[161]
Vice President Sherman had been renominated at Chicago; seriously ill during the campaign, he died six days before the election,[p] and was replaced on the ticket by the president of Columbia University, Nicholas Murray Butler. But few electors chose Taft and Butler, who won only Utah and Vermont, for a total of eight electoral votes.[q] Roosevelt won 88, and Wilson 435. Wilson won with a plurality—not a majority—of the popular vote. Taft finished with just under 3.5 million, over 600,000 less than the former president.[162] Taft was not on the ballot in California, due to the actions of local Progressives, nor in South Dakota.[163]

Return to Yale (1913–1921)
With no pension or other compensation to expect from the government after leaving the White House, Taft contemplated a return to the practice of law, from which he had long been absent. Given that Taft had appointed many federal judges, including a majority of the Supreme Court, this would raise questions of conflict of interest at every federal court appearance and he was saved from this by an offer for him to become Kent Professor of Law and Legal History at Yale Law School. 