US Presidential

The first presidential election under the new Constitution was an electoral college affair with no campaigning. Electors were chos...

Washington again received every electoral vote, 132, while John Adams held the vice presidency with 77. Beneath the surface, Treas...

With Washington retiring, the first openly contested race produced the first peaceful transfer of power between rivals in the mode...

The Revolution of 1800 matched Jefferson against incumbent Adams amid the Alien and Sedition Acts and quasi-war with France. Jeffe...

The first election run under the Twelfth Amendment, with distinct presidential and vice presidential ballots, worked smoothly. Jef...

Nominated behind the scenes by Jefferson, Madison secured the Democratic-Republican caucus nod over James Monroe and Vice Presiden...

The first wartime presidential election, held as the United States moved toward declaring war on Britain in June 1812, pitted Madi...

With the Federalist Party discredited by Hartford Convention whispers of New England secession during the war, Secretary of State ...

Monroe faced no organized opposition, and only New Hampshire elector William Plumer withheld his vote, nominally to preserve Washi...

With the Democratic-Republican Party splintering, four candidates divided the vote: Andrew Jackson 99 electoral votes and a popula...

The rematch of 1824 was the first true mass election, as most states had dropped property qualifications and chose electors by pop...

The 1832 race introduced national party conventions, as Democrats renominated Jackson in Baltimore while National Republicans and ...

The new Whig Party, unable to settle on a national leader, ran William Henry Harrison in the North and West, Hugh White in the Sou...

William Henry Harrison's campaign invented modern image politics, turning his humble log cabin and hard cider into symbols against...

The Democrats surprised everyone by nominating dark horse Polk, an expansionist committed to Texas annexation and Oregon, on the n...

The first election held on a single November day nationwide matched war hero Taylor, a slaveholding Whig with no political record,...

Pierce, a little-known New Hampshire Democrat nominated on the 49th ballot, obliterated Winfield Scott 254 to 42, losing only Mass...

The Democrats turned to Buchanan, untainted by the Kansas bloodshed, while the new Republican Party, born of fury at Kansas-Nebras...

The most consequential American election fractured along sectional lines. Lincoln, nominated on the Republican platform of stoppin...

Held during civil war with eleven Confederate states unrepresented, the election tested whether democracy could conduct a conteste...

Ulysses Grant's popularity carried him past New York's Horatio Seymour 214 to 80, with Grant winning the popular vote by about 5.4...

Facing a split between Democrats and Liberal Republicans united behind Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, Grant won e...

Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote by 3 points and stood one electoral vote short with 184, while twenty votes in Florida...

Ohio Representative James Garfield, a dark horse nominee, beat Winfield Hancock, hero of Gettysburg, by fewer than 8,000 popular v...

Grover Cleveland, the reform Democratic governor whose slogan was public office is a public trust, faced James Blaine, tarred by r...

Tariffs dominated as Benjamin Harrison, protecting high duties, defeated President Cleveland 233 to 168, even though Cleveland won...

Cleveland's rematch victory over Harrison, 277 to 145 with 22 for Populist James Weaver, made him the twenty-second and twenty-fou...

William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold speech won him the Democratic nomination at 36, fusing Democrats and Populists behind free ...

The rematch of 1896 added imperialism to the money question after the Spanish-American War, as Bryan opposed the takeover of the P...

Roosevelt, the first president to win a full term in his own right after ascending from the vice presidency, dominated the electio...

Roosevelt's chosen successor, Taft, defeated Bryan for a third time, 321 to 162, carrying everything outside the Solid South and N...

The most consequential third-party run in history: Roosevelt, denied the Republican nomination by Taft's control, ran as the Progr...

Running on the slogan he kept us out of war, Wilson barely survived Charles Evans Hughes's challenge, losing the East early before...

The Nineteenth Amendment's ratification more than doubled the eligible electorate, and 26 million votes were cast, doubling 1916. ...

Coolidge, restored to popularity amid prosperity, beat Democrat John W. Davis, the weakest Democratic performance ever at 28.8 per...

Hoover, commerce secretary and prosperity's engineer, crushed New York Governor Al Smith, the first Catholic nominated by a major ...

With a quarter of the workforce idle, farms failing, and Hoover discredited, FDR promised a new deal for the American people and w...

The New Deal's high-water referendum saw FDR lose only Maine and Vermont against Kansas Governor Alf Landon, 523 to 8, with 60.8 p...

Breaking the two-term tradition set by Washington, Roosevelt ran against Wendell Willkie, a utility executive who had been a Democ...

With American forces fighting on two fronts, FDR, visibly aged and concealing heart disease, defeated Thomas Dewey, the young New ...

Abandoned by Dixiecrats backing Thurmond and progressives backing Wallace, and trailing in every poll, Truman embarked on a 22,000...

NATO commander Dwight Eisenhower, courted by both parties, accepted the Republican nomination, pledged to go to Korea, and beat Il...

The first rematch since 1900, and the first under television's full glare, reaffirmed Eisenhower's popularity amid peace and prosp...

The first election with televised debates became the closest of the century: Kennedy's Catholicism, overcome by his calm performan...

After Kennedy's assassination, LBJ's demand for a mandate produced the modern era's most one-sided result: 486 to 52, with 61.1 pe...

Vietnam, the assassinations of King and Kennedy, and urban disorder made 1968 the angriest campaign of the century. Nixon's silent...

Nixon's re-election against George McGovern was a Republican high-water mark: 520 to 17 with 60.7 percent and every state but Mass...

Watergate's residue made the unelected Ford's task nearly impossible, and former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, an unknown promise...

Inflation, hostage misery in Iran, and a malaise mood met Ronald Reagan's are you better off question and sunny conservatism. Reag...

Reagan's morning in America re-election over Walter Mondale was a near sweep, 525 to 13, Mondale's Minnesota alone plus DC, with 5...

Vice President George Bush, once seen as a wimp, recovered a 17-point summer deficit against Michael Dukakis through the Willie Ho...

Recession, read my lips taxes, and Ross Perot's deficit crusade, the most successful independent run by vote share in the century ...

After the budget-shutdown standoff with Gingrich's Congress, Clinton, running on a bridge to the twenty-first century against 73-y...

The election came down to Florida, decided officially by 537 votes out of six million, with Gore holding a 543,000-vote national p...

Wartime incumbency after 9/11 and Iraq dominated as Bush defeated John Kerry, a Vietnam veteran wounded over his war record by Swi...

Amid the September financial collapse, Barack Obama's organization and message of change defeated John McCain, whose campaign susp...

The first post-Citizens United billion-dollar election saw Obama defeat Mitt Romney 332 to 206 with 51.1 percent, the first presid...

Against every expectation, Donald Trump flipped the industrial midwest on trade and immigration themes, winning 304 to 227 after s...

Held under Covid with mass mail voting, the highest turnout since 1900, 66.6 percent, produced Joe Biden's 306 to 232 win and 81.3...

Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, who entered after Biden's July withdrawal, 312 to 226 with 49.8 percent, the f...