2016 Election Score Card

After the 2012 election Chris Cillizza did an interesting piece on the Electoral College in The Washington Post. He noted that in the last six presidential elections, 1992 – 2012, the Democratic nominee has averaged 327 electoral votes, while the Republican nominee has averaged 210 electoral votes.

In the preceding six Presidential elections, 1968 – 1988, the Republican nominees averaged 427 electoral votes, while the Democratic nominee averaged 113 electoral votes.

Clinton’s popular vote total has now exceeded President Obama in 2012 but she will not beat Obama’s total from 2008. Trump has exceeded the 2012 popular vote earned by Mitt Romney and the 2008 vote achieved by John McCain.

The other thing that changed substantially in this election is the size of the vote for “others”. The number of votes cast for third party candidates and their percentage of the total vote was three times higher than in any previous election.

The Libertarian party led by Gary Johnson was on the ballot in all 50 states. The Green Party led by Jill Stein was on the ballot in just over 40 states. There were five candidates who were on fewer than 20 state ballots and there were 21 third party or Independent candidates who were on fewer than 5 state ballots. (The list of write-in candidates without ballot status is too long to count.)

For the fifth time in U.S. history, and the second time this century, a presidential candidate has won the White House while losing the popular vote. Al Gore being the other candidate in this century. (Pew Research)





The total votes cast in 2016 exceeded the vote total in every other presidential election in history.



















*Nebraska – Unicameral legislature, 49 Senators included in Senate member count

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