1924 Democratic Party presidential primaries

From March 12 to June 7, 1924, voters and members of the Democratic Party elected delegates to the 1924 Democratic National Convention, in part to nominate a candidate for President of the United States in the 1924 election.

Though William Gibbs McAdoo won a vast majority of states, and almost three-fifths of the popular vote, in those twelve states that held primary elections, it meant little to his performance nationwide. Many of the delegations from states that did not hold primary elections favored his main rivals, Oscar Underwood of Alabama and Al Smith of New York, neither of whom won any primary elections. As well as the primaries that McAdoo did not win were won by "local sons" who stood no chance of winning the nomination, or in some cases were not even formal candidates. Once at the convention, the party was deadlocked for 102 straight ballots, before dark horse candidate John W. Davis, (who was not a formal candidate when he arrived at the convention) was chosen on the 103rd ballot. Davis went on to lose the election to Republican candidate Calvin Coolidge.

Background

Sizable Democratic gains during the 1922 Midterm elections suggested to many Democrats that the nadir that they experienced immediately after the 1920 elections was ending, and that a popular candidate like William Gibbs McAdoo of California, who could draw the popular support of labor and Wilsonians, would stand an excellent chance of winning the coming presidential election. The Teapot Dome scandal added yet even more enthusiasm for the party initially, but further disclosures revealed that the corrupt interests had been bipartisan. Edward Doheny for example, whose name had become synonymous with that of the Teapot Dome scandal, ranked highly in the Democratic Party of California, contributed highly to party campaigns, served as chairman of the state party, and was even at one point advanced as a possible candidate for vice-president in 1920. The death of Warren Harding in August 1923 and the succession of Coolidge blunted the effects of the scandals upon the Republican Party, including that of Teapot Dome, but until the convention many Democrats believed that the Republicans would be turned out of the White House.