10 presidents who won with less than 50% of the vote

10 presidents who won with less than 50% of the vote

  A wise man once said, "Popularity is overrated," but when you become president, you must win the majority of the popular vote. Unfortunately for many of our previous presidents, they stepped into our country's most powerful role with less than half of our support. A ringing confirmation and not a heck of a way to start your term as president.

  John Quincy Adams - 30.5% of the popular vote in 1824

  This election is notable for being the only time since the passage of the Twelfth Amendment that a presidential election was decided by the House of Representatives because no candidate received a majority of the electoral votes. This presidential election was also the only one in which the candidate with the most electoral votes was not the president (because winning requires a majority, not just a majority). It is also often said that this is the first election in which the president failed to win the popular vote, even though the popular vote is not measured nationwide. At the time, a number of states did not hold a popular vote, allowing their state legislatures to choose their electors.

  Abraham Lincoln - 39.8% of the popular vote in 1860

  The 1860 US presidential election set the stage for the American Civil War. The nation was divided for most of the 1850s over the issues of states' rights and territorial slavery. In 1860, the issue finally came to a head, splitting the previously dominant Democratic Party into Southern and Northern factions, bringing Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party to power.

  Woodrow Wilson 

  Woodrow Wilson defeated both Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft in the general election, won a large majority in the Electoral College despite winning only 42% of the popular vote, and ushered in the only term from 1892 to 1932 that a Democrat was elected president. Wilson was the second of two Democrats to be elected president between 1860 and 1932. It was also the last election in which a third-party candidate finished second in the Electoral College.

  William Clinton - 42.9% of the popular vote in 1992

  On November 3, Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd president of the United States by a wide margin in the US Electoral College, winning 43 percent of the popular vote in a three-way race, to Bush's 37 percent. It was the first time since 1968 that a candidate won the White House with less than 50 percent of the popular vote. Arkansas was the only state in the nation to give a majority of the vote to a single candidate; the rest won by a plurality.

  Richard Nixon - 43.4% of the popular vote in 1968

  Nixon won the popular vote by a margin of 512,000 votes, or about one percentage point. In the Electoral College, Nixon's victory was even larger, as he carried 32 states with 301 electoral votes, Humphrey's 13 states and 191 electoral votes, and Wallace's five states and 46 electoral votes.

  James Buchanan - 45.3% of the popular vote in 1856

  Incumbent Franklin Pierce was defeated in his bid for re-nomination by the Democrats, who chose James Buchanan of Pennsylvania; This was in part because the Kansas-Nebraska Act divided Democrats. The Whig Party broke up over the issue of slavery, and new organizations such as the Republican Party and the American Party competed to replace them. The Republicans nominated John Frémont of California as their first standard-bearer, and the "Don't Knows" nominated former President Millard Fillmore of New York. Perennial candidate Daniel Pratt also ran. Nationally, Buchanan won 174 electoral votes, a majority, and was thus elected.

  Grover Cleveland - 46.1% of the popular vote in 1892

  The 1892 US presidential election was held on November 8, 1892. New York's Grover Cleveland defeated incumbent Benjamin Harrison to become the only nonconsecutive presidential candidate. Having won the popular vote against Harrison in 1888, Cleveland won both the popular and electoral votes in a rematch.

Zachary Taylor - 47.4% of the popular vote in 1848

  The 1848 election marked the first time every state in the union voted for president and vice president on the same day, with the exception of South Carolina, which left the choice to the legislature: November 7, 1848. Zachary Taylor won 163 of the 290 electoral votes over Lewis Cass. . However, Taylor managed to win over 47% of the popular vote.

  George W. Bush – 47.8% of the popular vote in 2000

  The 2000 United States presidential election was a contest between the Democratic candidate, then-Vice President Al Gore, and the Republican candidate, then-Governor George W. Bush of Texas. The election sparked controversy over who won Florida's 25 electoral votes (and thus the presidency), the state's recount process, and the unusual occurrence of a losing candidate. received 543,816 more votes than the winner.

  Benjamin Harrison - 47.9% of the popular vote in 1888

  On November 6, 1888, presidential elections were held in the United States. Incumbent Grover Cleveland received the most votes, but Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison's 233 votes topped Cleveland's 168 and won the election. The same thing happened just 12 years earlier, in the 1876 election, where the president-elect failed to win the popular vote. It wouldn't happen again until the 2000 election, 112 years later.