The 1880 United States presidential election in Kentucky took place on November 2, 1880. All contemporary thirty-eight states were part of the

1880 United States presidential election The 1880 United States presidential election was the 24th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 1880, in which Republican nominee James A. Garfield defeated Winfield Scott Hancock of the Democratic Party. The voter tur ...

. Kentucky voters chose twelve electors to the Electoral College, which selected the

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

and

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...

Background and vote

Ever since the Civil War, Kentucky had been shaped politically by divisions created by that war between

secessionist Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics lea ...

, Democratic counties and Unionist, Republican ones,Sullivan, Robert David
‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’
''America Magazine'' in ''The National Catholic Review''; June 29, 2016 although the state as a whole leaned Democratic throughout this era and the GOP would never carry the state during the

Third Party System In the terminology of historians and political scientists, the Third Party System was a period in the history of political parties in the United States from the 1850s until the 1890s, which featured profound developments in issues of American na ...

at either presidential or gubernatorial level.Brown, Thomas J.; ‘The Roots of Bluegrass Insurgency: An Analysis of the Populist Movement in Kentucky’; ''The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society'', Vol. 78, No. 3 (Summer 1980), pp. 219-242 Following

Samuel J. Tilden Samuel Jones Tilden (February 9, 1814 – August 4, 1886) was an American politician who served as the 25th Governor of New York and was the Democratic candidate for president in the disputed 1876 United States presidential election. Tilden was ...

’s 24-point victory in the state in 1876, the tobacco-growing

Jackson Purchase The Jackson Purchase, also known as the Purchase Region or simply the Purchase, is a region in the U.S. state of Kentucky bounded by the Mississippi River to the west, the Ohio River to the north, and the Tennessee River to the east. Jackson's ...

and

Western Coal Field The West Kentucky Coal Field comprises an area in the west-central and northwestern part of the state, bounded by the Dripping Springs Escarpment and the Pennyroyal Plateau and the Ohio River, but is part of the Illinois Basin that extends into I ...

were affected by the Greenback movement. This aimed to restore the

fiat money Fiat money (from la, fiat, "let it be done") is a type of currency that is not backed by any commodity such as gold or silver. It is typically designated by the issuing government to be legal tender. Throughout history, fiat money was sometime ...

system used to pay for the Civil War, in order to pay off farmer’s debts. It also was aimed at regulating the railroads which the western landowners – many former slaveholders – saw as siphoning the profit from their cash crop economy. The Greenback movement managed to carry 8.3 percent of the vote in the 1879 gubernatorial election, but a rebound in tobacco prices and the adoption of some key elements of the Greenback platform by Democrats ensured that this decline was arrested and Greenback nominee James B. Weaver won only 4.39 percent of Kentucky’s ballots. Weaver did best in the regions where the Greenback insurgency was always strongest, but received no votes at all in fourteen of Kentucky’s 117 counties (most of those lying in the Eastern Coalfield). Democratic nominee

Winfield Scott Hancock Winfield Scott Hancock (February 14, 1824 – February 9, 1886) was a United States Army officer and the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 1880. He served with distinction in the Army for four decades, including service ...

thus comfortably carried the state, although his margin was only two-thirds that of Tilden. , this is the last occasion when Rockcastle County voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.Menendez, Albert J.; ''The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004''; pp. 208-213

Results

Results by county

Notes

References

{{State Results of the 1880 U.S. presidential election

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

1880 Events January–March * January 22 – Toowong State School is founded in Queensland, Australia. * January – The international White slave trade affair scandal in Brussels is exposed and attracts international infamy. * February � ...

1880 Kentucky elections