Taft was then facing William Jennings Bryan as his opponent who was running for the Democratic party. Bryan was a populist and argued that he was better fit to continue progressive policies than Taft. The support from Roosevelt and Taft’s promises to keep continuing Roosevelt’s policies helped him win the election. Taft won by a considerable margin getting 321 electoral votes and beating Bryan by 9 percent in the popular vote. Taft then served as president for one term from 1909 to 1913 after losing reelection to Democrat Woodrow Wilson due to Theodore Roosevelt running and splitting the vote among …show more content…
Taft only kept one of Roosevelt’s cabinet members after he became president in 1909. He even replaced the Secretary of War that Roosevelt had chosen to replace Taft a few months before. This upsetted Roosevelt because Taft had promised Roosevelt that he would at least keep him. Taft decided to not keep Secretary of the Interior James R. Garfield as well, who was the son of former president James A. Garfield as secretary and replaced him when he took office. He chose not keep him due to his use of previous executive orders to promote conservation instead of following legislation. Taft also fired Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot who was one of Roosevelt’s closest friends and advisors, for his radical ways of promoting conservation. These two replacements angered Roosevelt even more as Pinchot and Garfield were some of Roosevelt’s closest advisors and friends, and was a major reason why Roosevelt decided to run against Taft in the 1912 presidential election. Taft had more luck making Supreme Court appointments where he carefully chose judges who he had known for years and had lots of experience. Taft, however, did have a controversial appointment when he appointed Edward D. White as Chief Justice in 1910. White was very old for the position and many thought that Taft nominated him just so that after his presidency he could take White’s place after he would die or resign. Coincidently