See main article: 1896 United States presidential election.
| Election Name: | 1896 United States presidential election in South Dakota |
| Country: | South Dakota |
| Flag Year: | 1909 |
| Type: | presidential |
| Ongoing: | no |
| Previous Election: | 1892 United States presidential election in South Dakota |
| Previous Year: | 1892 |
| Next Election: | 1900 United States presidential election in South Dakota |
| Next Year: | 1900 |
| Election Date: | November 3, 1896 |
| Image1: | William Jennings Bryan 2 (cropped).jpg |
| Nominee1: | William Jennings Bryan |
| Party1: | Populist Party (United States) |
| Alliance1: | Democratic Party (United States) |
| Home State1: | Nebraska |
| Running Mate1: | Arthur Sewall (Democratic) Thomas E. Watson (Populist) |
| Electoral Vote1: | 4 |
| Popular Vote1: | 41,225 |
| Percentage1: | 49.70% |
| Nominee2: | William McKinley |
| Party2: | Republican Party (United States) |
| Alliance2: | - |
| Home State2: | Ohio |
| Running Mate2: | Garret Hobart |
| Electoral Vote2: | 0 |
| Popular Vote2: | 41,042 |
| Percentage2: | 49.48% |
| Map Size: | 350px |
| President | |
| Before Election: | Grover Cleveland |
| Before Party: | Democratic Party (United States) |
| After Election: | William McKinley |
| After Party: | Republican Party (United States) |
The 1896 United States presidential election in South Dakota took place on November 3, 1896. All contemporary 45 states were part of the 1896 United States presidential election. Voters chose four electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.
South Dakota was won by the Populist nominees, former U.S. Representative William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska and his running mate Arthur Sewall of Maine. Two electors cast their vice presidential ballots for Thomas E. Watson.
Bryan won the state by a very narrow margin of 0.22 percentage points, becoming the first national Democratic presidential candidate to win the state. Bryan would later lose the state to Republican incumbent president William McKinley four years later and would later lose the state again to William Howard Taft in 1908. The state would not vote Democratic again until 1932. As of the 2020 election, this is the only time that a Republican candidate has won the presidency without carrying South Dakota.
| 1896 United States presidential election in South Dakota[1] | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | ||
| Populist | William Jennings Bryan | 41,225 | 49.70% | 2 | ||
| Democratic | William Jennings Bryan | 0 | 0.00% | 2 | ||
| Total | William Jennings Bryan | 41,225 | 49.70% | 4 | ||
| Republican | William McKinley | 41,042 | 49.48% | 0 | ||
| Prohibition | Joshua Levering | 683 | 0.82% | 0 | ||
| Totals | 82,950 | 100.00% | 4 | |||
| Voter turnout | — | |||||
| County[2] | William McKinley Republican | William Jennings Bryan Populist | Joshua Levering Prohibition | Margin | Total votes cast | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| data-sort-type="number" | data-sort-type="number" | % | data-sort-type="number" | data-sort-type="number" | % | data-sort-type="number" | data-sort-type="number" | % | data-sort-type="number" | data-sort-type="number" | % | ||||||||
| Aurora | 387 | 44.08% | 479 | 54.56% | 12 | 1.37% | -92 | -10.48% | 878 | ||||||||||
| Beadle | 935 | 49.84% | 915 | 48.77% | 26 | 1.39% | 20 | 1.07% | 1,876 | ||||||||||
| Bon Homme | 1,163 | 56.37% | 893 | 43.29% | 7 | 0.34% | 270 | 13.09% | 2,063 | ||||||||||
| Brookings | 1,263 | 48.71% | 1,288 | 49.67% | 42 | 1.62% | -25 | -0.96% | 2,593 | ||||||||||
| Brown | 1,618 | 46.15% | 1,867 | 53.25% | 21 | 0.60% | -249 | -7.10% | 3,506 | ||||||||||
| Brule | 441 | 39.59% | 668 | 59.96% | 5 | 0.45% | -227 | -20.38% | 1,114 | ||||||||||
| Buffalo | 68 | 46.26% | 79 | 53.74% | 0 | 0.00% | -11 | -7.48% | 147 | ||||||||||
| Butte | 222 | 43.53% | 286 | 56.08% | 2 | 0.39% | -64 | -12.55% | 510 | ||||||||||
| Campbell | 449 | 54.62% | 369 | 44.89% | 4 | 0.49% | 80 | 9.73% | 822 | ||||||||||
