# 1916 Presidential Election [[Woodrow Wilson]]'s reelection — narrowly. The election was decided in California, which Wilson carried by approximately 3,800 votes; Republican nominee Charles Evans Hughes (an associate justice of the Supreme Court who resigned to run) reportedly went to bed on election night believing he had won. Wilson won 277 to 254 electoral votes, 49.2% to 46.1% in the popular vote. The campaign slogan that anchored Wilson's victory was "**He Kept Us Out of War**" — the World War I argument that proved obsolete five months later when Wilson asked Congress for a war declaration in April 1917. ## Result - **[[Woodrow Wilson]]** (Democrat) — 277 electoral votes, 49.2% popular - **Charles Evans Hughes** (Republican) — 254 electoral votes, 46.1% popular - Allan L. Benson (Socialist) — 0 electoral votes, 3.2% popular - Total: 531 electoral votes ## Right-wing relevance The 1916 election's right-wing relevance is largely structural — it produced the second Wilson term during which the [[Espionage Act]], Sedition Act, Selective Service Act, federal civil-service segregation, and the WWI domestic-mobilization apparatus were all built. The "He Kept Us Out of War" slogan is also a recurring case study in campaign-promise discount rates: the slogan won the election; the promise lasted five months. Contemporary right-wing commentary on [[Iraq War]]-era and Ukraine-era campaign rhetoric occasionally invokes this precedent. ## Connections - [[Woodrow Wilson]] — Reelected; led the country into WWI five months later. - [[Theodore Roosevelt]] — Did not run; declined the 1916 Progressive nomination; endorsed Hughes. ---