Which campaign was worse?

[Mr. Smith]

McCain/Palin: A completely hapless sitch from the start thanks to Iraq. That's an election that probably would've looked like 2012 or 2020 in margin if The Recession hadn't happened.  However, not losing "Never wrong Missouri" should've been worth something.

Romney/Ryan: A bit of a sacrificial lamb campaign, but even so, they still did the unthinkable and gained popular margin....not lost. Gained.  Politically, they may be my least favorite...but they are pretty much the king


Clinton/Kaine: This one would be the pits if not for the last one.  Losing to a dumpster fire campaign is  just sad. But there were some headwinds to rough at least [Brexit; Russia; SCOTUS; Comey], and ultimately they still won by 2 million as opposed to a complete loss.  Still, this should've been a 2008/1988 sort of routing, not a loss with a serious EC-disparity.

Trump/Pence:  Losing by margins similar to Romney/Ryan as an incumbent, in tailor-made conditions, to a dumpster campaign [not even enough energy for fire.] has to be it. I guess you could point to slightly gaining in percentage, big raw vote add, and absurdly good EC stacking...but the conditions were also absurdly favorable to begin with...but he blew it by acting just like Hillary AND the botched COVID response.