Teddy Roosevelt sits out 1912

[Hamster]

1912
Theodore Roosevelt decides is convinced to stay out of the presidential race. Taft wins reelection by a wider margin than the map indicates due to a historically strong socialist performance.

William Taft/Nicholas Butler 47%
Woodrow Wilson/Thomas Marshall 42%
Eugene Debs/Emil Seidel 9%

1916
William Taft continued his polices from his previous administration. When war broke out in Europe, he kept the United States neutral.  At the Republican National Convention in 2015, the "preparedness" faction dominated and elected former Secretary of State Elihu Root and Senator Lawrence Sherman. The Democrats chose a more moderate tone, nominating progressive Governor Thomas R. Marshall and plains Governor John Burke.

Thomas R. Marshall/John Burke 48%
Elihu Root/Lawrence Sherman 46%
Allan Benson/George Kirkpatrick 4%

[Hamster]

1920
The Great War dragged on until Spring of 1919. Both sides were utterly exhausted and neither looked likely to make a break-through. With France and Germany each on the verge of collapse, a general peace was signed in April of 1919, whereby no one gained anything. Europe, devastated from war, began the process of demobilization. The drawback caused a recession which became a global downturn which ended in the summer of 1920, but still impacted the American mindset at the time of the election.

President Marshall managed to keep the United States out of the Great War, but involvement in the Mexican revolution could not be avoided. Otherwise, his administration was characterized by a continuation of Taft's trust-busting policies, and other progressive policies. He oversaw the implementation of three constitutional amendments. The 16th Amendment made an income tax constitutional and led to the creation of the IRS. The 17th Amendment established direct election of US senators by popular vote. The eighteenth, which prohibited the manufacture or sale of alcohol in the United States. And the nineteenth, which gave women the right to vote.

During the Versaille treaty negotiations in the summer of 1919, Marshall was hammered by conservatives for not having "won the United States a seat at the table" by intervening earlier. The world was reassembled without United States input, much to the chagrin of the American elite. The Republicans nominated Major General Leonard Wood, former Army Chief of Staff under Roosevelt and preparedness advocate during the Great War. His campaign played on the sense of missed opportunity and the nationalist sentiments of Americans.

Meanwhile, Eugene Debs ran for president again on the Socialist ticket. His personal popularity among sections of the working class, along with the growing strength of workers movements (notably the IWW) and the recent memory of economic depression led his campaign to perform nearly as well as in 1912. Wood's electoral victory is exaggerated by strong socialist performances in key states, particularly in the west.

Leonard Wood/William Sproule  47%
Thomas Marshall/John Burke 43%
Eugene Debs/Seymour Stedman 8%

[Hamster]

1924
Wood's administration became involved in numerous corruption scandals, most notably the Tea Pot Dome scandal. Wood became hated by the working classes for his role in the Blair Hill massacre, in which federal troops and bomber planes called in by Wood to break a strike of West Virginia mine workers slaughtered 472 men and 11 women. This incident caused the Railroad Strike of 1922 to turn into a general strike which paralyzed the nation for several weeks. This contributed to a recession which began early in the following year and lasted until summer of 1924.

The Democrats had trouble capitalizing on these fortuitous circumstances. The Ku Klux Klan had exploded on the political scene in the last decade; they demanded Indiana Senator Samuel Ralston, an anti-Catholic crusader, be nominated. Ralston deadlocked the convention with Governor Al Smith of New York, a Catholic who represented the Progressive wing of the party. In the infamous Klanbake outside the Democratic Convention, Klan members burned crosses and effigies of Smith and threatened to become violent if he was nominated. Whether because of that threat, or other machinations on the floor of the covention, Ralston secured a late victory. Senator Carter Glass of Virginia was nominated for Vice President. The "Klan Ticket" would have been confined to Dixie, had it not been for a strong third party challenge.

In 1922, Progressive Republicans led by Senator Hiram Johnson of California and Senator Robert Lafollette of Wisconsin bolted the party to join with the Socialist and Farmer-Labor Parties along with various unions to form the Progressive Party. The Progressive Party nominated Bolstered by the general mood of anger among the working class, they performed much better than anyone would have expected.

Leonard Wood/William Sproule 40%
Samuel Ralson/Carter Glass 32%
Robert Lafollette/Hiram Johnson 26%

No candidate won a majority of electoral votes, throwing the election to congress. Democrats held slim majorities in both houses, and confirmed their Vice Presidential candidate, Carter Glass, on the first ballot. However, many Democrats had reservations about electing the "Klan Candidate" president. After several rounds of balloting, Leonard Wood was selected to begin his second term. This fiasco led Congress to pass the 21st Amendment, which abolished the electoral college in favor of direct election of the President. The amendment would not be ratified until after the 1928 election.