2. Prisoner for President?
The recent news that convicted murdered, Andrew Wilhoite, 40, of Lebanon, Indiana, won a local Republican primary election while behind bars might have come as a shock for those who read that incredible story, but it wasn’t the first time an election has been fought from jail by a candidate from Indiana. And this time not a local election, but a run for the presidency.
In the early 1900s, Socialist Party candidate for president Eugene Victor “Gene” Debs ran for the presidency five times. But it was his candidacy in the 1920 election that sees him on this list as he would do it from jail. When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, Debs instantly began speaking out against the war and the military draft. The government finally had enough and jailed him in 1918 for a speech he gave in Canton, Ohio, that they felt would promote disloyalty and incite insubordination.
Although the jailbird didn’t win the presidency, Republican Warren G. Harding defeated Democrat James M. Cox in a landslide, he did receive over 900,000 votes.
