Presidential nominees who won the popular vote but not the electoral votes in history
There have been just five U.S. presidents in history
who were elected without carrying the popular vote, most recently, of course, Donald Trump in 2016. Trump edged out Hillary Clinton in the key battleground state of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan to win the electoral vote despite earning 2.8 million fewer votes nationwide than his Democratic rival.
Here are the other four presidents who’ve eked out similar, somewhat unconventional paths to victory:
John Quincy Adams: In 1824, Adams lost both the popular and electoral votes to Andrew Jackson, a member of the same party and one of four candidates vying for the presidency. Jackson had secured a plurality of the electoral votes, but not an outright majority. The top three candidates were then sent to the House of Representatives
for a final vote, which selected Adams over Jackson.
Rutherford B. Hayes: Like Adams, Hayes’s 1876 victory over Samuel Tilden, a Democrat, was decided by Congress after Republicans contested the results of three state elections. The dispute prompted Congress to create a bipartisan commission which ultimately ruled in favor of Hayes and his electors. Hayes won with 185 electoral votes.
Benjamin Harrison: In 1888, Harrison lost the popular vote to Democratic president,
Grover Cleveland, by an estimated 90,000 votes, but won the Electoral College votes by a strong 233-168 majority. Cleveland then ran against him again and won in 1893, making him the only U.S. president to serve two non-consecutive terms– pending, of course, the results of the 2024 election.
George W. Bush: In 2000, Texas Gov. George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Democratic Vice President Al Gore by 500,000 votes but secured the presidency, in a famously heated election that hinged on the state of Florida, allegations of “hanging chads” in punch-card ballots, and ultimately, a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court ruled in Bush’s favor, and he ultimately bested Gore with a 271 to 266 electoral advantage.
