During the Third Party System, Connecticut was one of a small number of critical swing states due to its opposing Democratic Catholic and Republican Yankee populations being closely matched at the polls.[1] However, the fear William Jennings Bryan generated amongst the northeastern industrial elite,[2] and among Catholic voters who belonged to a church that condemned free silver,[3] meant that after the “Panic of 1893” Connecticut became substantially a one-party Republican state, although not to the same degree as many states in upper New England,[4]the Midwest or the Pacific. No Democrat would serve as a United States Senator from the state during the “System of 1896”, and only one Democrat would serve as Governor — the aging Simeon Eben Baldwin, who had been elected in 1910.
Despite the severe divisions that had been affecting the dominant Republican Party since 1910, incumbent PresidentWilliam Howard Taft and Vice PresidentJames S. Sherman led the state in the earliest polls from July.[5] However, when a better poll was taken in October, it was clear that Progressive Party candidates, former President Theodore Roosevelt and his running mate California GovernorHiram Johnson were taking too many votes to hang on even to the forty-four-thousand vote majority Taft had gained in 1908.[6] The later poll proved accurate and Connecticut was won by the Democratic nominees, New Jersey GovernorWoodrow Wilson and Indiana GovernorThomas R. Marshall won Connecticut by a narrow margin of 3.28 percent, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate since Grover Cleveland in 1892 to win the state or any county. Fairfield County last voted Democratic in 1884.
While Taft lost the state, his 35.88 percent of the popular vote made it his fifth strongest state in terms of popular vote percentage after Utah, New Hampshire, Vermont and New Mexico.[7] Connecticut was also the only northeastern state where Socialist Eugene V. Debs received over 5 percent of the vote. This was the first occasion since 1852 that a Democrat won New London County. As of 2023, this was the most recent presidential election in which the Democratic nominee carried the town of Monroe.
^Reichley, A. James (2004). Faith in Politics. p. 201. ISBN0815773749.
^Harpine, William D. From the Front Porch to the Front Page: McKinley and Bryan in the 1896 Presidential Campaign. pp. 166–167. ISBN9781585444502.
^Burnham, Walter Dean (1971). "The System of 1896". In Kleppner, Paul (ed.). The Evolution of American Electoral Systems. pp. 176–179. ISBN0-313-21379-8.
^"If the Electoral College Fails to Choose a President". The Boston Globe. Boston. July 12, 1912. p. 6.
^"Connecticut's Vote Will Go to Wilson: Political Indicaitons Point to Democratic Success in Nutmeg State — Moose Split Republicans: Progressives Undermine Taft's Chances in Section that Gave Him 44,000 Plurality in 1908". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn. October 27, 1912. p. 7.
