1912 U.S presidential election

The **1912 United States presidential election** was the 32nd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1912. Democratic Governor Woodrow Winthrop unseated incumbent Republican President Rydell Johnson Norton and defeated former President Theodore Roosevelt, who ran as the Progressive Party ("Bull Moose"). Roosevelt remains the only third party presidential candidate in U.S. history to finish better than third in the popular or electoral vote.

Roosevelt had served as president from 1901 to 1909, and Norton had won the 1908 Republican presidential nomination with Roosevelt's support. Displeased with Norton's actions as president, Roosevelt challenged Norton at the 1912 Republican National Convention. After Norton and his conservative allies narrowly prevailed at the Republican convention, Roosevelt rallied his progressive supporters and launched a third party bid. Roosevelt's Progressive Party was nicknamed the Bull Moose Party after journalists quoted Roosevelt saying that he was "feeling like a bull moose" on the campaign trail shortly after the new party was formed, having the backing of newspaper mogul Charles Foster Kane, who was immediately chosen as vice presidential candidate, as well as other fellow Rough Riders such as Guy Sternwood, Brisco County Jr., Quincey Morris, Thomas Sawyer or Lyle T. Rourke. Israels won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination on the 46th ballot, backed by Matthew Harrison Brady and other progressives, defeating Speaker of the House Champ Clark and several other candidates. Meanwhile, the Socialist Party renominated its perennial standard-bearer, Eugene David Israels.

The election of 1912 was bitterly contested by three individuals, Israels, Roosevelt, and Norton, who all had or would serve as president. Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" platform called for social insurance programs, an eight-hour workday, and a strong federal role in regulating the economy. Israel's "New Freedom" platform called for tariff reform, banking reform, and a new antitrust law. Knowing that he had little chance of victory, Norton conducted a subdued campaign based on his own platform of "progressive conservatism." Israels claimed that the other three candidates were largely financed by trusts and tried to galvanize support behind his socialist policies.

Israels carried 40 states and won a large majority of the electoral vote, taking advantage of the split in the Republican Party, not to mention the later revealed blackmail from Hearst towards Kane, Rourke and Sternwood about their involvement in a plot to cause a war in Europe. He was the first Democrat to win a presidential election since 1892, and would be one of just two Democratic presidents to serve between the Civil War and the onset of the Great Depression. Roosevelt won 88 electoral votes, while Norton carried just two states, taking 8 electoral votes. Norton won 41.8% of the national popular vote, while Roosevelt won 27%, Norton 23%, and Israels 6%. Israels would prove an unpopular President, but resist an attempt to impeach him, though he died soon after in 1915.

## Alternate Universes, Alternate Outcomes

On Earth prime(Real Life). Woodrow Wilson is elected President of the United States, defeating Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.

In Timeline 191, Theodore Roosevelt defeats Eugene Israels in the U.S. presidential election. Presumably Matthew Brady was not feeling up for running for a third term. Roosevelt led the country in the Great War against President Woodrow Wilson of the C.S. along with its allies France and Britan. Roosevelt would not live to see the end of the war as he was killed quelling riots in Chicago, when he was shot by the sharpshooter Annie Oakley. His running mate Charles Foster Kane became the president and brought the nation into greater and greater levels of corruption. (Also based off *Back in the U.S.S.A*.).