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Trivia answer
Which incumbent president seeking re-election won the smallest share of the Electoral College vote?
a. Grover Cleveland (1888)
b. William Howard Taft (1912)
c. Herbert Hoover (1932)
d. Jimmy Carter (1980)
In the 1912 presidential election, incumbent William Howard Taft (R) won 1.5% of the Electoral College vote, the worst Electoral College performance by a sitting president in U.S. history. Taft was up against Gov. Woodrow Wilson (D-N.J.) and former President Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive). He carried only Utah and Vermont, receiving four electoral votes from each.
The only other incumbent president to win fewer than 10% of electoral votes was Jimmy Carter (D) in 1980. Up against former Gov. Ronald Reagan (R-Calif.), Carter won six states and the District of Columbia (Georgia, Hawaii, Minnesota, Maryland, Rhode Island, and West Virginia). Altogether, Carter won 49 votes in the Electoral College to Reagan's 489.
There have been 32 elections where an incumbent president sought re-election. The average share of the electoral vote for the incumbent has been 62.7%. Of the past five elections with an incumbent running, there were two where the incumbent outperformed the average: Reagan in 1984 with 97.6% of the vote and Bill Clinton (D) in 1996 with 70.4% of the vote.[1]
| Incumbent presidents running for re-election, 1792-2012 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | President | Electoral vote share | ||
| 1792 | George Washington | 100.0% | ||
| 1800 |  John Adams |
47.1% | ||
| 1804 |  Thomas Jefferson |
92.0% | ||
| 1812 | James Madison |
58.7% | ||
| 1820 | James Monroe |
98.3% | ||
| 1828 | John Quincy Adams |
31.8% | ||
| 1832 |  Andrew Jackson |
76.0% | ||
| 1840 | Martin Van Buren |
20.4% | ||
| 1864 |  Abraham Lincoln |
91.0% | ||
| 1872 | Ulysses S. Grant |
81.3% | ||
| 1888 | Grover Cleveland |
41.9% | ||
| 1892 | Benjamin Harrison |
32.7% | ||
| 1900 | William McKinley |
65.3% | ||
| 1904 | Theodore Roosevelt |
70.6% | ||
| 1912 | William Howard Taft |
1.5% | ||
| 1916 | Woodrow Wilson |
52.2% | ||
| 1924 | Calvin Coolidge |
71.9% | ||
| 1932 | Herbert Hoover |
11.1% | ||
| 1936 | Franklin Roosevelt |
98.5% | ||
| 1940 | Franklin Roosevelt |
84.6% | ||
| 1944 | Franklin Roosevelt |
81.4% | ||
| 1948 | Harry Truman |
57.1% | ||
| 1956 | Dwight Eisenhower |
86.1% | ||
| 1964 | Lyndon Johnson |
90.3% | ||
| 1972 | Richard Nixon |
96.7% | ||
| 1976 | Gerald Ford |
44.6% | ||
| 1980 | Jimmy Carter |
9.1% | ||
| 1984 | Ronald Reagan |
97.6% | ||
| 1992 | George H.W. Bush |
31.2% | ||
| 1996 | Bill Clinton |
70.4% | ||
| 2004 | George W. Bush |
53.2% | ||
| 2012 | Barack Obama |
61.7% | ||
