Most Disastrous Narrow Election Defeat for a Party in the Modern Era

[Orser67]

There's a lot of interesting alternate history scenarios to consider, but I went with 2016 because of how easy it is to draw a connection between the election results and what looks like generational control of the Supreme Court.

I would probably list 1948 last because Republicans got to avoid being saddled with the Korean War, and I ultimately don't think it mattered that much that Republicans took over in 1952 instead of 1948. 1960 is hard to rank, because Republicans probably don't accomplish much without Congress, but JFK's election led to a chain of events that ended in probably the second most important domestic legislation package of the 20th century (the Great Society) and cemented the liberal majority on the Warren Court. Any discussion of the 1960s probably needs to include the Vietnam War, but personally I have no idea how things would have gone with Nixon in office.

With 2000, it's pretty unclear how a Gore presidency would have gone; would he have a trifecta to start his term, does he similarly benefit from a bump in 9/11, and if he does have a trifecta, what does he actually do (my guess is, probably not anything as ambitious as Obama and Biden did/are attempting to do)? With that said, I can understand how people might rank this highly on the basis of opposition to the Iraq War, the War on Terror, and also (if any of these people still exist) opposition to the national debt.

It's too early to say anything with confidence about 2020, so I guess I'd rank them:
2016->1960->2000->1948