finished second with 88 electoral votes and 27% of the popular vote. Taft carried 23% of the national vote and won two states, Vermont and Utah. He was the first Republican to lose the Northern states. Debs won no electoral votes but got 6% of the popular vote, which remains the highest ever for a Socialist candidate as of . With Wilson's landslide victory, he became the first presidential candidate to receive over 400 electoral votes in a presidential election. This was the third of just five presidential elections won by the Democrats without a southerner on the ticket, the others being 1884, 1892, 1916 and 1940, although Wilson did have southern roots. Background Republican President Theodore Roosevelt had declined to run for re-election in 1908 in fulfillment of a pledge to the American people not to seek a third term. Roosevelt had tapped Secretary of War William Howard Taft to become his successor, and Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan in the 1908 general election. Republican Party split During Taft's administration, a rift developed between Roosevelt and Taft, and they became the leaders of the Republican Party's two wings: progressives led by Roosevelt and conservatives led by Taft. Progressives favored labor restrictions protecting women and children, promoted ecological conservation, and were more sympathetic toward labor unions. They also favored the popular election of federal and state judges over appointment by the President or governors. Conservatives supported high tariffs to encourage domestic production, but favored business leaders over labor unions and were generally opposed to the popular election of judges. Cracks in the party began to show when Taft supported the Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act in 1909. The Act favored the industrial Northeast and angered the Northwest and South, where demand was strong for tariff reductions. Early in his term, President Taft had promised to stand for a lower tariff bill, but protectionism had been a major policy of the Republican Party since its founding. Taft also fought against Roosevelt's antitrust policy. Roosevelt distinguished "good trusts" from "bad trusts," which he had been lambasted for. Taft argued that all monopolies must be broken up. Taft also fired popular conservationist Gifford Pinchot as head of the Bureau of Forestry in 1910. By 1910, the split within the party was deep, and Roosevelt and Taft turned against one another despite their personal friendship. That summer, Roosevelt began a national speaking tour, during which he