1888 U.S. presidential election

In 1888 Republican Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, grandson of President William Henry Harrison, defeated President Grover Cleveland in the Electoral College, 233 to 168, even though Cleveland won the national popular vote by about 90,000 votes, 48.6 percent to 47.8. Harrison won by narrowly carrying Cleveland's home state of New York and his own Indiana, while Cleveland's large majorities in the South added popular votes but no extra electors.¹³

The election turned on the tariff. In December 1887 Cleveland devoted his entire annual message to Congress to cutting tariffs, which he argued raised prices for consumers and piled up a needless federal surplus. Republicans, backed by manufacturers who funded a large campaign, argued that high tariffs protected American wages and industry. Late in the race, Republicans published a letter from the British minister in Washington, Lionel Sackville-West, who had been tricked into suggesting that a vote for Cleveland would help Britain, and it hurt Cleveland with Irish American voters. In office Harrison signed the Sherman Antitrust Act and the McKinley Tariff in 1890, and Cleveland came back to beat him in 1892.¹²³