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Progressive Party

Once his defeat appeared probable, Roosevelt announced he would "accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and I shall fight to the end, win or lose". Roosevelt prophetically said, "My feeling is that the Democrats will probably win if they nominate a progressive". Roosevelt left the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party. Leadership of the new party included a range of reformers. Jane Addams campaigned vigorously for the party as a breakthrough in social reform. Gifford Pinchot represented environmentalists and anti-trust crusaders. Publisher Frank Munsey provided cash and George W. Perkins, a Wall Street financier came from the efficiency movement. He handled the new party's finances efficiently but was distrusted by many reformers.

Governor Hiram Johnson controlled the California party, forcing out the Taft supporters. He was nominated as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt's platform echoed his radical 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from selfish interests:

To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. This country belongs to the people. Its resources, its business, its laws, its institutions, should be utilized, maintained, or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest. This assertion is explicit... Mr. Wilson must know that every monopoly in the United States opposes the Progressive party... I challenge him... to name the monopoly that did support the Progressive party, whether... the Sugar Trust, the US Steel Trust, the Harvester Trust, the Standard Oil Trust, the Tobacco Trust, or any other... Ours was the only program to which they objected, and they supported either Mr. Wilson or Mr. Taft.

Though many Progressive party activists in the North opposed the steady loss of civil rights for blacks, Roosevelt ran a " lily-white " campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won few votes outside traditional Republican strongholds. Out of 1,100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina.