These Presidents Won the Electoral College — But

Not the Popular Vote

BY TARA LAW
MAY 15, 2019 4:58 PM EDT

A s Democratic presidential hopefuls unroll their platforms for the 2020

presidential election, some of the hot-button issues they’re discussing,
such as immigration and healthcare, will sound familiar from past presidential
races.

But one idea that has popped up in the campaigns of Sen. Elizabeth Warren,
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke and others may be
unexpected: changing or abolishing the Electoral College.

In some ways, it’s not actually surprising that more attention is being paid to
the Electoral College. Two of the last three U.S. Presidents — Donald Trump
and George W. Bush — were elected to their position without winning the
popular vote. That’s possible because when Americans cast their ballots in a
presidential election every four years, they’re not voting directly for President
but rather for “electors” who promise to vote for a particular candidate. The
electors from all the states come together to form the Electoral College and
select the President. Because of the way the number of electors per state is
determined, an individual vote from a sparsely populated state is worth more
in the final count than a vote from a densely populated state, so it’s possible to
win the Electoral College vote while losing the popular vote.
Some 2020 candidates argue that abolishing the Electoral College would bring
the country closer to the ideal of “one person, one vote.” Proponents also argue
that the process would increase voter participation, especially in states that are
deeply red or blue, whereas some voters today are left feeling that their vote
cannot affect the result.

“Every vote matters, and the way we can make that happen is that we can have
national voting, and that means get rid of the Electoral College,” Warren said
during a CNN Town Hall.

A slight majority of Americans agree. About 53% of American are in favor of a

constitutional amendment to require a popular vote, compared to 43% who
agree with maintaining the Electoral College, according to a survey by NBC
News and the Wall Street Journal.

However, abolishing the electoral college has become more of a partisan issue
since the 2016 election. According to Gallup, in 2012 54% of Republicans and
69% of Democrats were in favor of amending the constitution. By late
November 2016, 19% of Republicans and 81% of Democrats were in favor of
such a constitutional change.

Get our History Newsletter.

Put today's news in context and see highlights from the archives.

Enter your email address

SIGN UP NOW

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
Reasons for supporting the electoral college have shifted over time.

Some today argue that the electoral college encourages candidates to campaign
across more diverse geographical areas and helps by breaking down the
complex process of voting into more manageable areas. Back when the
Constitution was being written, however, the process was a compromise
between those who believed the President should be elected by Congress and
those who thought the chief executive should be elected by a majority of the
people. The framers were also concerned that it might be difficult for voters to
learn enough about presidential candidates. The system also gave greater
power to more sparsely populated states, and to states with many slaves. States
were able to count enslaved persons toward their populations without giving
them the right to vote (or even counting them as full people) and, as
constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar has argued on TIME.com, the process
gave the country a “pro-slavery tilt”; for 32 of the county’s 36 first years, a
white slaveholder from Virginia was President.

Defenders of the Electoral College also have a major advantage. The process is
enshrined in the Constitution, which means that a Constitutional amendment
would be necessary to change it. There is a precedent for changing the system
— the 12th Amendment clarified the distinction between the electors’ votes for
President and Vice President, and the 23rd Amendment gave Washington, D.C.
the right to electoral votes — but that doesn’t make it easy.

No matter whether the Electoral College changes or stays in place, however,

the Electoral College has already left an indelible mark on some of the most
consequential moments in American history, determining who was in power
during the Sept. 11 attacks and the Reconstruction period after the Civil War.

Here’s a full list of Presidents elected by the Electoral College without winning
the popular vote.
Rutherford B. Hayes (1876)

Modern elections have been known to get ugly, but the election of 1876 may be
the most contentious race ever. When Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican
governor of Ohio, took on New York Democrat Samuel Tilden, the claws came
out; for example, rumors circulated that Tilden was single because he had
syphilis. The election is also the only race in American history which the victor
initially won both fewer electoral votes and fewer popular votes than his
opponent.

