territory such as Wisconsin and Illinois. Five states had split electoral votes and James Weaver became a rare third party candidate to break into the electoral column by taking five Western states, including two of the five new states admitted during Harrison's presidency.
The Populists had quite a bit of support in the South in addition to the West but failed to break the Democrats' stranglehold on the region. Why was this? Many Southern whites who might have otherwise been tempted to vote for Weaver hesitated to abandon the Democrats for fear that doing so would empower blacks in the South. Indeed, the Populists had a large number of black supporters and this included a Colored Farmers' Alliance that by 1892 numbered almost a million members. After the 1892 election, state governments in the South were taking no chances. Suppression of black voters increased and within a decade the voting rights of Southern blacks had been all-but snuffed out.This was the first presidential election to involve North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Washington, all admitted in 1889-90--no new states had been admitted since Colorado 14 years earlier as Democrat Congresses long resisted admitting more states that seemed likely to provide additional Republican votes.
When does this get good
>retarded Republican policies under Harrison cause the economy to crash into a depression>which Cleveland is blamed for>so Republicans can ride in on a white horse four years later and declare they're saving the country from Cleveland's incompetence
>>18364246Some things never change
