"Wilson narrowly won the election, defeating Republican
candidate Charles Evans Hughes. As governor of New York
from 1907 to 1910, Hughes had a progressive record strikingly similar to
Wilson's as governor of New Jersey. Theodore Roosevelt would comment that the
only thing different between Hughes and Wilson was a shave. However, Hughes had
to try to hold together a coalition of conservative Taft supporters and
progressive Roosevelt partisans and so his campaign never seemed to take a
definite form. Wilson ran on his record and ignored Hughes, reserving his
attacks for Roosevelt. When asked why he did not attack Hughes directly, Wilson
told a friend to "Never murder a man who is committing suicide."[100]
The result was exceptionally close and the
outcome was in doubt for several days. The vote came down to several close
states. Wilson won California by 3,773 votes out of almost a million votes cast
and New Hampshire by 54 votes. Hughes won Minnesota by 393 votes out of over 358,000. In
the final count, Wilson had 277 electoral votes vs. Hughes's 254. Wilson was
able to win by picking up many votes that had gone to Teddy Roosevelt or Eugene V. Debs in 1912."[101]
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