Tilden won 184 electoral votes — one shy of the number needed to win — to
Hayes’ 165 votes. However, the election was riddled with voter fraud and
suppression in the post-Civil War south. After the election, the validity of the
votes in Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina and Oregon was challenged.

Congress ultimately came up with a special commission composed of 15

congressmen and Supreme Court Justices, who were tasked with devising a
solution. The commission’s decision became known as the Compromise of
1877, which effectively put an end to the Reconstruction era in the south. In
exchange for Democrats allowing Hayes the White House victory, Republicans
agreed to remove all federal troops from the south, leaving Democrats free to
reclaim control of the region and local governments to subjugate African
Americans who had so recently been freed from slavery.

Ultimately, the electoral college vote was decided to be 185 to 184 in Hayes’
favor, with Tilden winning 254,000 more popular votes.

Benjamin Harrison (1888)

The election of Benjamin Harrison, an Indiana Senator and Republican, over

Democratic President Grover Cleveland was also riddled by corruption. Both
parties were accused of using “floaters” — citizens who were willing to sell
their votes — to sway the election. Public attention was drawn to the practice
after an Indiana newspaper published a letter, apparently written by a
Republican National Committee official, which instructed party workers on
how to handle floaters.

Harrison, whose campaign was better organized, was able to capture Indiana,
his home state, even though it had gone to Cleveland in the previous election.
Cleveland captured nearly 91,000 more popular votes, but lost the electoral
college to Harrison with a vote of 168 to 233.

Cleveland got his revenge four years later, however, when he defeated Harrison
with an electoral vote of 277 to 145. He became the only President to serve two
non-consecutive terms.

George W. Bush (2000)

It took 112 years for there to be another election where the victor won fewer
popular votes. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore took on George W. Bush, the
governor of Texas and the son of the 41st President. Bush won 271 electoral
votes to Gore’s 266 votes, but Gore won 500,000 more popular votes.

The election was so close in Oregon and New Mexico that the victor wasn’t
called for a few days, but the real test came in Florida. The race was so close
that Florida law required the votes to be recounted, and then the Florida
Supreme Court further ordered that ballots in four counties needed to be
counted again. However, on Dec. 12, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 to 4
that the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling was unconstitutional because not
counting ballots by uniform methods violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal
Protection Clause.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the election, ultimately most Americans

did not feel that the events had undermined their sense of the legitimacy of
either the Supreme Court or Bush, according to polling by Gallup. About 66% of
Americans told pollers that the election did not undermine their respect for the
Court, and 83% said they’d accept Bush as the legitimate President.

However, another institution did take a hit to its reputation: the Electoral
College. On Dec. 15 and Dec. 17, 2000, 59% of Americans said that the
Constitution should be amended so that the candidate who wins the most votes
nationwide wins the presidency.

In later years, Gore joined that majority. In 2016, he told NBC News that he
believes that the Electoral College should be eliminated to encourage voter
participation.

“We’ve got to get back to harvesting the wisdom of crowds in the United States.
We’ve got to get back to the kind of conversation of democracy that allows
good ideas to rise to the surface,” he said. “Our democracy has been hacked
now. It’s pathetic how our system is not working today.”

Donald Trump (2016)

In an election that surprised many political experts and pollsters, real estate
mogul Donald Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, taking
in 304 electoral votes to Clinton’s 227 votes. However, Clinton took in 2.8
million more popular votes.

While the full impact of the election remains to be seen, it quickly generated
conversation — especially among Democrats — about changing the Electoral
College. Clinton had called for the abolition of the electoral college after Gore’s
2000 loss. She reiterated this position after her own defeat.

“We’ve moved toward one-person, one-vote, that’s how we select winners,”

Clinton said in September of 2017.
Although Trump had previously criticized the Electoral College process, he
seemed to change his mind after his victory.

“The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including
the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!” Trump tweeted on
Nov. 15, 2016. But, he said, he thought he could have campaigned just as well in
a popular-vote system — so he didn’t believe that the Electoral College affected
the outcome much at all.

WRITE TO TARA LAW AT TARA.LAW@TIME.COM.

READ NEXT

Trump Is the Winner of OPEC Deal