Which defeated, elected Incumbent of the last 50 years ran the best re election Campaign?

[dw93]

I decided to leave Ford out of it as he'd win the poll overwhelmingly. Of the three, it's a tough call. On the one hand, Carter probably, as far as I'm aware, made the least mistakes in the general election campaign, but his refusal to debate with Anderson proved costly, whereas Bush Trump's re election bids all died by deaths of a thousand cuts, meaning they made many mistakes. With hindsight though, even with good campaigns Bush and Carter were going to have uphill battles and likely still would've come short in the end, while Trump, thanks in part to polarization and an average Biden campaign, could've won had he made less mistakes.

[darklordoftech]

That Trump didn’t attack Biden for his votes on trade was a big mistake on Trump’s part.

[Alben Barkley]

All were terrible, but Trump came the closest to winning so I guess it has to be him by default, much as I hate to say it.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

The one that got more votes than in his first election.

[President Johnson]

All were terrible, but Trump came the closest to winning so I guess it has to be him by default, much as I hate to say it.

This, unfortunately. Especially since Trump generally overperformed expectations and gained more than 10 million raw votes.