Katana VentraIP

1892 United States presidential election

The 1892 United States presidential election was the 27th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1892. In the fourth rematch in American history, former Democratic President Grover Cleveland defeated incumbent Republican President Benjamin Harrison. Cleveland's victory made him the first and, to date, the only person in American history to be elected to a non-consecutive second presidential term. It was also the first of two times incumbents were defeated in consecutive elections—the second being Jimmy Carter's defeat of Gerald Ford in 1976, followed by Carter's loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

444 members of the Electoral College
223 electoral votes needed to win

75.8%[1] Decrease 4.7 pp

This was the first time a Republican president lost reelection. Harrison's loss was also the second time an elected president lost the popular vote twice, the first being John Quincy Adams in the 1820s. This feat was not repeated until Donald Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020.[2]


Though some Republicans opposed Harrison's renomination, he defeated James G. Blaine and William McKinley on the first presidential ballot of the 1892 Republican National Convention. Cleveland defeated challenges by David B. Hill and Horace Boies on the first presidential ballot of the 1892 Democratic National Convention, becoming both the first presidential candidate and the first Democrat to win his party's presidential nomination in three elections. Groups from The Grange and the Knights of Labor joined to form a new party called the Populist Party. It had a ticket led by former Congressman James B. Weaver of Iowa.


The campaign centered mainly on economic issues, especially the protectionist 1890 McKinley Tariff. Cleveland ran on a platform of lowering the tariff and opposed the Republicans' 1890 voting rights proposal. He was also a proponent of the gold standard, while the Republicans and Populists both supported bimetalism.


Cleveland swept the Solid South and won several important swing states, taking a majority of the electoral vote and a plurality of the popular vote. Weaver won 8.5% of the popular vote and carried several Western states, while John Bidwell of the Prohibition Party won 2.2% of the popular vote. The Democrats did not win another presidential election until 1912.

former U.S. representative from Iowa

James B. Weaver

U.S. senator from South Dakota

James H. Kyle

former representative from North Carolina (died)

Leonidas L. Polk

Appellate judge from Indiana

Walter Q. Gresham

Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote

Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote

1892 United States House of Representatives elections

1892–1893 United States Senate elections

American election campaigns in the 19th century

History of the United States (1865–1918)

History of the United States Democratic Party

History of the United States Republican Party

Second inauguration of Grover Cleveland

Knoles, George (1971). . Stanford University Press. ISBN 040450969X.

The Presidential Campaign and Election of 1892

Ander, O. Fritiof. "The Swedish-American Press and the Election of 1892." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 23.4 (1937): 533–554.

online

Blaine, James G. "The Presidential Election of 1892." The North American Review 155#432 (1892): 513–525. , a primary source

online

Faulkner, Harold U. (1959). . New York: Harper.

Politics, Reform and Expansion, 1890–1900

Jensen, Richard (1971). . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-39825-0.

The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888–1896

(1938). The Politicos: 1865–1896. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.

Josephson, Matthew

Keller, Morton (1977). . Cambridge: Belknap Press. ISBN 0-674-00721-2.

Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America

Kleppner, Paul (1979). . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-1328-1.

The Third Electoral System 1853–1892: Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures

Knoles, George Harmon. "Populism and Socialism, with Special Reference to the Election of 1892." Pacific Historical Review 12.3 (1943): 295–304.

online

Morgan, H. Wayne (1969). From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877–1896. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage (1932) Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, the major resource on Cleveland.

Nevins, Allan

Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. A History of the United States since the Civil War. Volume V, 1888–1901 (1937). pp 169–244.

Sievers, Harry J. "The Catholic Indian school issue and the presidential election of 1892." Catholic Historical Review 38.2 (1952): 129–155.

online

Steelman, Joseph F. "Vicissitudes of Republican Party Politics: The Campaign of 1892 in North Carolina." North Carolina Historical Review 43.4 (1966): 430–442.

online

(1920). History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Mckinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Vol. 8. New York: Macmillan.

Rhodes, James Ford

from the Library of Congress

Presidential Election of 1892: A Resource Guide

1892 popular vote by counties

1892 State-by-state Popular vote

Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine

Election of 1892 in Counting the Votes