He ran for president five separate times as a Socialist candidate from 1900 to 1920–twice earning close to a million votes.
- Eugene V. Debs
- William Jennings Bryan
- Eugene Chafin
- Alan Benson
- Benjamin Hanford
He ran for president five separate times as a Socialist candidate from 1900 to 1920–twice earning close to a million votes.
Eugene V. Debs ran for president five separate times on the Socialist ticket from 1900 to 1920 twice earning close to a million votes. Debs an engaging and effective orator was a lifelong labor organizer and advocate. He became increasingly critical of traditional American politics in the 1890s. In 1898, two years after campaigning for Democratic-Populist presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, Debs established the Socialist Party of America (although the name was not officially adopted until 1901). He garnered a little over 86,000 votes in the 1900 election, but surged to some 400,000 in 1904. In 1912, he earned about 900,000 votes–almost 6% of the popular vote. When he ran for the Socialists again in 1920 (having refused the nomination in 1916), he polled 915,000 votes, which was only 3.4% of the popular vote by then. He was also in prison, having been convicted of sedition under the 1917 Espionage Act. Released by presidential pardon in 1921, he died in 1926.