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Trivia answer
How many candidates have won the presidency without winning more than 60% of the vote in any state?
a. Zero
b. Seven
c. Four
d. Two
Only two candidates have won the presidency without receiving more than 60% of the vote in any state, according to a SmartPolitics analysis of presidential elections: Richard Nixon (R) in 1968 and Bill Clinton (D) in 1992.[1] Since the popular vote was first recorded in 1824, the winning presidential candidate has carried an average of 9.27 states with 60% or more of the vote.
During Nixon's re-election campaign in 1972, he carried 32 states with 60% or more of the vote—the most of any presidential candidate in U.S. history. Three other candidates have reached 60% of the vote in 25 or more states: Ronald Reagan (R) in 1984 with 30 states, Franklin Roosevelt (D) in 1936 with 28 states, and Lyndon B. Johnson (D) in 1968 with 25 states.
Most presidents who won re-election did so while carrying more states by a 60% or greater margin than they did when they were first elected; the two exceptions are William McKinley (R), who went from seven states in 1896 to six in 1900 and Barack Obama (D), who went from 10 states in 2008 to seven in 2012.[2]
Four winning presidential candidates have carried only one state by a margin of 60% or greater: James Polk (D) in 1844, Zachary Taylor (Whig) in 1848, Benjamin Harrison (R) in 1888, and Bill Clinton (D) in 1996.
President Donald Trump (R) received at least 60% of the vote in nine states in 2016: Wyoming, West Virginia, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Kentucky, Alabama, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Arkansas. That year, Hillary Clinton (D) received more than 60% of the vote in four states: Hawaii, California, Maryland, and Massachusetts.[3]
- ↑ SmartPolitics, "How Many States Will Trump Carry With 60+ Percent in 2020?" July 19, 2019
- ↑ Grover Cleveland (D) carried five states with 60% or more of the vote when he was first elected in 1884 and four when he was re-elected in 1892, although his two terms were non-consecutive.
- ↑ '"Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, "2016 Presidential General Election Data by State," accessed August 5, 2019
