1900 U.S. presidential election

In 1900 President William McKinley won a rematch against William Jennings Bryan by 292 electoral votes to 155 and by about 51.6 percent of the popular vote to 45.5, a wider margin than in 1896. His new running mate was Theodore Roosevelt, the governor of New York, who had become famous leading the Rough Riders in Cuba.¹

The country had changed since 1896. Prosperity had returned, new gold discoveries in the Klondike in northwestern Canada and in South Africa had expanded the money supply, and Congress had passed the Gold Standard Act in March 1900, so Bryan's silver crusade had lost much of its force. Republicans campaigned on the 'full dinner pail.' Bryan made imperialism his central issue: after the Spanish-American War of 1898 the United States had taken Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines and annexed Hawaii, and it was fighting a bloody war against Filipino independence fighters. Voters endorsed McKinley's course. On September 6, 1901, an anarchist shot McKinley in Buffalo, and he died eight days later, making Roosevelt president at 42.¹