A presidential election was held in Indiana on November 7, 1916, as part of the 1916 United States presidential election. The Republican ticket of the former associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Charles Evans Hughes and the former vice president of the United States Charles W. Fairbanks defeated the Democratic ticket of the incumbent president of the United States Woodrow Wilson and the incumbent vice president Thomas R. Marshall. Wilson defeated Hughes in the national election with 277 electoral votes.
Background
Partisan coalitions in Indiana at the turn of the century reflected the regional, ethnic, and religious roots of the settler population, with the descendants of White Southerners, German Americans, and Irish Americans (especially Catholics) voting reliably Democratic, while Yankees, Nordic and Scandinavian Americans, and British Americans favored the Republican Party. Southern Indiana leaned Democratic and Northern Indiana leaned Republican, in line with the loose correlation between ethnicity and geography. The state's notable concentration of German Catholics contributed to its closeness in presidential elections during the Third Party System relative to other Lower North states. William Jennings Bryan's 1896 presidential campaign saw the state move more securely into the Republican column, as German Catholics alienated by Bryan's outspoken Evangelicalism, conservatives unnerved by the candidate's agrarian radicalism, and urban workers frightened by threats of mass layoffs in the event of a Bryan victory voted Republican for the first time. Following this political realignment, Wilson became the only Democrat to carry Indiana during the Fourth Party System (1896–1932) in 1912. Republican strength remained greater in urban areas than in rural areas based on the strength of Republican urban political machines.
Primary elections
Progressive Party
No candidates filed to run in the Indiana Progressive presidential primary, and consequently no primary election was held.
General election
Results
Indiana chose 15 electors on a statewide general ticket. State law required voters to elect each member of the Electoral College individually, rather than as a group. This sometimes resulted in small differences in the number of votes cast for electors pledged to the same presidential candidate, if some voters did not vote for all the electors nominated by a party. The following table quotes the official returns published by the secretary of state of Indiana, which list the votes for the first elector on each ticket.