A presidential election was held in Ohio on November 4, 1804, as part of the 1804 United States presidential election.The Democratic-Republican Party's ticket of incumbent president Thomas Jefferson and former New York governor George Clinton defeated the Federalist Party's ticket.
The Democratic-Republicans were eager to avoid a factional conflict following legislative elections in 1803, which saw a coalition of Federalists and dissident Democratic-Republicans win control of the Ohio House of Representatives. The Federalists proposed dividing the state into three single-member districts in order to improve their chances of winning any of the state's electoral votes, but the legislators ultimately rejected this plan in favor of choosing all three electors on a general ticket.
The Democratic-Republican members of the Ohio General Assembly held a caucus at Chillicothe, Ohio, in February and nominated three electors pledged to Jefferson. The Federalist Party nominated its ticket in a public meeting in Cincinnati; in an attempt to win support from the dissident Democratic-Republican faction, the meeting named a ticket that included both Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Although a gathering of Federalist members of Congress had nominated Charles Cotesworth Pinckney for president in February, the Federalist electors remained formally unpledged. In contrast to the previous year, Ohio Democratic-Republicans displayed remarkable unity at the polls, and Jefferson carried the state by a nearly 7:1 margin.
General election Summary Ohio chose three electors on a statewide general ticket. Nineteenth-century election laws required voters to elect the members of the Electoral College individually, rather than as a block. This sometimes resulted in small differences in the number of votes cast for electors pledged to the same presidential nominee, if some voters did not vote for all the electors nominated by a party. The following table compares the votes for the leading Democratic-Republican and Federalist electors to give an approximate sense of the statewide popular vote.
Results + 1804 United States presidential election in Ohio Party Candidate Votes Democratic-Republican Nathaniel Massie 2,593 Democratic-Republican William Goforth 2,502 Democratic-Republican James Pritchard 2,475 Federalist Bezaleel Wells 364 Federalist John Riley 329 Federalist Benjamin Ives Gilman 190 Federalist John Carlisle 80 Democratic-Republican John Bigger 76 2,957
Results by county + 1804 United States presidential election in Ohio by county County Thomas JeffersonDemocratic-Republican Unpledged electorsFederalist Margin Total Votes % Votes % Votes % Adams Belmont Butler Clermont Columbiana Fairfield Franklin Gallia Greene Hamilton 503 96.92 16 3.08 487 93.83 519 Jefferson Montgomery Muskingum Ross 118 80.27 29 19.73 89 60.54 147 Scioto Trumbull Warren Washington TOTAL 621 93.24 45 6.76 576 86.49 666
See also United States presidential elections in Ohio
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