1888
Reading the 1888 result in Alabama
Alabama backed Cleveland (Democratic) in the 1888 presidential election, casting 10 electoral votes for the ticket. Nationally the result broke the other way — Benjamin Harrison (Republican) won the presidency, leaving Alabama among the states he did not carry.
It marked the 4th consecutive election in which Alabama backed the Democratic party, a streak reaching back to 1876. Alabama did not move alone — neighboring Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida broke the same way in 1888. Across the 51 presidential elections Alabama has taken part in, it has most often sided with the Democratic party (30 times). The vote fell within the Gilded Age — Industrialization, narrow margins, and patronage politics.
In the national count, Benjamin Harrison took 233 of the 401 electoral votes, against Grover Cleveland's 168. Though Benjamin Harrison won the Electoral College, Grover Cleveland drew more of the national popular vote — 48.63% to 47.8%.
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