Historical election least likely to be called "close" *or* a "landslide"

[pbrower2a]

2012.

Barack Obama won 61.7% of the electoral vote in 2012. This is in between one election (McKinley in 1900) getting 65.35% of the electoral vote and another  (Truman in 1948) getting 57.1% of the electoral vote. The 2012 Presidential election is about as average in results as any Presidential election can be. A 4% split between the two major-Party nominees is about as average as it could be.

But since 1900 there has been only one 'average' election either popular votes or electoral votes, and that was in 2012. Enjoy it. It may be the only such election for a very long time because few Presidential elections approach the mean result.

Many thought that Truman would surely lose, and the Chicago Tribune had its infamous headline. It was not 'mere' wishful thinking as was so in 2012 when many on the Right were certain that President Obama could not win because he was 'so terrible that nobody could vote for him'. Anyone who followed the statewide polling knew that although the popular vote would be close, Mitt Romney had a very small random chance of winning without changing the dynamics of the election.