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I don't like this blog to be too political (with a capital P), but sometimes the mood hits me and, well, why not? It's not like I don't follow politics, just that I like this place on the Internet to be a bit of a respite from it. Not today.
Like a lot of people, I am in constant hope that Donald Trump will be a one-term president. I am also, however, inclined to cynicism, and so often keep one foot firmly planted in the Be-Mentally/Emotionally-Prepared-For-a-Second-Term camp. To that end, I thought it would be interesting (though perhaps not ultimately illuminating) to review presidential elections of incumbents during the last 50 years, and see how they fared.
We've learned just this century -- twice -- that the popular vote doesn't matter, so I'm going to focus on the Electoral College. Basically, we're going to look at two things: Did the incumbent's Electoral College numbers go up or down when they ran for re-election and, if they went down, did that decrease result in a loss? I wanted to start with Eisenhower, mostly to have more data to work with, but we didn't have all fifty state then, so starting with 1968 seemed cleaner.
For the sake of a knowledge base, there are 538 Electoral College votes, proportioned-out by state population. A tie in electoral votes would be 269, though that's not happened -- yet. So, we're dealing with 538 electoral votes, and it takes 270 to win.
Alright, here we go:
1968 results
Nixon (Republican) - 301
Humphrey (Democrat) - 191
Wallace (Independent) - 46
Nixon managed to win with a healthy electoral margin, even with a third-party candidate taking some votes. Note that this rarely happens anymore, even with the highly-touted 1992 and 1996 campaigns of Ross Perot, who never won a single electoral vote.
1972 results
Nixon (Republican) - 520
McGovern - 17
Nixon, pre-Watergate, absolutely crushed McGovern here. So, this is a case where an incumbent increased his standing in the Electoral College.
Next, of course, we know that Nixon resigned because of Watergate, and Gerald Ford took over as president. He ran for election in 1976, and lost to Jimmy Carter. Carter earned 297 electoral votes that year. Not as strong as Nixon eight years previous, but still, a win is a win.
1980 results
Reagan (Republican) - 489
Carter (Democrat) - 49
Carter lost 248 electoral votes in four years. And, yes, it was enough to sink him. To put this in perspective, Reagan could have lost 219 electoral votes four years later, and still have won. He didn't, of course. It should also be noted that the third party candidate, Anderson, did not attain any electoral votes.
1984 results
Reagan (Republican) - 525
Mondale (Democrat) - 13
489 is an exceedingly high number to win in the Electoral College, yet Reagan managed to go up from that with this re-election, cruising to victory and defeating Walter Mondale. The former vice-president won his home state of Minnesota, and Washington DC. Reagan's vice-president, George H.W. Bush, ran to succeed him in 1988, and won a strong 426 electoral votes to Democrat Dukakis' 111.
1992 results
Clinton (Democrat) - 370
Bush (Republican) - 168
Four years after coasting to victory, George H.W. Bush lost a staggering 258 electoral votes in 1992, and that was more than enough to hand the presidency to Clinton. It should be noted that third-party candidate Ross Perot won 19% of the total popular vote, which sounds impressive until you realize ( as I mentioned earlier) that he didn't earn one single electoral vote.
1996 results
Clinton (Democrat) - 379
Dole (Republican) - 159
Clinton saw a small increase in his Electoral College total upon re-election, and I'll note again that Perot (this time down to 8% of the popular vote) didn't score any electoral votes.
2000 results
Bush (Republican) - 271
Gore (Democrat) - 266
The closest, and perhaps most hotly-contested U.S. presidential election in modern history saw Clinton's vice-president come close but ultimately fail at continuing Democratic control of the White House. The son of George H.W. Bush, meanwhile, barely eeked-out a win.
2004 results
Bush (Republican) - 286
Kerry (Democrat) - 251
Bush managed to increase his Electoral College count, but not by much. Still, all you need to win is 270, right? It was another close election.
2008 results
Obama (Democrat) - 365
McCain (Republican) - 173
Compared to the electoral results of 2000 and 2004, this was a landslide win for Obama. This is the election I point to, however, as a precursor to the possibility of the Trump victory of 2016.
2012 results
Obama (Democrat) - 332
Romney (Republican) - 206
This is the first of the examples we've been working with, since 1968, of an incumbent president (one who was duly-elected the first time) losing electoral votes and not losing the election. Earlier I said that I wasn't sure if this would be an illuminating exercise, but I have learned something. Over the last half-century, the general trend of incumbent presidents who win re-election is that they increase their electoral vote. When that votes drops, they often lose. Obama is the first -- and so far only (in our 50 year survey) -- to go against that trend. What I am curious about is whether 2012 was the mark of a new trend, or an anomaly?
2016 results
Trump (Republican) - 304
Clinton (Democrat) - 227
Just like with 2000, we had an electoral/popular vote split here. Looking purely at electoral numbers in our survey, the closest election that mimics this is when Nixon won in 1968 with 301 electoral votes. And we just reviewed how things went four years later.
It can be very reasonably argued that to look solely at Electoral College results isn't the whole story, and of course it isn't. It is also true that we would ignore those numbers at our peril. For all the consternation and dismay over whether the Electoral College should be retired, the reality is that it currently exists to decide the outcome of our presidential elections. Getting millions of votes doesn't necessarily mean earning one single electoral vote. Ask Ross Perot. And getting more popular votes than your opponent doesn't always mean winning the election. Ask Al Gore and Hillary Clinton.
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