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Politics : A Hard Look At Donald Trump -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (6419)

11/29/2016 12:34:46 PM

From: Brumar89

Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 46523

Trump’s share of the Electoral College is below average: War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Trump Won In A Landslide.

By Nate Silver

Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway — perhaps seeking to push back on the increasing attention to Hillary Clinton’s widening lead in the national popular vote — has been touting her boss’s margin of victory in the Electoral College. With Trump officially declared the winner in Michigan on Monday, he’s got 306 electoral votes — 56.9 percent of the available total of 538 and nothing to sneeze at. That’s more than George W. Bush got in either of his Electoral College victories, making it the highest total for a Republican since 1988.

But in a historical context, Trump’s Electoral College performance is decidedly below-average. So it’s a bit Orwellian to call it a “landslide” or a “blowout.” There have been 54 presidential elections since the ratification of the 12th Amendment in 1804. (Before that, presidential electors cast two votes each, making it hard to compare them to present-day elections.) Of those 54 cases, Trump’s share of the electoral vote — assuming there are no faithless electors or results overturned by recounts — ranks 44th:

ELECTORAL VOTESRANKELECTIONWINNERTOTALWINNERWINNER’S SHARETrump’s share of the Electoral College is below average

1	1820	James Monroe	232	231	99.6
2	1936	Franklin D. Roosevelt	531	523	98.5
3	1984	Ronald Reagan	538	525	97.6
4	1972	Richard Nixon	538	520	96.7
5	1804	Thomas Jefferson	176	162	92.0
6	1864	Abraham Lincoln	233	212	91.0
7	1980	Ronald Reagan	538	489	90.9
8	1964	Lyndon B. Johnson	538	486	90.3
9	1932	Franklin D. Roosevelt	531	472	88.9
10	1956	Dwight D. Eisenhower	531	457	86.1
11	1852	Franklin Pierce	296	254	85.8
12	1940	Franklin D. Roosevelt	531	449	84.6
13	1816	James Monroe	217	183	84.3
14	1928	Herbert Hoover	531	444	83.6
15	1952	Dwight D. Eisenhower	531	442	83.2
16	1912	Woodrow Wilson	531	435	81.9
17	1944	Franklin D. Roosevelt	531	432	81.4
18	1872	Ulysses S. Grant	352	286	81.3
19	1840	William Henry Harrison	294	234	79.6
20	1988	George H. W. Bush	538	426	79.2
21	1832	Andrew Jackson	286	219	76.6
22	1920	Warren G. Harding	531	404	76.1
23	1868	Ulysses S. Grant	294	214	72.8
24	1924	Calvin Coolidge	531	382	71.9
25	1904	Theodore Roosevelt	476	336	70.6
26	1996	Bill Clinton	538	379	70.4
27	1808	James Madison	175	122	69.7
28	1992	Bill Clinton	538	370	68.8
29	1828	Andrew Jackson	261	178	68.2
30	2008	Barack Obama	538	365	67.8
31	1908	William Howard Taft	483	321	66.5
32	1900	William McKinley	447	292	65.3
33	1892	Grover Cleveland	444	277	62.4
34	1844	James K. Polk	275	170	61.8
35	2012	Barack Obama	538	332	61.7
36	1896	William McKinley	447	271	60.6
37	1860	Abraham Lincoln	303	180	59.4
38	1812	James Madison	217	128	59.0
39	1856	James Buchanan	296	174	58.8
40	1888	Benjamin Harrison	401	233	58.1
41	1880	James A. Garfield	369	214	58.0
42	1836	Martin Van Buren	294	170	57.8
43	1948	Harry S. Truman	531	303	57.1
44	2016	Donald Trump	538	306	56.9
45	1960	John F. Kennedy	537	303	56.4
46	1848	Zachary Taylor	290	163	56.2
47	1968	Richard Nixon	538	301	55.9
48	1976	Jimmy Carter	538	297	55.2
49	1884	Grover Cleveland	401	219	54.6
50	2004	George W. Bush	538	286	53.2
51	1916	Woodrow Wilson	531	277	52.2
52	2000	George W. Bush	538	271	50.4
53	1876	Rutherford B. Hayes	369	185	50.1
54	1824	John Quincy Adams	261	84	32.2

Sources: Wikipedia, Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

By comparison, the average Electoral College winner claimed 70.9 percent of the available electoral votes, which would equate to 381 electoral votes given today’s total of 538 electors. For my money, it’s a bit much to call something a “landslide” when it can’t top that threshold. It’s not clear to me that President Obama’s win in 2008 should be thought of as a landslide, for instance. And Trump’s win surely doesn’t qualify. But cheer up, Trump fans: Your guy was elected president of the United States.

fivethirtyeight.com