Nov 3, 2008

Presidential election trivia III: odds and ends

From 1992 to 2000, in 3 straight elections, no candidate got 50% of the vote. The only other time that happened was in the 4 straight elections 1880-1892.

Major party candidates who lost their home state:
  • Pinckney (1804 and 1808)
  • Rufus King (1816)
  • Van Buren (1840)
  • Clay (1844)
  • Scott (1852)
  • Fillmore (1856) - but he wasn't a major party candidate then
  • Fremont (1856)
  • Breckinridge (1860)
  • Douglas (1860)
  • McClellan (1864)
  • Greeley (1868)
  • Hancock (1880)
  • Cleveland (1888)
  • Benjamin Harrison (1892)
  • Weaver (1892) - not a major party candidate, but won EVs elsewhere
  • Bryan (1900)
  • Parker (1904) - both candidates were from NY
  • T. Roosevelt (1912) - not a major party candidate in that year
  • Taft (1912)
  • Wilson (1916) - the only one to win the election despite losing his home state
  • Cox (1920) - both candidates were from OH
  • Davis (1924)
  • Smith (1928)
  • Hoover (1932)
  • Landon (1936)
  • Wilkie (1940)
  • Dewey (1944)
  • Stevenson (1952 and 1956)
  • McGovern (1972)
  • Gore (2000)

Republicans have dominated the West since the 1920s, except for the Roosevelt-Truman years. ND-SD-NE-KS formed the "axis" that Republicans won even in 1940-48. Those 4 states went Republican in every election since 1920 except 1932, 1936, and 1964. In 1948, Oregon was the only other Republican state west of the Mississippi, but since then the West has been strongly Republican. Here is the list of Democratic states west of the Mississippi since 1952:
  • 1952: AR, LA
  • 1956: AR, MO
  • 1960: AR, LA, MO, MN, TX, NV, HI
  • 1964 (Exceptional year - D landslide): all except AZ, LA
  • 1968: TX, MN, WA, HI (and Wallace won LA, AR)
  • 1972: none
  • 1976: TX, HI, MN, MO, AR, LA
  • 1980: MN, HI
  • 1984: MN
  • 1988: HI, WA, OR, MN, IA
  • 1992: HI, WA, OR, CA (the Pacific states have become safe D territory), NV, MT, CO, NM, and "The Man" (MN, IA, MO, AR, LA)
  • 1996: Pacific + "The Man" + NV, AZ, NM
  • 2000: Pacific + NM, MN, IA
  • 2004: Pacific + MN

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