The 1908 Presidential election was one of the most contentious presidential elections in American history. Incumbent Clarence Darrow had been a stalwart progressive and especially in his second term, Darrow embraced the Progressive Movement and fought to pass a variety of their policy goals. From the regulation of trusts to attempts to protect organized labor, Darrow's Presidency oversaw the greatest expansion of Federal authority since the Civil War. Most controversially, Darrow allied himself with Black Civil Rights groups and elected officials, and pushed through the most expansive set of Civil Rights Acts since Reconstruction. One of the most significant was the Federal Elections Act of 1905, which outlawed racial gerrymandering and established the Federal Bureau of Elections to oversee its enforcement. With Republican supermajorities in the House and Senate, Darrow was able to garner enough progressive support to ensure its passage.
By 1908, conservative backlash against Darrow was growing within his party, though it was not enough to deny him nomination for a third term at convention. After narrowly securing the nomination, Conservative Republicans broke with the Progressive Wing and established the Lincoln Republican Party to oppose them in 1908. Charles Fairbanks was nominated for president at the Lincoln Republican Convention. The Democratic Party, reduced to a rump party largely representing Southerners, endorsed the ticket.
Campaign season was vicious, and would become one of the most violent in American history. White terrorist groups, such as the Klu Klux Klan and the Minutemen, attacked Southern Black Republican offices and assassinated major political leaders. Consequently, Darrow ordered the United States Gendarmerie to protect polling places in the South, the first deployment of the US Military as law enforcement since Reconstruction.
In the end, the Lincoln Republican Party would sweep the Northeast and much of the South. In the west, Nevada and Colorado went to Fairbanks as well. Darrow's victory was guaranteed by the Midwest, where he won a series of close states. Additionally, he won several Upper South states and Louisiana, largely thanks to the efforts of the Gendarmerie to protect polling places.