All election week articles are published anonymously to protect our student journalists 

   In the 235 years that our nation has been independent and free, we have had a total of 58 presidential elections, 45 different elected presidents and 49 vice presidents. 

    This week we’ve seen our nation’s process of choosing a new executive; number 47. Of all the elections that history has witnessed, some stand out as more memorable. 

     Let’s start with the three presidents who won the presidency in the largest landslides; Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Franklin Roosevelt. These three presidents were all seeking reelection after very, very popular terms. 

     In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was running for reelection after 4 years of being an extremely popular president. The issues of the day were the Great Depression and prohibition. He beat the Republican candidate Alfred Landon with 523 electoral votes against Landon’s 8. 

     Ronald Reagan won his reelection bid in 1984 against Democrat Walter Mondale. Issues of the day included recession and subsequent recovery, as well as defense spending. Mondale’s running mate, Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman vice-presidential candidate to run on a major party’s ticket. 

    Reagan won every state except Minnesota. Mondale took DC, but his 13 electoral votes were not even close enough to challenge Reagan’s 525. 

    Richard Nixon’s reelection in 1972 was the result of an immensely popular president who provided the nation with a persuasive plan in ending the Vietnam War as well as furthering detente relations with communist China. 

    Nixon took 520 electoral votes while his opponent, George McGovern, took only 17. This year’s election has been much closer than any of these landslide victories. 

    One past election that may prove more similar to this year’s election is the election of 2000. The election of 2000 was as close as they come. George Bush, Jr. beat Albert (Al) Gore, Jr., 271 to 266. 270 electoral college votes is what it takes to win. 

    This election came down to one state; Florida. The count was disputed and after a ballot recount prompting Supreme Court intervention, Bush was declared the victory. This was one of the closest elections in our history. 

     One interesting case study is the elections of 1912. Woodrow Wilson won this election under strange circumstances; this was a three-party race. Winning just under 43% of the popular vote, Wilson beat both former president Theodore Roosevelt as well as incumbent William Howard Taft. This occurred after the two candidates, Roosevelt and Taft, split the Republican vote.

     Wilson didn’t receive the majority of the popular vote, however, he was still the candidate with the most electoral votes. There have been five elections in history in which the winner of the election did not receive the highest popular vote of all the candidates. 

     George Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 to Al Gore, but still won the election. In 1876, Rutherford Hayes lost the election, even after Samuel Tilden won the popular vote. 

     This phenomenon has happened even as recently as 2016, when Donald Trump lost to Hillary Clinton in the popular vote, yet won 304 electoral votes. 

     The most drastic example of this is way back in 1824, when John Quincy Adams won the election with only 31.6% of the popular vote. This is in contrast to Henry Clay’s 13.1%, Williams Crawford’s 13.0% and Andrew Jackson’s staggering 42.3% of the popular vote. 

     The fifth example of this happening in history is the election of 1888, when incumbent Grover Cleveland lost the election to Benjamin Harrison while still receiving the greater proportion of the popular vote. 

     Another interesting fact about Grover Cleveland is that he is the only United States President to have been elected in non-consecutive terms. After losing to Harrison in 1888, he was re-elected in 1892, making him the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. 

     This is an interesting case study because in the scenario that Donald Trump is successful in this race, Cleveland will no longer be the only president elected in non-consecutive terms. 

     Studying history is a good way to learn about the future. The old adage that history repeats itself rings true.