(Thread) Interesting factoids about presidential elections.

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McGovern is the most recent Democrat from The West and was the last time until 2016 that The West overall trended leftwards of The East.

Doesn't South Dakota belong to the Midwest?

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Georgia and Vermont have only voted seven times for the same candidate since 1824.
Both voted only once for the same Democratic candidate. Guess whom.

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Arizona voted in the two elections that were mainly about African Americans' rights (1964 and 2008) for the Republican candidates as it was both's home state.

Arizona would probably have gone Republican, too, had it already existed in 1860 and 1864, given California's and Oregon's voting behavior.

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County ties:

Ferry County, Washington, in the 1988 Presidential General Election:



Boone County, Kentucky, also had a tie in the 1976 Presidential General Election.



Pragmatic Populist found two further ties in the 1992 election.

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The 2016 senatorial elections marked the first and only election where the winning party in every Senate election mirrored the winning party for their state in the Presidential election.

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A simple as amazing, but underestimated and overlooked fact:
Out of the last seven elections, the Democrats won the popular vote six times.

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The only examples I can find where the incumbent party lost power to the opposition party AND the opposition party won a state in the prior election and lost the said state to the defeated incumbent party are

1848  OH (Dems won from the Whigs  which won in 1844 despite losing power to Whigs overall)
1884  NV CA (GOP won from Dem which won in 1880 despite losing power to Dem overall)
1896  NE WY SD MT WA (Dem won from GOP which won in 1892 despite losing power to GOP overall)

Of course on can argue the the Dem party of 1896 is a very different party from the Dem party of 1892.

I can find no examples of this after 1896.

That would almost have happened in 2008.
Had Kerry conquered Ohio, Bush would have lost, while gaining Iowa and New Mexico.

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Morris County, KS (between Bush and Perot)

Morris County is truly a jewel, as third-party counties are rare anyway, and a tie between a major party and a third party is like a coin ship in Super Mario Bros 3. 💎💰

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There was only one president who was never elected by the Electoral College, neither as president nor as vice president. Guess who.

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Maine followed a pattern almost exactly the opposite of Hawaii, going down twice in a row before springing back up again, a lot:
2004 -- 740,752
2008 -- 731,163
2012 -- 713,180
2016 -- 747,927

It seems like the MAINEiacs (hö hö hö) in the 2nd district had waited for decades till their Redeemer Trump finally came. It'd be interesting to analyze the numbers for either congressional district.

Wisconsin also had a bizarre pattern: a slight decrease, followed by a bigger increase, then an even bigger decrease (although all of the changes were very small, the number of votes cast being so similar each time):
2004 -- 2,997,007
2008 -- 2,983,417
2012 -- 3,068,434
2016 -- 2,976,150

Seems like a home state effect for Paul Ryan.

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There's one state whose county results map has looked the same since 2000 with both colors being used.
Guess which.

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You both misread the question.

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No there is a county map (besides Hawaii) that has looked the same since 2000 (irrespective of the hues).

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No there is a county map (besides Hawaii) that has looked the same since 2000 (irrespective of the hues).

Arizona?

That's right.

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The two Dakotas only voted four times for different candidates: 1892, 1896, 1912, 1916.

The interesting thing about it is the factoid that each time a different voting permutation can be found on the respective election map: P/R, R/D, D/P, D/R.

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Mississippi and Alabama have voted the same way in almost every election both of them could vote in.

Which elections did they vote differently?

1840: Mississippi voted for William Harrison (Whig), whereas Alabama voted for Martin van Buren (Dem).
1960: Mississippi sent unpledged electors to the Electoral College, whereas Kennedy won the popular vote in Alabama (with unpledged electors voting for Byrd/Thurmond being sent to the College).

Technically also 1868, when Mississippi didn't participate in the presidential election (while Alabama voted for Republican Ulysses Grant).

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In 2016, three candidates who competed in the GOP primary could claim victory on Election Night.

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Most presidential elections have been held on November 6 or 8 since 1848. (7 elections each)
The date with the fewest presidential elections since 1848 is November 5. (5 elections)

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I've broken down that list a little further.

If we take a look at the electoral vote winners, there's only one date that strikes one's eye: November 6;
the Republicans won 6 times on that date, the Democrats only once (Obama '12). All the other dates were evenly balanced between D and R.
Furthermore, November 7 is the only date on which a candidate that was neither a Republican nor a Democrat won the election.

If we take a look at the popular vote winners, it's getting a tad more interesting, as Democrats have won all but two November 7 elections; Nixon '72 was the only Republican to win via popular vote on that date.

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Were there any elections in which the winner didn't win any "southern" states? If so, what was the last election in which this happened?

Never.

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The only state in 1992 where Bill Clinton came third was Utah.
The only state where Bush came third that year was Maine.

In 2016, however, Hillary Clinton came second in Utah even though that was the only three-way race that year.
And Trump overperformed in Maine, even winning a congressional district, which Bush didn't manage to do despite the three-way race.

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All twelve counties outside Maine that voted for Perot in 1992 (including Morris County, Kansas) voted for Dole four years later.
All three Perot counties in Maine, however, voted for Clinton in 1996.

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No there is a county map (besides Hawaii) that has looked the same since 2000 (irrespective of the hues).

Arizona?

That's right.

So, in the last 5 elections, every Arizona county voted either R-R-R-R-R or D-D-D-D-D? Fascinating.

It even gets better: Arizona could vote Democrat in two years without changing its county results map.

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The only two South Dakotan counties that Mr. Clinton won in the 1992 primary (Campbell and Roberts) were not won by Mrs. Clinton, neither in 2008 nor in 2016: