Peskin believes it may even have gained votes for the Republican in the East, but it likely weakened him in the West. Results The extremely close election, with very high turnout, reflected the typical pattern of the Gilded Age. Democrats were assured of a Solid South electoral vote, as well as most of the border states. Republicans captured the Northeast and Midwest, winning the critical swing states of New York, Ohio and Indiana. The Republicans captured the electoral vote 214–155, but the popular vote margin was under 2000 out of over 9 million votes cast. Republicans won the House of Representatives 147–135, but the Senate was evenly split, with the vice president casting the deciding vote. When all the ballots were counted, fewer than 2,000 votes separated Garfield and Hancock, the closest popular vote of any American presidential election before or since. The voters showed their interest in the election by turning out in record numbers; 78 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot, among largest percentages in American history. Each major party candidate earned just over 48 percent of the vote. Weaver won more than 3 percent, tripling the Greenback total of four years earlier. The other minor party candidates fared far worse, as Dow and Phelps earned 0.1 and 0.01 percent, respectively. Garfield carried the crucial state of New York by 20,000 votes out of 1.1 million cast there. Other states were much closer; Hancock's margin of victory in California was only about 144 votes. In the electoral college, the vote was more decisive. As expected, Hancock carried the South and border states, but Garfield swept all but one of the Northern states (the exception was New Jersey, which he lost by just two thousand votes). Both candidates carried nineteen states, but Garfield's triumphs in the more populous North translated into a 214–155 electoral college victory. The sectional divide of the vote more deeply enforced the Republicans' retreat from the South after Reconstruction, and demonstrated that they could win without competing there. Weaver's resistance to fusion had no effect on the result; the combined Democratic and Greenback vote would have carried Indiana, but not any other of the states Garfield won, and the result would still have been a Republican majority in the electoral college. Hancock was convinced that the Republicans won New York by fraud. Lacking evidence, and mindful of the turmoil caused by the disputed election