I. Introduction
The chart below shows the candidates, popular votes, electoral votes, and the five times a candidate won despite losing the popular vote in all 59 US presidential elections.
Democrats (party founded in 1828) are shown in blue and Republicans (party founded in 1854) in red. Elections in early US history are shown in black when no party equivalent could be determined.
Four of the five candidates in history who won the presidency while losing the popular vote were Republicans (Hayes in 1876, Harrison in 1888, Bush in 2000, and Trump in 2016). The first time a candidate won the presidency with fewer popular votes, John Quincy Adams in 1824, neither the Democratic nor Republican parties had been founded. [1]Popular vote totals are not available for elections prior to 1824, and even when those totals subsequently started being reported, some states still chose electors in the state legislatures and … Continue reading
The five elections in which the popular vote winner did not win the presidency represent 8.5% of all US presidential elections. Of the 59 presidential elections since 1789, 54 of those elections (91.5%) were won by the candidate with the most popular votes.
II. Fifty-Nine US Presidential Elections, 1789-2020
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Source: Election results in the chart are from CQ Press, ”Presidential General Election, All States, 1789-2016 Summary,” CQ Voting and Elections Collection, library.cqpress.com, 2020
Page Sources:
1. 270 to Win, “1868 Presidential Election,” 270towin.com (accessed Dec. 3, 2020)
2. S.J. Ackerman, “The Vote That Failed,” smithsonianmag.com, Nov. 1998
3. The American Presidency Project, “Statistics: Data Archive – Elections,” presidency.ucsb.edu (accessed Dec. 2, 2020)
4. Ballotpedia, “Democratic Party,” ballotpedia.org (accessed Dec. 4, 2020)
5. Ballotpedia, “Republican Party,” ballotpedia.org (accessed Dec. 4, 2020)
6. Encyclopedia Britannica, “United States Presidential Election Results,” britannica.com (accessed Dec. 1, 2020)
7. Fair Vote, “Faithless Electors,” fairvote.org, July 6, 2020
8. History.com Editors, “Democratic Party,” history.com, Oct. 11, 2019
9. House of Representatives, “The Electoral Vote Count of the 1876 Presidential Election,” history.house.gov (accessed Dec. 3, 2020)
10. Library of Congress, “Presidential Election of 1800: A Resource Guide,” loc.gov (accessed Dec. 3, 2020)
11. Library of Congress, “Presidential Elections, 1789 to 1920: Resource Guides,” loc.gov (accessed Dec. 3, 2020)
12. Margaret A. Hogan, “John Quincy Adams: Life in Brief,” millercenter.org (accessed Dec. 3, 2020)
13. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), “What is the Electoral College?,” archives.org, Dec. 23, 2019
14. National Popular Vote, “5 of 45 Presidents Came into Office Without Winning the National Popular Vote,” nationalpopularvote.com
(accessed Dec. 1, 2020)
15. Ronald G. Shafer, “The ugliest presidential election in history: Fraud, voter intimidation and a backroom deal,” washingtonpost.com, Nov.
24, 2020
16. SUNY OER Services, “Rise of the Whigs,” courses.lumenlearning.com (accessed Dec. 3, 2020)
17. James Traub, “The Ugly Election That Birthed Modern American Politics,” national geographic.com, Dec. 2016
18. US Census Bureau, “Apportionment Legislation 1790 – 1830,” census.gov (accessed Dec. 15, 2020)
19. US Census Bureau, “Apportionment Legislation 1840 – 1880,” census.gov (accessed Dec. 15, 2020)
References
| ↑1 | Popular vote totals are not available for elections prior to 1824, and even when those totals subsequently started being reported, some states still chose electors in the state legislatures and therefore did not contribute to the popular vote (see 1824). Other early elections were marred by fraud and voter suppression (see 1876 and 1888). |
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