Worst electoral result for a GOP nominee since 1964?

[Arbitrage1980]

Dole. He lost the popular vote by 8.5%, and won 159 electoral votes. Clinton was leading by 10-15 points a few weeks before the election and chose to campaign for Dem congressional candidates, resulting in him winning by a lower margin. Clinton could have won GA, CO, VA, MN, NC, IN, if he had campagined aggressively for himself in the closing 2 weeks.

[Arbitrage1980]

Dole. He lost the popular vote by 8.5%, and won 159 electoral votes. Clinton was leading by 10-15 points a few weeks before the election and chose to campaign for Dem congressional candidates, resulting in him winning by a lower margin. Clinton could have won GA, CO, VA, MN, NC, IN, if he had campagined aggressively for himself in the closing 2 weeks.

Clinton did win MN.

They probably meant MT

Yup. I meant MT. Clinton won MT in 1992 due to Perot.

[Arbitrage1980]

Bush 1992. Dole overpreformed a bit if anything, and the GOP had little trouble holding most of it's 1994 coattails downballot.

Bush 92 got more EV than Dole , and lost by a smaller PV margin than Dole did. Heck I would say 92 was less of a defeat for HW than 08 was for McCain

In 08, McCain faced structural disadvantages that no GOP candidate could have overcome. In 92, HW Bush's defeat had more to do with the incredible political strength of Clinton. Bush would have defeated a Brown or Tsongas. Even then, Bush closed the gap to 2-3 points in the week before the election. Then, the Caspar Weinberger indictment proved to be an October surprise, hurting Bush's momentum.

It is interesting how the October surprises tend to hurt Republicans.

1992: Weinberger indictment
2000: W Bush DUI in Maine
2012: Romeny's 47% video tape
2016: Access Hollywood

[Arbitrage1980]

Bush 1992. Dole overpreformed a bit if anything, and the GOP had little trouble holding most of it's 1994 coattails downballot.

Bush 92 got more EV than Dole , and lost by a smaller PV margin than Dole did. Heck I would say 92 was less of a defeat for HW than 08 was for McCain

In 08, McCain faced structural disadvantages that no GOP candidate could have overcome. In 92, HW Bush's defeat had more to do with the incredible political strength of Clinton. Bush would have defeated a Brown or Tsongas. Even then, Bush closed the gap to 2-3 points in the week before the election. Then, the Caspar Weinberger indictment proved to be an October surprise, hurting Bush's momentum.

It is interesting how the October surprises tend to hurt Republicans.

1992: Weinberger indictment
2000: W Bush DUI in Maine
2012: Romeny's 47% video tape
2016: Access Hollywood

The Romney 47% tape didn't come out in October, did it? I thought it came out earlier.

I stand corrected. The 47% tape was released by Mother Jones' David Corn in mid-September. For some reason I thought it was mid-October.