Wilson defeated incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft and Progressive Party nominee of former president Theodore Roosevelt to win the 1912 presidential election, becoming the first Southerner to be elected president since the American Civil War. Wilson defeated incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft and Progressive Party nominee of former president Theodore Roosevelt to win the 1912 presidential election, becoming the first Southerner to be elected president since the American Civil War. Speaker of the House Champ Clark of Missouri was viewed by many as the front-runner for the nomination, while House Majority Leader Oscar Underwood of Alabama also loomed as a challenger. Clark found support among the Bryan wing of the party, while Underwood appealed to the conservative Bourbon Democrats, especially in the South. In the 1912 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Clark won several of the early contests, but Wilson finished strong with victories in Texas, the Northeast, and the Midwest.
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