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Presidential History News• Late breaking election

returns from the 1916 presidential election interrupts this “live” TV newscast of the close race for the White House between incumbent Woodrow Wilson and challenger Charles Evans Hughes.

Woodrow Wilson

Charles Evans Hugheshttp://www.PresidentialHistory.com

Presidential History NewsBased on Historical Facts

• Everything in this 6 minute is based on historical facts:– Wilson and Hughes both went to bed on election night, November

7, 1916 thinking that Hughes had won the Presidency– Hughes was not known as the most warm personality (“bearded

iceberg” is Theodore Roosevelt’s words)– Wilson did have a scheme in which he contemplated resigning

before March 4, 1917. His plan was to appoint Hughes as Secretary of State. Wilson and his vice president, Thomas Marshall, would both then resign. According to the order of succession in place then, Hughes would immediately become President.

– Late returns from California pushed Wilson over the top in that state that he won by less than 4,000 votes. With California, Wilson had enough electoral votes for a second term in the White House.

– Hughes’ aide at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City where Hughes was staying did have the interchange enacted in the video. At the least, this is a strong apocryphal story.

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