Speaking of American Elections!
Richard J. Garfunkel
10-23-16
From 1900 through 2012 there have been 29 presidential elections. In those 29 elections, the average winning percentage was 52.86%. In the first 15 elections, from 1900 thru 1956 the average winning % was 54%. In those 29 elections, the 10 highest winning percentages were: 61.1%, 60.8%, 60.7%, 60.3%, 58.8%, 58.2%, 57.4%, 56.4%, and 55.2%. Of the top 10 winning races, the average was 58.6%.
In the first 15 elections from 1900 through 1956, seven of these “landslides” happened, with largest of them by FDR in 1936 and 1932, Harding in 1920, Hoover in 1928, and T. Roosevelt in 1904. From 1960 through 2012, in 14 elections, the average victory was 51.6%. Since 1960, three of the top 10% victories, were LBJ in 1964, Nixon in 1972 and Reagan in 1984.
Since 1988, the winning percentages, in the last seven elections, or approximately 25% of our elections since the beginning of the 20th Century, has been 49.74%. Therefore, on an average, there were more votes, collectively, against the seven winners.
As for incumbents since 1900, there have been 19 elections when there was an incumbent, either by winning the election, succeeding the incumbent because of the death of the president, or in the case of Gerald Ford, the resignation of Richard Nixon. In those 19 elections, the incumbents (including FDR’s three races as an incumbent) received 50.3% of the vote. This included the defeat of Taft in 1912 (23%), Hoover in 1932 (39.7%), Carter in 1980 (41%), and Bush #41 in 1992 (37.4%). Where there has not been an incumbent, there have been ten races. The average victory since 1900 in those races has been 52.46%. Barack Obama, in 2008, won with 52.9% of the vote.
Of course, there are issues of whether 3rd party races have affected the outcome of some races or whether there have been questionable results in a state, or states, which have affected the outcome of a specific election. In the case of two of the four elections, where an incumbent lost, the 3rd party challenge had a significant affect. In 1912, with Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, his vote certainly helped Woodrow Wilson (41.8%) defeat WH Taft with 23% of the total vote. In 1992, the 3rd Party challenge of Ross Perot (18.9%) helped Clinton, who defeated G HW Bush with 43% of vote. Perot also drew 8.4% in 1996, but that would not of affected Clinton’s victory. In 1980, Jimmy Carter received only 41%, and 3rd party candidate, John Anderson’s 6.6% vote would not affected the outcome. In other races, as 1968, where Nixon beat Humphrey by less than 1% of the popular vote and won the Electoral College vote 301 to 191, George Wallace polled 13.5%. Neither candidate was an incumbent, both were former Vice-Presidents, and the Wallace vote was a Southern, segregationist, anti-northern Democratic vote. One could assume, that if Wallace was not in the race, the majority of that vote probably would have stayed home or gone to Nixon. In 1960, John F. Kennedy won a very close race by less than .5%. Some people claim that his 8,858 vote victory in Illinois was questionable. Interestingly, the Social Labor candidate had 10,560 votes in that state, approximately 22% of his national total of 47,522 votes. Who is to say whether that the 8, 858 votes were fraudulent, or whether the 3rd party candidate took votes from Kennedy! He also won Texas by 46, 257, a much larger number. If he had lost the electoral votes (27) in Illinois or Texas (24), he still would have just over the 270 Electoral College vote, winning threshold.
In 2000, GW Bush lost the popular vote .5% against Al Gore and won the Electoral College vote with 271 votes. Most experts believe that the 500+ vote margin in Florida was affected by the infamous hanging “chads,” and the idea that these votes would have been cast for Pat Buchanan, in a heavily Democratic and Jewish precinct is quite questionable. By the way, the 3rd party candidacy of Ralph Nader only polled 465,000 vote or less than a 3rd of a percent, but in Florida he polled 32,971, or about 7% of his national total, and the most votes he received in any state of the Union. More concerns were expressed in 2004 when GW Bush won re-election by 2.5%, but, only edged Gore in Ohio by 14,676 votes. There were many questions about that vote, and if those 20 Electoral votes would have been shifted to John Kerry, he would have with the same 271 Electoral College votes.
The bottom line with most of these races are that they are usually pretty close. In fact, except for a few cases in the last 66 years, most races (11 out of 14) have been decided by a majority vote of less than 53.5%.
I am voting for Hillary!