I keep seeing web page headliners on various news sites proclaiming that this year’s Presidential election is “one of” the closest votes or “the closest election in many years” – ??
Aren’t these rather unnecessarily cautious statements? Would anyone care to list the US Presidential elections that were closer, as a percent difference in popular and electoral votes between candidates?
Well, electoral votes-wise, the Jefferson-Adams election of 1800 was actually tied…you can’t get any closer than that.
Popular votes-wise, it’s kind of hard to describe “closeness,” especially since the popular vote winner hasn’t always been the winner of the race, and especially since there probably aren’t any reliable popular vote tallies from the earliest days of the country, when we had elections such as the one above, where there was an electoral college tie. So it’s wise to hedge bets when making such a statement.
Current estimates, Electoral:
If Bush wins, assuming Oregon and Florida go for him (Oregon is leaning that way): 278 out of 538, for 51.67%.
If Bush wins, assuming only Florida goes for him: 271 out of 538 : 50.37%
If Gore wins, assuming Oregon goes for Bush: 285 out of 538: 52.97%
If Gore wins, and takes Oregon as well: 292 out of 538: 54.27%
In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won election with 185 out of 369: 50.13%.
So the 1876 EC result was closer than the 2000, no matter how 2000 ends up.
Popular vote, current stats by this morning’s Washington Post:
Al Gore: 48,707,413
George Bush: 48,609,640
a difference of less than 100,000. (around .01%)
In 1880, James Garfield had 4,454,433; Winfield Hancock had 4,444,976: a margin of less than 10,000. (around .01%)
In 1884, Grover Cleveland had 4,875,971; James Blaine had 4,852,234: a margin of less than 25,000. (around .4%)
In 1888, Benjamin Harrison had 5,445,269; Grover Cleveland had 5,540,365; Harrison won the EC even though he lost the popular vote by almost 100,000. (around 1.1%)
So the difference in votes, percentage-wise, is about what it was in 1880. The difference, number-wise, is higher than in 1880 and 1884. And should Bush win, he’ll be losing less in the popular vote than Benjamin Harrison did in 1888.
Kennedy beat Nixon by a margin of about 32,000 votes (that is, those votes would have swung the electoral votes in IL and NJ, I think).
Carter beat Ford by a margin of about 20,000 votes in OH and HI, I think.
This one will probably end up even close than those two.
Just got back from http://www.cnn.com
It has a java link about 1/2 way down that shows close elections in history, both Electoral College close ones, and popular vote squeakers.
Its pretty interesting. Check it out.
Check out this link: