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

[Nichlemn]

I've seen Clinton's and Obama's victories referred to as landslide despite being mid-high single digit popular vote wins. 1948 is often seen as a close election (mainly due to being an upset) despite being a mid single digit popular vote win (and a fairly reasonable EC margin as well). So where are the "moderate wins"?

[Nichlemn]

Btw, Obama in 2008 had better popular vote results than any other candidate since Bush in 1988.

The relative closeness of previous elections shouldn't much influence whether a given election is classified as a landslide. Besides, Clinton's elections had Perot in them. Clinton won by a larger % margin in 1996, and a higher share of the two-party vote in both elections.

[Nichlemn]

Btw, Obama in 2008 had better popular vote results than any other candidate since Bush in 1988.

Obama was a party-pickup. Bush was a party hold.

Obama's 52.87% U.S. Popular Vote is the fourth-highest of a pickup (obviously winning a first term), following 1920 Warren Harding (60.32%), 1932 Franklin Roosevelt (57.41%), and 1952 Dwight Eisenhower (55.18%).

No one president, nor his party (Harding died in 1923), has failed to hold the White House under these circumstances.

I think this might be an example of "overfitting". Obama was a sitting Senator when elected President, and in no identical situation did the President's party fail to hold the White House at the next election. Well ...  and the other former sitting Senators all died in the third year of their Presidency. I guess we should start betting on Biden 2012.

[Nichlemn]

Well, Clinton's wins weren't a landslide in any way, nor were Obama's. I didn't hear anybody claim that but if someone does, I'd like to hear his arguments.

Google the phrases "X's landslide" and you get quite a few. (In case you think it happens at every election, I haven't found anyone describing 2004 as a landslide except sarcastically).

[Nichlemn]

Good post, mechaman.

How do we classify elections with third party Electoral Voter winners (like 1860, 1948 and 1968) where the winner won only a narrow majority of the Electoral Vote, but second place was far behind? We could go by the party controlling the House... but is that really a reasonable metric? Didn't Wallace aim to throw the election into the House so he could have sway? Wouldn't this strategy only work if there was uncertainty about who would be elected in that scenario?

[Nichlemn]

2012? I've seen some references to it as a landslide but that's pretty dumb when it's historically one of the smaller margins. But a near 4 point PV margin and a fairly early election call makes it probably about the best case I can think of.