Winning the Popular Vote…Losing the Election
From America’s beginning our country has had to function with conflicting points of view. Our founding fathers faced towering questions…should we be a republic or a monarchy …the issue of slavery…how do we balance the voices of heavily populated states vs. small states…states vs. federal rights…a pastoral country or an industrial one; who should be allowed to vote and make those decisions.
Since then, for more than two hundred fifty years, such divisiveness has increased so that recent elections are won or lost by the smallest of margins. Five times in our history the presidential candidate winning the popular vote has failed to win the election, a result credited to the Electoral College, one of many compromises devised by our founders, with results they likely never anticipated.
John Quincy Adams/Andrew Jackson – 1824! Elections until then had been courteous and decisive. In 1820 James Monroe had won with no opposition in what was called ‘the Era of Good Feeling.’ But now four candidates vied for the position, the other two being Henry Clay and a southerner named William Crawford. Jackson received 40% of the vote, but it wasn’t a majority and the election was sent to the House of Representatives, each state to have one vote. Adams won. Four years later, however, Jackson would turn the tables on his opponent and win decisively.
Rutherford B. Hayes/Samuel B. Tilden – 1876! The Civil War had been over for a decade and the North had grown tired of maintaining large numbers of soldiers in the south to protect the rights of freed slaves. The South wanted the soldiers gone and wanted, once again, to control their own future. Tilden, the Democrat, won by 250,000 votes…50.9% of the vote, but three states had conflicting electors, casting doubt on the results and throwing the vote to the House of Representatives. After weeks of indecision the Democrats offered President Hayes a compromise. He could retain the Presidency if he agreed to withdraw all Union troops from what had been the Confederacy, allowing them to return to home rule. His agreement, the Devil’s Compromise, returned Blacks across the south to near-slave conditions for nearly a century.
Benjamin Harrison/Grover Cleveland – 1884! The incumbent, President Cleveland, was running for reelection. The big issue was tariffs…good for business, bad for consumers. Despite winning the popular vote by 100,000 votes, Cleveland lost heavily in the Electoral College vote. He would be reelected in 1884, the only President to serve two discontiguous terms.
George W. Bush/Al Gore – 2000! The first election of the new millennium. Al Gore, Vice-President against George W. Bush, Governor of Texas, and son of the earlier President Bush. It appeared that Gore had squeaked out a narrow win but then came chaos in Florida where we learned of ‘hanging chads’ and 61,000 disputed ballots. Florida’s Governor was Jeb Bush, George’s brother. The dispute went to the Supreme Court where conservative justices ruled. Objectivity was impossible to imagine. The results were a fait accompli…Bush would be President.
Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump – 2016! Hillary was the odds-on favorite. Wife of a past President, Senator, and Secretary of State, she had all the qualifications. Her opponent was a blustering, philandering business personality who had trounced an array of professional Republicans in a series of debates. Overconfidence? Inept campaign? A great deal of post-election hand-wringing. Despite winning the popular vote by three million, Mrs. Clinton lost the Electoral vote overwhelmingly.
As we approach Election Day pollsters tell us we may face yet another squeaker.
Kamala Harris/Donald Trump – 2024! ?????????????