1887 United States Senate election in Wisconsin

January 26, 1887


Nominee	Philetus Sawyer	John Winans	John Cochrane
Party	Republican	Democratic	Labor
Legislative vote	82	37	6
Percentage	65.60%	29.60%	4.80%

U.S. senator before election

Philetus Sawyer
Republican

Elected U.S. Senator

Philetus Sawyer
Republican

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The 1887 United States Senate election in Wisconsin was held in the 38th Wisconsin Legislature on January 26, 1887. Incumbent Republican U.S. senator Philetus Sawyer was re-elected on the first ballot.^[1]

At the start of the 1887 term, Republicans held substantial majorities in both chambers of the Wisconsin Legislature, so had more than enough votes to elect a Republican United States senator.

Major candidates

Democratic

John Winans, former U.S. representative of Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, incumbent state representative and incumbent mayor of Janesville, Wisconsin.

Republican

Philetus Sawyer, incumbent U.S. senator, former U.S representative, and former mayor of Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Labor

John M. Cochrane, founder and former master of the Wisconsin Grange.

Results

1st Vote of the 38th Wisconsin Legislature, January 26, 1887^[1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	Philetus Sawyer (incumbent)	82^[a]	65.60%
	Democratic	John Winans	37^[b]	29.60%
	Labor	John Cochrane	6^[c]	4.80%
		Absent or not voting	8
Majority			63	50.40%
Total votes			125	93.98%
	Republican hold

Notes

^ Sawyer received the votes of all Republican members except for representatives James L. Murphy and Andrew J. Stewart (who were absent); he also received one cross-over vote from independent democratic representative John F. Huebner.
^ Winans received the votes of all Democratic members except for representatives Patrick Finnerty, Reinhardt Rahr, Andrew Schmidlkofer, and George E. Tate (who were absent); Winans abstained from the voting himself; he also received the votes of independent representatives Richard Dewhurst, James B. McLeran, and John Williams Tobey.
^ Sawyer received the votes of all Labor members and received the vote of independent representative Benjamin Charles Garside.

References

^ ^a ^b "January 26, 1887". Journal of Proceedings of the Wisconsin Legislature (Report). Wisconsin Legislature. 1887. pp. 73–74. Retrieved March 14, 2025 – via HathiTrust.