Presidential Election Margin of Victory

A common view is that a president's popular mandate, as measured by the size of his margins of victory in the popular and electoral vote, predicts the likelihood of him launching enduring changes in policy and politics.  The vote shares are represented graphically in figures below this table.

President
Election Popular vote Electoral vote Electoral vote -
Popular vote %
% Margin* % Margin*
John Quincy Adams 1824 nd nd 32.2 -5.7 n/a
Andrew Jackson 1828 56.1 12.5 68.2 36.4 12.1
  1832 54.2 16.8 76.0 59.0 21.8
Martin van Buren

1836

50.8 14.2 57.8 33.0 7.0
William Henry Harrison 1840
52.9
6.1 79.6 59.2 26.7
James K. Polk

1844

49.5 1.4 61.8 23.6 12.3
Zachary Taylor 1848
47.3
4.8 56.2 12.4 8.9
Franklin Pierce

1852

50.8 6.9 85.8 71.6 35.0
James Buchanan 1856
45.3
12.2 58.8 20.3 13.5
Abraham Lincoln

1860

39.9 10.4 59.4 35.6 19.5
  1864
55.1
10.2 90.6 81.6 35.5
Ulysses S. Grant 1868 52.7 5.4 72.8 45.6 20.1
  1872 55.6 11.8 81.9 63.8 26.3
Rutherford B. Hayes

1876

48.0
-3.0 50.1 0.2 2.1
James Garfield 1880 48.3 0.1 58.0 16.0 9.7
Grover Cleveland - I

1884

48.9 0.7 54.6 9.2 5.7
Benjamin Harrison 1888
47.8
-0.8 58.1 16.2 10.3
Grover Cleveland - II

1892

46.0 3.0 62.4 29.7 16.4
William McKinley 1896
51.1
5.3 61.0 21.4 9.9
  1900 51.7 6.2 65.3 30.6 13.6
Theodore Roosevelt 1904 56.4 18.8 70.6 41.2 14.2
William Howard Taft

1908

51.6 8.6 66.5 33.0 14.9
Woodrow Wilson 1912
41.8
14.4 81.9 65.3 40.1
 

1916

49.2 3.1 52.2 4.4 3.0
Warren G. Harding 1920
60.3
26.2 76.1 52.2 15.8
Calvin Coolidge

1924

54.0 25.2 71.9 46.3 17.9
Herbert Hoover 1928
58.2
17.4 83.6 67.2 25.4
Franklin D. Roosevelt

1932

57.4 17.8 88.9 77.8 31.5
  1936 60.8 24.3 98.5 97.0 37.7
  1940 54.7 9.9 84.6 69.2 29.9
  1944 53.4 7.5 81.4 62.8 28.0
Harry S. Truman

1948

49.5 4.4 57.1 21.5 7.6
Dwight D. Eisenhower 1952
54.9
10.5 83.2 66.4 28.3
  1956 57.4 15.4 86.1 72.4 28.7
John F. Kennedy 1960 49.7 0.2 56.4 15.6 6.7
Lyndon B. Johnson

1964

61.1
22.6 90.3 80.6 29.2
Richard Nixon 1968 43.4 0.7 55.9 20.4 12.5
  1972 60.7 23.2 96.7 93.5 36.0
Jimmy Carter 1976 50.1 2.1 55.2 10.6 5.1
Ronald Reagan

1980

50.7
9.7 90.9 81.8 40.2
  1984 58.8 18.2 97.6 95.2 38.8
George Bush 1988 53.4 7.8 79.2 58.6 25.8
William J. Clinton

1992

43.0 5.6 68.8 37.6 25.8
  1996 49.2 8.5 70.4 40.8 21.2
George W. Bush 2000
47.9
-0.5 50.4 1.0 2.5
  2004 50.7 2.4 53.2 6.5 2.5
Barack Obama

2008

52.9 7.2 67.8 35.6 14.9
  2012 51.0 3.7 61.7 23.4 10.7
Donald J. Trump 2016
46.2
-2.0 56.5 14.3 10.3
Joseph Biden 2020 51.3 4.45 56.9 13.8 5.6

*Margin is the difference between the winner's vote share and the share of his principal opponent.

 

xy graph of popular and electoral college vote share for winning presidents since 1824

bar graph of popular and electoral college percentage sorted in descending order of popular vote

 

 

Last Updated

November 7, 2020

Source(s)

• Compiled by Gerhard Peters, "Presidential Election Margins of Victory," The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/323891.

Citations

Gerhard Peters. "Presidential Election Margins of Victory." The American Presidency Project. Ed. John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California. 1999-2021.  https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/323891