The 1920 United States presidential election in New Mexico took place on November 2, 1920. All contemporary forty-eight States were part of the 1920 United States presidential election. Voters chose three electors to represent them in the Electoral College, which voted for President and Vice President.
During the period between New Mexico's annexation by the United States and statehood, the area was divided between largely Republican machine-run highland regions (which were a mix of Hispanos and Anglo migrants from the Midwest and Northeast) and its firmly Southern Democrat and Baptist "Little Texas" region to the southeast.Chilton, Lance; New Mexico: A Guide to the Colorful State, p. 95 A split in the "Old Guard" of highland Republicanism meant that in the state's inaugural presidential election in 1912 Woodrow Wilson carried the state through overwhelming "Little Texas" and southern desert support over Progressive Theodore Roosevelt and incumbent Republican William Howard Taft.Hodgson, Illa D. and Garthwaite, Eloyse M.; 'New Mexico's Early Elections: Statehood to New Deal'; New Mexico Historical Review, January 1, 1995; vol. 70, issue 1, pp. 29-46 Four years later in 1916, Wilson gained sufficient Progressive support to narrowly hold the state against Charles Evans Hughes and the reunited Republican Party; however, in 1918, despite extremely low turnout due to the Spanish flu epidemicMelzer, Richard; 'A Dark and Terrible Moment: The Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 in New Mexico', New Mexico Historical Review, 57 (1982), pp. 213-232 the reunited GOP regained considerable strength.
The following two years saw the Democratic Party's prospects decline still further due to skyrocketing inflation helping make President Wilson very unpopularGoldberg, David Joseph; Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s, p. 44 – besides which the President also had major health problems that had left First Lady Edith effectively running the nation. Political unrest observed in the Palmer Raids and the "Red Scare" further added to the unpopularity of the Democratic Party, since this global political turmoil produced considerable fear of alien revolutionaries invading the country.Leuchtenburg, William E.; The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-1932, p. 75 However, owing to its Anglo population's ties to the Southern United States, New Mexico was not nearly so isolationist as Appalachia or the Midwest,Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 461 but the state's farmers did come to believe that the old Confederacy was gaining preferential treatment – to its disadvantage – from the Democratic administration.Morello, John A.; Albert D. Lasker, Advertising, and the Election of Warren G. Harding, p. 64
Neither Harding nor Cox campaigned in this electoral-vote-poor state; however, a powerful group of corporate Republicans campaigned extensively for Harding,Sanchez, Joseph P.; Spude, Robert L. and Gomez, Arthur R.; New Mexico: A History, p. 200 as did Senator Albert Fall, who was a very close associate of the President-to-be. The corporate and "Old Guard" Republicans campaigned on a "Return to Normalcy" following World War I and the tumult of the Bolshevik Revolution and attempts to spread it across Europe.Brown, Courtney; Ballots of Tumult: A Portrait of Volatility in American Voting, p. 130
New Mexico was won by Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding, in a strong 10-percentage-point sweep against Ohio Governor James M. Cox. Despite this victory, New Mexico was still sixteen percentage points more Democratic than the nation at-large, because the internationalist and traditionally Democratic Plains regions remained extremely loyal to Cox, and Fall's campaign in urban Bernalillo County was so ineffective that that county actually swung 4 percentage points towards the Democrats amidst a national 29-percentage-point swing.
Results + General Election ResultsTabular Statement of the aggregate cast in the State of New Mexico, for Presidential Electors, Representative to Congress and State Officers at a general election held on Tuesday, next after the first Monday in November, A.D. 1920Party Pledged to Elector Votes Republican Party Warren G. Harding E. A. Cahoon57,634 Republican Party Warren G. Harding S. B. Davis Jr.57,495 Republican Party Warren G. Harding Antonio Gomez57,442 Democratic Party James M. Cox R. L. Young46,668 Democratic Party James M. Cox James B. Priddy46,590 Democratic Party James M. Cox Severino Martinez46,584 Farmer-Labor Party Parley P. Christensen J. D. Hume1,104 Farmer-Labor Party Parley P. Christensen Louis Ve Verka1,097 Farmer-Labor Party Parley P. Christensen Donald McRae1,089 Write-in Allen Busen4 Write-in Helquist Norris4 Write-in Upton Sinclair4 Write-in E. V. Debs2 Write-in James W. Cox1Votes cast 105,421
Results by county County Warren G. HardingRepublican James M. CoxDemocratic Parley P. ChristensenFarmer-Labor ScatteringWrite-in Margin Total votes cast # % # % # % # % # %Bernalillo4,96950.53%4,80848.90%560.57%00.00%1611.64%9,833Chaves1,76545.54%2,08053.66%310.80%00.00%-315-8.13%3,876Colfax3,35154.87%2,70944.36%470.77%00.00%64210.51%6,107Curry88427.81%2,14367.41%1524.78%00.00%-1,259-39.60%3,179De Baca41236.75%69361.82%161.43%00.00%-281-25.07%1,121Doña Ana2,62766.27%1,31833.25%190.48%00.00%1,30933.02%3,964Eddy98237.42%1,61161.39%311.18%00.00%-629-23.97%2,624Grant2,23053.76%1,87945.30%380.92%10.02%3518.46%4,148Guadalupe1,59956.30%1,22443.10%170.60%00.00%37513.20%2,840Hidalgo44343.82%55154.50%40.40%131.29%-108-10.68%1,011Lea25525.22%73372.50%232.27%00.00%-478-47.28%1,011Lincoln1,45657.32%1,04741.22%371.46%00.00%40916.10%2,540Luna83444.65%1,00053.33%341.82%00.00%-166-8.89%1,868McKinley1,52560.02%98938.92%271.06%00.00%53621.09%2,541Mora2,47852.89%2,17946.51%280.60%00.00%2996.38%4,685Otero1,22951.36%1,09545.76%692.88%00.00%1345.60%2,393Quay1,21339.15%1,81358.52%722.32%00.00%-600-19.37%3,098Rio Arriba3,98665.97%2,05634.03%00.00%00.00%1,93031.94%6,042Roosevelt57131.43%1,17864.83%683.74%00.00%-607-33.41%1,817San Juan98553.39%83145.04%281.52%10.05%1548.35%1,845San Miguel5,53558.11%3,99041.89%00.00%00.00%1,54516.22%9,525Sandoval1,19457.46%88442.54%00.00%00.00%31014.92%2,078Santa Fe3,06063.92%1,70035.51%270.56%00.00%1,36028.41%4,787Sierra86256.79%64242.29%140.92%00.00%22014.49%1,518Socorro3,15063.16%1,80736.23%300.60%00.00%1,34326.93%4,987Taos2,51964.86%1,35934.99%60.15%00.00%1,16029.87%3,884Torrance1,75160.28%1,12538.73%291.00%00.00%62621.55%2,905Union2,93054.38%2,27342.19%1853.43%00.00%65712.19%5,388Valencia2,83974.59%95124.99%160.42%00.00%1,88849.61%3,806Total 57,63454.67%46,66844.27%1,1041.05%150.01%10,96610.40%105,421
Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican Colfax Grant Guadalupe Otero San Juan Sandoval Sierra Union
Notes
References