On November 7, 1916, the nation did something it had not done since 1832: it reelected an incumbent Democrat Party President to a second term. Woodrow Wilson, who ran his campaign on the slogan, “He kept us out of the war,” pulled out one of the closest elections in US history, albeit without the controversy and rancor of other close races.
The biggest issue of the campaign had been the US position on the war in Europe. Charles Hughes, the GOP nominee, called for greater mobilization and preparedness, while Wilson’s campaign claimed that a Hughes win would automatically mean war with both Germany AND Mexico. By the by, Wilson had already sent US troops to intervene in the Mexican Revolution.
Hughes had gone to bed the night of the election convinced that he had won. In fact, even the Kingdom of Serbia’s official newspaper had announced that Wilson had lost. But it wasn’t to be, as the later voting states rolled into the Wilson column. For Hughes, it wasn’t clear that he had lost, so he decided to sleep in the following morning.
The confusion would lead to one of the most famous political zingers in the history of the country.
A few short months after the election, after strongly carrying the heavily German Midwest, Wilson called for the US to declare war on Germany.
Narrator: Wilson did not, in fact, keep the US out of the Great War…

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