Like all of the Western United States, severe anger at President Woodrow Wilson's failure to maintain his promise to keep the United States out of World War I produced extreme hostility among the strongly isolationist population of remote Montana.

[1] In addition, by the beginning of 1920 skyrocketing inflation and Wilson's focus upon his proposed League of Nations at the expense of domestic policy had helped make the incumbent president very unpopular[2] – besides which Wilson also had major health problems that had left First Lady Edith effectively running the nation.

[4] Another factor hurting the Democratic Party was the migration of many people from the traditionally Republican Upper Midwest into the state.

[1] Because the West had been the chief presidential battleground ever since the "System of 1896" emerged following that election,[5] Governor Cox traveled across the western states in August and September, but he did not visit Montana with its tiny population and poverty of electoral votes.

Harding's 61.1% vote share and 29 percentage point margin remain the strongest performance by a Republican presidential nominee in Montana history.