Obama 1st since FDR to be re-elected with more than 50% of the vote?

Politics & Elections
1

I’m getting caught up on my news. When I get busy, the only news program I never miss is The Rachel Maddow Show. I DVR a whole bunch of other programs, and get caught up on them when I have the opportunity when I am working on other things. MSNBC’s The Ed Show is in that category. I enjoy it, but it is nowhere near as vital as Maddow.

Anyway, Ed opened his show with the announcement in the title. Is that true? Looks like a hell of a success, especially given the impact of Citizen’s United, the functional equivalent of a landslide.

2

I’m pretty sure Bush 43 ('04) got more than 50%.

3

First Democrat. Reagan was modestly successful in 1984.

4

First, or first democrat? Bush won in 2004 with 50.7% and Reagan won in 1984 with 58.8%

5

Nope. Eisenhower was re-elected in '56 with 57.4% of the vote.

6

I mis-head. It was “…the first Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt to be re-elected with more than 50% of the vote.”

7

Not the first Democrat, either. LBJ was re-elected with 61% of the vote. Or do we not count him because he wasn’t elected the first time?

8

Can’t even be first Democrat, since LBJ got 61 percent in 64. First elected Democratic president since FDR to be reelected with >50%?

Hell, he’s the first black president ever to be reelected with >50% of the vote, for that matter.

9

Johnson won his re-election campaign with way over 50% of the vote.

Obama is the first non-southern democrat to win re-election since Truman, though. (and even Truman was from Missouri, which is kind of southern)

Obama is also the first incumbent to win a re-election after his two predecessors also won re-election for the first time since the early 1800’s I believe.

Obama is also the first person to ever beat an alliterative ticket (Romney/Ryan).

10

It’s first Democrat since FDR. You can find people touting this all over the web now. And as a comparison, Clinton and Obama are the only post-FDR Democrats to win re-election at all. Truman served almost eight years but didn’t run for a second full term (he was unpopular but Constitutionally he could have done it), Kennedy was assassinated 2 1/2 years after taking office, Johnson didn’t run for a second full term, and Carter lost his re-election campaign. Clinton won 43% of the popular vote in a three-way race with Bush and Perot in '92, and in '96, with Perot getting a much smaller share of the vote, Clinton got 49%. Over the same period four Republican presidents have been re-elected with more than 50% of the popular vote and most of them won by very large amounts. The only Republican president to fail to win re-election over that whole period is Bush Sr. So that looks bad for the Democrats. Of course the whole picture looks different if you remember that FDR was re-elected with more than 50% of the popular vote different three times.

The bottom line here is that presidential elections are rare, and with a small sample size you can find all sorts of fun, weird statistical patterns that don’t mean anything.

11

Why are we not counting LBJ’s election as a re-election? People elected him 1st as vice president, he then served as president for a while, and then was re-elected as president. It’s silly not to count his election as a re-election campaign. It definitely was, and he won it soundly.

12

“We” didn’t come up with this statistic. They’re talking about candidates who were elected to two terms as president, which Truman and Johnson were not. Is it a picky definition? Sure. But then again, why are we starting with FDR?

13

For that matter, why aren’t we counting Truman getting re-elected in 1948. It was a close election, but didn’t he get more than 50% of the vote?

14

Pretty simple. Truman and LBJ were each elected President once, in '48 and '64 respectively, never re-elected.

15

Oh I see, ok thanks. I misunderstood the factoid.

16

LBJ was only ELECTED PRESIDENT once.

17

I also heard that Obama is the 1st Dem (since GOP founding) to win outright majorities twice.

18

Is FDR disqualified because he did it four times instead of two? Otherwise, yes, this is accurate.

19

Did you know that Obama is the first Democratic president since 1824 with the first name “Barack” to be elected? Fascinating, isn’t it!

20

Historically, no black presidential candidate has ever failed to be re-elected.