This was the first time Idaho participated in a presidential election, having become the 43rd state on July 3, 1890. During its period as a territory Idaho had been divided between a strongly Republican northern half and an anti-Republican Mormon south,[1] which in this first presidential election was in places (notably Oneida County) still excluded from voting.[1]
A wave of strikes in the silver-mining regions[2] and even deeper conflict whereby an idled ore concentrator was destroyed in Gem,[3] was to give the Populists a grip on the Mountain West that was not to be relinquished. Almost all the large number of dissenting farmers in the new state were to join with the silver interests[4] to back Weaver's policies of nationalization of railways and communications, restriction of immigration, shorter working days and direct election of senators.[5] Although Senator-to-beWilliam Borah campaigned for Harrison under the slogan that “a vote for Weaver was a vote for Cleveland and therefore against their own interests”[6] Weaver's campaign against RepublicanGovernorNorman Bushnell Willey’s declaration of martial law upon the miners, and against the absentee ownership of Idaho's land and water,[7] ensured that these campaigns for Harrison would not be decisive.
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