Landslide Presidential Elections
by Ed Sawicki - November 2020
In 2016, Donald Trump described his winning the presidential election as having an “electoral college landslide”. To make such an ignorant statement is to be unaware of previous elections or how the Electoral College system operates. Trump won 304 electoral votes to Clinton's 227—hardly a landslide—especially since Trump lost the popular vote by 2.8 million votes.
Here's what the election map looked like in 2016. Many other elections looked similar to this but the winner usually won the popular vote. Instead of a landslide election, Trump's win is below average.
Actual landslide elections happened in 1912, 1936, 1972, and 1984. In these elections, the electoral college winner also won the popular vote. In 1972, Republican Richard Nixon won 520 electoral votes to George McGovern's 17. Nixon won by 18 million popular votes. Here's a map that illustrates Nixon's win.
In 1964, Lyndon Johnson won 486 electoral votes to Goldwater’s 52. Johnson won by 16 million popular votes.
The following table shows election results since 1876, when the Democrats and Republicans became the two major parties.
| Candidates | Popular vote (millions) | Electoral | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Dem | GOP | Dem | GOP | Diff | Dem | GOP |
| 1876 | Tilden | Hayes | 4.29 | 4.03 | 0.25 | 184 | 185 |
| 1880 | Hancock | Garfield | 4.44 | 4.45 | 0.00 | 155 | 214 |
| 1884 | Cleveland | Blaine | 4.91 | 4.86 | 0.06 | 219 | 182 |
| 1888 | Cleveland | Harrison | 5.53 | 5.44 | 0.09 | 168 | 233 |
| 1892 | Cleveland | Harrison | 5.56 | 5.18 | 0.38 | 277 | 145 |
| 1896 | Bryan | McKinley | 6.51 | 7.11 | 0.60 | 176 | 271 |
| 1900 | Bryan | McKinley | 6.37 | 7.23 | 0.86 | 155 | 292 |
| 1904 | Parker | Roosevelt | 5.08 | 7.63 | 2.55 | 140 | 336 |
| 1908 | Bryan | Taft | 6.41 | 7.68 | 1.27 | 162 | 321 |
| 1912 | Wilson | Taft | 6.30 | 3.49 | 2.81 | 435 | 8 |
| 1916 | Wilson | Hughes | 9.13 | 8.55 | 0.58 | 277 | 254 |
| 1920 | Cox | Harding | 9.14 | 16.14 | 7.00 | 127 | 404 |
| 1924 | Davis | Coolidge | 8.39 | 15.72 | 7.34 | 136 | 382 |
| 1928 | Smith | Hoover | 15.01 | 21.43 | 6.41 | 87 | 444 |
| 1932 | Roosevelt | Hoover | 22.82 | 15.76 | 7.06 | 472 | 59 |
| 1936 | Roosevelt | Landon | 27.75 | 16.68 | 11.07 | 523 | 8 |
| 1940 | Roosevelt | Wilkie | 27.31 | 22.35 | 4.97 | 449 | 82 |
| 1944 | Roosevelt | Dewey | 25.61 | 22.02 | 3.59 | 432 | 99 |
| 1948 | Truman | Dewey | 24.18 | 21.99 | 2.19 | 303 | 189 |
| 1952 | Stevenson | Eisenhower | 27.37 | 34.07 | 6.70 | 89 | 442 |
| 1956 | Stevenson | Eisenhower | 26.03 | 35.58 | 9.55 | 73 | 457 |
| 1960 | Kennedy | Nixon | 34.22 | 34.11 | 0.113 | 303 | 219 |
| 1964 | Johnson | Goldwater | 43.13 | 27.17 | 15.95 | 486 | 52 |
| 1968 | Humphrey | Nixon | 31.27 | 31.78 | 0.51 | 191 | 301 |
| 1972 | McGovern | Nixon | 29.17 | 47.17 | 17.99 | 17 | 520 |
| 1976 | Carter | Ford | 40.83 | 39.14 | 1.68 | 297 | 240 |
| 1980 | Carter | Reagan | 35.48 | 43.90 | 8.42 | 49 | 489 |
| 1984 | Mondale | Reagan | 37.58 | 54.45 | 16.88 | 13 | 525 |
| 1988 | Dukakis | Bush | 41.81 | 48.89 | 7.08 | 111 | 426 |
| 1992 | Clinton | Bush | 44.91 | 39.10 | 5.80 | 370 | 168 |
| 1996 | Clinton | Dole | 47.40 | 39.2 | 8.20 | 379 | 159 |
| 2000 | Gore | Bush | 51.0 | 50.46 | 0.54 | 266 | 271 |
| 2004 | Kerry | Bush | 59.03 | 62.04 | 3.01 | 251 | 286 |
| 2008 | Obama | McCain | 69.5 | 59.95 | 9.55 | 365 | 173 |
| 2012 | Obama | Romney | 62.98 | 60.93 | 2.05 | 332 | 206 |
| 2016 | Clinton | Trump | 65.85 | 62.98 | 2.87 | 227 | 304 |
| 2020 | Biden | Trump | 78.86 | 73.22 | 5.64 | 290 | 232 |
The closest election in modern times was in 2000 when Gore received over half-a-million votes more than Bush but Bush won with five more electoral votes. Gore would have won the election if not for the Supreme Court. That's another story.
“My campaign received more votes...”
In 2021, Trump said about the 2020 election, “My campaign received more votes than any president in history.” He was wrong about that. Joe Biden has that honor. Besides, given that the population of the country is constantly increasing, most presidents receive more votes than their predecessors four years earlier.
Here's a chart that shows the number of voters in every presidential election since 1876.
Sources
Trump: "We Won by a Landslide"