| Charles Mix | 698 | 53.57% | 594 | 45.59% | 11 | 0.84% | 104 | 7.98% | 1,303 | ||||||||||
| Clark | 695 | 45.01% | 816 | 52.85% | 33 | 2.14% | -121 | -7.84% | 1,544 | ||||||||||
| Clay | 1,238 | 53.36% | 1,061 | 45.73% | 21 | 0.91% | 177 | 7.63% | 2,320 | ||||||||||
| Codington | 1,041 | 57.10% | 759 | 41.63% | 23 | 1.26% | 282 | 15.47% | 1,823 | ||||||||||
| Custer | 429 | 45.30% | 515 | 54.38% | 3 | 0.32% | -86 | -9.08% | 947 | ||||||||||
| Davison | 616 | 45.13% | 733 | 53.70% | 16 | 1.17% | -117 | -8.57% | 1,365 | ||||||||||
| Day | 1,171 | 48.07% | 1,230 | 50.49% | 35 | 1.44% | -59 | -2.42% | 2,436 | ||||||||||
| Deuel | 698 | 50.95% | 668 | 48.76% | 4 | 0.29% | 30 | 2.19% | 1,370 | ||||||||||
| Douglas | 533 | 58.06% | 380 | 41.39% | 5 | 0.54% | 153 | 16.67% | 918 | ||||||||||
| Edmunds | 371 | 41.78% | 510 | 57.43% | 7 | 0.79% | -139 | -15.65% | 888 | ||||||||||
| Fall River | 532 | 48.76% | 555 | 50.87% | 4 | 0.37% | -23 | -2.11% | 1,091 | ||||||||||
| Faulk | 430 | 64.08% | 237 | 35.32% | 4 | 0.60% | 193 | 28.76% | 671 | ||||||||||
| Grant | 1,029 | 52.72% | 902 | 46.21% | 21 | 1.08% | 127 | 6.51% | 1,952 | ||||||||||
| Gregory | 110 | 48.67% | 116 | 51.33% | 0 | 0.00% | -6 | -2.65% | 226 | ||||||||||
| Hamlin | 702 | 55.10% | 559 | 43.88% | 13 | 1.02% | 143 | 11.22% | 1,274 | ||||||||||
| Hand | 451 | 43.96% | 567 | 55.26% | 8 | 0.78% | -116 | -11.31% | 1,026 | ||||||||||
| Hanson | 420 | 38.75% | 658 | 60.70% | 6 | 0.55% | -238 | -21.96% | 1,084 | ||||||||||
| Hughes | 462 | 58.33% | 327 | 41.29% | 3 | 0.38% | 135 | 17.05% | 792 | ||||||||||
| Hutchinson | 1,413 | 74.96% | 458 | 24.30% | 14 | 0.74% | 955 | 50.66% | 1,885 | ||||||||||
| Hyde | 223 | 64.45% | 121 | 34.97% | 2 | 0.58% | 102 | 29.48% | 346 | ||||||||||
| Jerauld | 274 | 44.48% | 336 | 54.55% | 6 | 0.97% | -62 | -10.06% | 616 | ||||||||||
| Kingsbury | 950 | 46.82% | 1,051 | 51.80% | 28 | 1.38% | -101 | -4.98% | 2,029 | ||||||||||
| Lake | 864 | 46.10% | 999 | 53.31% | 11 | 0.59% | -135 | -7.20% | 1,874 | ||||||||||
| Lawrence | 2,210 | 42.91% | 2,905 | 56.41% | 35 | 0.68% | -695 | -13.50% | 5,150 | ||||||||||
| Lincoln | 1,516 | 51.86% | 1,393 | 47.66% | 14 | 0.48% | 123 | 4.21% | 2,923 | ||||||||||
| Lyman | 114 | 59.07% | 78 | 40.41% | 1 | 0.52% | 36 | 18.65% | 193 | ||||||||||
| Marshall | 553 | 43.78% | 694 | 54.95% | 16 | 1.27% | -141 | -11.16% | 1,263 | ||||||||||
| McCook | 678 | 39.03% | 1,047 | 60.28% | 12 | 0.69% | -369 | -21.24% | 1,737 | ||||||||||
| McPherson | 512 | 58.25% | 361 | 41.07% | 6 | 0.68% | 151 | 17.18% | 879 | ||||||||||
| Meade | 550 | 40.56% | 802 | 59.14% | 4 | 0.29% | -252 | -18.58% | 1,356 | ||||||||||
| Miner | 582 | 45.05% | 705 | 54.57% | 5 | 0.39% | -123 | -9.52% | 1,292 | ||||||||||
| Minnehaha | 2,429 | 47.15% | 2,667 | 51.77% | 56 | 1.09% | -238 | -4.62% | 5,152 | ||||||||||
| Moody | 780 | 43.36% | 1,012 | 56.25% | 7 | 0.39% | -232 | -12.90% | 1,799 | ||||||||||
| Pennington | 739 | 41.40% | 1,038 | 58.15% | 8 | 0.45% | -299 | -16.75% | 1,785 | ||||||||||
| Potter | 333 | 45.74% | 390 | 53.57% | 5 | 0.69% | -57 | -7.83% | 728 | ||||||||||
| Roberts | 1,324 | 58.20% | 929 | 40.84% | 22 | 0.97% | 395 | 17.36% | 2,275 | ||||||||||
| Sanborn | 530 | 50.72% | 500 | 47.85% | 15 | 1.44% | 30 | 2.87% | 1,045 | ||||||||||
| Spink | 1,132 | 51.31% | 1,061 | 48.10% | 13 | 0.59% | 71 | 3.22% | 2,206 | ||||||||||
| Stanley | 89 | 38.53% | 140 | 60.61% | 2 | 0.87% | -51 | -22.08% | 231 | ||||||||||
| Sully | 262 | 56.34% | 198 | 42.58% | 5 | 1.08% | 64 | 13.76% | 465 | ||||||||||
| Turner | 1,616 | 62.47% | 950 | 36.72% | 21 | 0.81% | 666 | 25.74% | 2,587 | ||||||||||
| Union | 1,297 | 46.24% | 1,491 | 53.16% | 17 | 0.61% | -194 | -6.92% | 2,805 | ||||||||||
| Walworth | 250 | 46.21% | 286 | 52.87% | 5 | 0.92% | -36 | -6.65% | 541 | ||||||||||
| Yankton | 1,423 | 51.39% | 1,330 | 48.03% | 16 | 0.58% | 93 | 3.36% | 2,769 | ||||||||||
| Unorganized | 337 | 47.73% | 368 | 52.12% | 1 | 0.14% | -31 | -4.39% | 706 | ||||||||||
| Totals | 41,152 | 49.48% | 41,341 | 49.70% | 683 | 0.82% | -189 | -0.23% | 83,176 | ||||||||||