Wilson became a prominent 1912 presidential contender immediately upon his election as Governor of New Jersey in 1910 , and his clashes with state party bosses enhanced his reputation with the rising Progressive movement . Prior to the 1912 Democratic National Convention , Wilson made a special effort to win the approval of three-time Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan , whose followers had largely dominated the Democratic Party since the 1896 presidential election . Speaker of the House Champ Clark of Missouri was viewed by many as the front-runner for the nomination , while House Majority Leader Oscar Underwood of Alabama also loomed as a challenger . Clark found support among the Bryan wing of the party , while Underwood appealed to the conservative Bourbon Democrats , especially in the South . On the first ballot of the Democratic National Convention , Clark won a plurality of delegates , and on the tenth ballot , he won a majority of the delegates after the New York Tammany Hall machine swung behind him . However , the Democratic Party required a nominee to win two-thirds of the delegates to win the nomination , and balloting continued . The Wilson campaign picked up delegates by promising the vice presidency to Governor Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana , and several Southern delegations shifted their support from Underwood to Wilson , a native Southerner . Wilson finally won two-thirds of the vote on the convention 's 46th ballot , and Marshall became Wilson 's running mate
1912 Democratic National Convention
1912 Democratic National Convention
Presidency of Woodrow Wilson