From March 19 to June 4, 1912, delegates to the 1912 Republican National Convention were selected through a series of primaries and caucuses to determine the party's nominee for President in the 1912 election. Incumbent President William Howard Taft was chosen over former President Theodore Roosevelt. Taft's victory at the national convention precipitated a fissure in the Republican Party, with Roosevelt standing for the presidency as the candidate of an independent Progressive Party, and the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson over the divided Republicans.