[2] Apart from Woodrow Wilson’s two elections, during the first of which the GOP was severely divided, no Democrat since William Jennings Bryan in 1900 had carried a single county in the state.

Despite continuing overwhelming Republican dominance of the state legislature, 1922 had seen incumbent Governor Ben W. Olcott denounce the powerful Ku Klux Klan[4] with the result that Democratic nominee Walter Pierce won the election on a platform to make attendance at public schools compulsory, without support from the more progressive faction of the dominant Republican Party.

However, the division of the Democratic Party over the Ku Klux Klan – which at the time all but ruled Oregon with its reputation for fanatical racism[7] and anti-Catholicism[8] – alongside maverick veteran Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette’s decision to mount a third-party presidential campaign[9] ensured by late summer that the Republicans would be unchallenged in carrying Oregon, especially after La Follette denounced the Klan,[10] which was highly popular amongst working Oregonians.

[11] Polls consistently showed that Oregon would remain firmly in Republican hands,[12] and by mid-October it was clear that La Follette and Davis would run close for second place.

[13] Ultimately La Follette edged Davis out for second place by a mere 814 votes out of 279,488, although Oregon was still Davis’ best state west of the Continental Divide apart from the two less isolationist states of Southern-leaning Arizona and Mormon Utah, with the Democrat's best vote coming from historically Democratic and Ozark mountaineer-settled Eastern Oregon.