In the 1916 United States presidential election, Virginia allocated twelve electors to the Electoral College. The Democratic ticket of incumbent President Woodrow Wilson and Vice President Thomas R. Marshall carried the state, while the Republican ticket of Charles Evans Hughes and running‑mate Charles W. Fairbanks received a much smaller share of the vote.
Results overview
- Winner: Woodrow Wilson (Democratic Party) – all 12 electoral votes.
- Popular vote: Wilson won by a decisive margin, receiving roughly nine‑tenths of the ballots cast. Hughes obtained a single‑digit percentage of the vote. Exact vote totals, as recorded in the official Virginia election returns, reflect this landslide outcome.
Context
- Political environment: At the time, Virginia was part of the “Solid South,” a region where the Democratic Party dominated state‑wide elections due in large part to the disenfranchisement of African‑American voters and many poor whites through mechanisms such as poll taxes and literacy tests.
- Electoral significance: The overwhelming Democratic victory in Virginia contributed to Wilson’s national re‑election, in which he secured 50.4 % of the popular vote and 277 electoral votes.
Historical notes
- The 1916 election was the last in which Virginia voted for a Democratic presidential candidate prior to the gradual partisan realignments of the mid‑20th century.
- Voter turnout figures for the state were affected by the restrictive voting laws of the era, which limited participation to a relatively small, predominantly white electorate.
No further detailed county‑by‑county breakdown is provided here; such data are documented in the official state canvass reports and contemporary newspaper accounts.
