The 1908 United States presidential election in Utah was held on

November November is the eleventh and penultimate month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars, the fourth and last of four months to have a length of 30 days and the fifth and last of five months to have a length of fewer than 31 days. No ...

1908 Events January * January 1 – The British ''Nimrod'' Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton sets sail from New Zealand on the ''Nimrod'' for Antarctica. * January 3 – A total solar eclipse is visible in the Pacific Ocean, and is the 46 ...

, throughout all forty-six contemporary states as part of the

1908 United States presidential election The 1908 United States presidential election was the 31st quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1908. Secretary of War and Republican Party nominee William Howard Taft defeated three-time Democratic nominee William Jen ...

. State voters chose three representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. This was the last election when

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

had the minimum three electoral votes as it would gain a second congressional district after the 1910 Census. Although Democrat/

Populist Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed ...

Bryan had carried Utah in its debut presidential election by a five-to-one margin, the Republican Party – ditching ancestral hostility to the state's dominant Mormon religion – was soon able to take control of the state, despite a threat from the anti-Mormon "American Party" in urban areas with sizeable non-Mormon ("Gentile") populations.Wahlquist, C. Austin
'The 1912 Presidential Election in Utah'
(A Thesis Presented to the Department of History,

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...

, Provo, Utah) In its third election of

1904 Events January * January 7 – The distress signal ''CQD'' is established, only to be replaced 2 years later by ''SOS''. * January 8 – The Blackstone Library is dedicated, marking the beginning of the Chicago Public Library system. * ...

, Utah had given a virtual two-to-one majority for

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

against

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Democrat

Alton B. Parker Alton Brooks Parker (May 14, 1852 – May 10, 1926) was an American judge, best known as the Democrat who lost the presidential election of 1904 to Theodore Roosevelt. A native of upstate New York, Parker practiced law in Kingston, New York, ...

, who carried only

Dixie Dixie, also known as Dixieland or Dixie's Land, is a nickname for all or part of the Southern United States. While there is no official definition of this region (and the included areas shift over the years), or the extent of the area it cover ...

's Washington County. Believing that the election could only be won in

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and

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

, Bryan – who had had no trouble winning a third Democratic nomination – chose Indiana's John Worth Kern as his running mate. However, although many in the media supported the election of Bryan and praised his policies, the rapid recovery from the "

Panic of 1907 The Panic of 1907, also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic or Knickerbocker Crisis, was a financial crisis that took place in the United States over a three-week period starting in mid-October, when the New York Stock Exchange fell almost 50% from ...

" meant that Bryan struggled severely in the Progressive-minded Western States once campaigning began.Hornig, Edgar A.; 'Campaign Issues in the Presidential Election of 1908'; ''Indiana Magazine of History'', vol. 54, no. 3 (September 1958), pp. 237-264 The antagonism towards Bryan of business meant that Taft had little trouble repeating Theodore Roosevelt's triumph of 1904, although Bryan was able to cut Alton Parker's losing margin from 29 to 17 percentage points. Taft would win Utah by a margin of 17.04%. A powerful socialist movement in mining districts failed to equal Debs' support from the 1904 election as his policies were not considered feasible or were co-opted by the two major parties. Taft was further helped by the unseating of delegates for Bryan as a result of conflict between pro- and anti-

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

factions.'Both Parties Claim Northwest States: Republicans Seem to Have Best Chance in Wyoming and Colorado'; ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', August 26, 1908, p. 4 Four years later, Utah would become one of the only two states that Taft would carry in his attempt for reelection, the other being

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

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