1920 - Harding vs. Cox
Harding poses during the 1920 campaign; Courtesy of the Library of Congress
At the Republican National Convention, after a hopeless deadlock between the two favorites, General Leonard Wood and Illinois Governor Frank Lowden, the proverbial smoke-filled room of party insiders agrees to compromise with Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who is nominated on the 10th ballot. Harding’s campaign manager, Will Hays, promptly sets about amassing funds. One convention delegate, Oklahoma oilman Jake Hamon, donates $250,000, with the understanding that Harding will choose him for secretary of the interior. (Unfortunately for Hamon, he’ll die before the promise can be carried out.) In the end, Harding’s war chest amounts to about $8 million, a number that shocks one Harding supporter, chewing gum king William Wrigley, Jr., because it seems so small. (Wrigley complains that the money is about as much “as I spend every week advertising a penny stick of Chewing Gum.”) Even so, it’s the largest amount ever raised by a presidential candidate, the equivalent of more than $90 million in today’s dollars, and it gives Harding an enormous edge over the Democratic nominee, Ohio Governor and newspaper publisher James M. Cox, who only raises a fourth as much money.
Harding chooses to campaign in the reticent fashion of William McKinley, venturing just once away from his home in Marion, Ohio. “I know my limitations,” he tells a friend. But with its millions in the bank, the Harding campaign can afford to compensate for its man’s lack of energy and charisma. To that end, Hays hires adman Albert Lasker, who introduces “modern” advertising techniques to politics in his effort to “humanize” Harding. Lasker arranges for the Chicago Cubs to play an exhibition game in Marion, so Harding can be seen publicly enjoying the great American pastime, and invites an assortment of movie stars to fawn over the candidate. Meanwhile, thousands of photos of Harding and his wife, Florence, are distributed to newspapers across the nation in an effort to portray the Hardings as ordinary folks. The campaign also enlists the services of singer Al Jolson, the most popular entertainer in America, who tours the nation singing lyrics that compare Harding to Abraham Lincoln.
On Election Day, Harding crushes Cox, winning the popular vote by 60.3 percent to 34.1 percent, and racking up 404 electoral votes to Cox’s 127. Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs comes in third, with 914,000 votes.
SOURCES: “The Presidential Election of 1920,” American Leaders Speak: Recordings From World War I and the 1920 Election, Library of Congress; G. Thomas Scott, Pursuit of the White House: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics and History (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press), 1987; M.R. Werner, Privileged Characters (New York: R.M. McBride & Company), 1935; Andrew Sinclair, The Available Man (New York: The Macmillan Company), 1965; Gil Troy, “Money and Politics: The Oldest Connection,” The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 1997; The Inflation Calculator; “The Campaign and Election of 1920,” Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia; David McKay, “Warren G. Harding’s Words Hang Over His Burial Site and Legacy,” Detroit Free Press, September 13, 1999; “Prince of Hucksters,” Time, August 29, 1960 ; Gil Troy, letter to the editor, The New York Times, June 24, 1992; John A. Morello, Selling the President, 1920: Albert D. Lasker, Advertising, and the Election of Warren G. Harding (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers), 2001; “1920 Presidential Election Results,” David Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.
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