New York was won by incumbent Republican President Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, who was running against Democratic Ambassador John W. Davis of West Virginia and the Progressive Party's Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin.

[2] The 1920s were a fiercely Republican decade in American politics, and New York during the Fourth Party System was a Republican-leaning state in presidential elections.

The economic boom and social good feelings of the Roaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership virtually guaranteed Calvin Coolidge an easy win in the state against the conservative Southern Democrat John Davis, who had little appeal in Northern states like New York where large Catholic populations opposed his reticence on the anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan.

From his time as governor of neighboring Massachusetts, Coolidge remained, for a Republican, relatively popular with Irish Catholic and other ethnic immigrant communities,[6] helping him to hold on to New York City.

Calvin Coolidge is one of only three presidential candidates of either party who has been able to sweep every county in New York State, the others being Republican Warren G. Harding in 1920 and Democrat Lyndon Johnson in 1964.