1800
ELECTORAL VOTE
Thomas Jefferson 73
Aaron Burr 73
John Adams 65
Charles Pinckney 64
John Jay 1
From 1796 until 1824 congressional caucuses chose almost all the candidates, and the electors and then voted for the nominees. Jefferson’s 1800 victory was not established for weeks, because Republican electors, hoping to name both a president and a vice president from their own party, cast a tie vote between Jefferson and Burr. The House of Representatives declared Jefferson the winner.
Prior to 1804, each elector, voted for two candidates for president. The one receiving the biggest number, if a majority, was elected president. The next highest, vice president.
1824
POPULAR VOTE
John Quincy Adams (Dem.-Repub.) 31%
Andrew Jackson (Dem.-Repub.) 43%
Henry H. Crawford (Dem.-Repub.) 13%
ELECTORAL VOTE
John Quincy Adams 84
Andrew Jackson 99
Henry H. Crawford 41
No candidate won an electoral majority, so the election was decided among the top three by the House of Representatives. Thirteen state delegates chose Adams, seven chose Jackson and three chose crawford. Jackson would win the office in 1828.
1876
POPULAR VOTE
Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) 48%
Sanuel Tilden (Democrat) 51%
ELECTORAL VOTE
Rutherford B. Hayes 185
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Sanuel Tilden 184
One of the most disputed elections in U.S. history, Hayes’ election depended upon contested electoral votes in Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida. All the disputed votes went to Hayes; a single one would have elected Tilden. In January 1877, an Electoral Commission established by Congress to decide the dispute favored Hayes by 8-7.
1916
POPULAR VOTE
Woodrow Wilson (Democrat) 49%
Charles Hughes (Republican) 46%
ELECTORAL VOTE
Woodrow Wilson 277
Charles Hughes 254
Wilson won enough votes to transform a Democratic minority into a majority, although the change of some 1,500 votes in California would have given Hughes a majority in the Electoral College.
1960
POPULAR VOTE
John F. Kennedy (Democrat) 49.6%
Richard Nixon (Republican) 49.6%
ELECTORAL VOTE
John F. Kennedy 303
Richard Nixon 219
Kennedy won the popular vote by a margin of just 119,450 of the nearly 69 million votes cast. Kennedy’s Catholicism may have helped him in Eastern industrial states. He won most of the Democratic South, but the religious question apparently hurt him in the Middle West and West.
1976
POPULAR VOTE
Jimmy Carter (Democrat) 50.1%
Gerald Ford (Republican) 48%
ELECTORAL VOTE
Jimmy Carter 297
Gerald Ford 240
Carter’s narrow margin of victory was carved out in the South and the East, while he did poorly in the West and the Midwest. Gerald Ford was hampered by the worst economic slump since the 1930s and by his pardon of former President Richard Nixon. Ronald Reagan received one electoral vote.
Sources: Congressional Quarterly, Federal Election Commissions, The White House.