Every four years in the United States, the electoral college system is used to determine the winner of the presidential election. In this system, each state has a fixed number of electors based on their population size, and (generally speaking) these electors then vote for their candidate with the most popular votes within their state or district. Since 1964, there have been 538 electoral votes available for presidential candidates, who need a minimum of 270 votes to win the election. Because of this system, candidates do not have to win over fifty percent of the popular votes across the country, but just win in enough states to receive a total of 270 electoral college votes. The use of this system is a source of debate in the U.S.; those in favor claim that it prevents candidates from focusing on the interests of urban populations, and must also appeal to smaller and less-populous states, and they say that this system preserves federalism and the two-party system. However, critics argue that this system does not represent the will of the majority of American voters, and that it encourages candidates to disproportionally focus on winning in swing states, where the outcome is more difficult to predict. Popular results From 1789 until 1820, there was no popular vote, and the President was then chosen only by the electors from each state. George Washington was unanimously voted for by the electorate, receiving one hundred percent of the votes in both elections. From 1824, the popular vote has been conducted among American citizens, to help electors decide who to vote for (although the 1824 winner was chosen by the House of Representatives, as no candidate received over fifty percent of electoral votes). Since 1924, the difference in the share of both votes has varied, with several candidates receiving over ninety percent of the electoral votes while only receiving between fifty and sixty percent of the popular vote. The highest difference was for Ronald Reagan in 1980, where he received just 50.4 percent of the popular vote, but 90.9 percent of the electoral votes. Unpopular winners Since 1824, there have been 49 elections, and in 18 of these the winner did not receive over fifty percent of the popular vote. In the majority of these cases, the winner did receive a plurality of the votes, however there have been five instances where the winner of the electoral college vote lost the popular vote to another candidate. The most recent examples of this were in 2000, when George W. Bush received roughly half a million fewer votes than Al Gore, and in 2016, where Hillary Clinton won approximately three million more votes than Donald Trump.

Since 1824, when the popular vote was first used to determine the overall winner in U.S. presidential elections, the share of the population who participate in these elections has gradually increased. Despite this increase, participation has never reached half of the total population; partly due to the share of the population below the voting age of eighteen, but also as many potential voters above the age of eighteen do not take part, or are ineligible to vote. For example, in the 2016 election, approximately twenty million U.S. adults were ineligible to vote, while over 94 million simply did not participate; in this election, Donald Trump won the electoral college with 63 million votes, which means that 19.4 percent of the total U.S. population (or 27.3 percent of eligible voters) voted for the current president.

Development throughout history

While the figures for the 2016 election may appear low, over 42 percent of the total population participated in this election, which was the third highest participation rate ever recorded (after the 2008 and 2020 elections). In the first election decided by a popular vote in 1824, only 350 thousand votes were cast from a total population of 10.6 million, although this increased to over four million votes by the 1856 election, as restrictions that applied to non-property holding white males were gradually lifted. Participation levels then dropped during the Civil War and Reconstruction era, as those who lived in Confederate states could not vote in 1864, and many white southerners were restricted or discouraged in the following election. Although universal suffrage was granted to black males in the wake of the Civil War, the majority of black Americans lived in the southern states, where lawmakers introduced Jim Crow laws in the late 1800s to suppress and disenfranchise the black vote, as well as poor white voters.

The next major milestone was the introduction of women's suffrage in 1920, which saw voter participation increase by seven million votes (or seven percent) between the 1916 and 1920 elections. Between the 1910s and 1970s, the Great Migration saw many black Americans move away from the south to northern and western states, where they faced fewer obstacles when voting and greater economic mobility. This period of black migration began to decline in the 1960s and 1970s, during which time many Jim Crow laws were repealed in the south, through legislation such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Female participation also grew gradually, and has exceeded male voting participation in all elections since the 1980s. The minimum voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in all states in 1971, although this seemingly had a minimal impact on the short-term trajectory of voter participation.

Recent elections

The 1992 election was the first in which more than one hundred million votes were cast, which was almost 41 percent of the total population. All elections since 2004 have also had more than one hundred million votes cast, which has again been more than forty percent of the total population. Another key factor in the increase in voter participation is the fact that people are living longer than ever before, and that those aged 65 and over have had the highest turnout levels since 1992. While some figures may be subject to change, the 2020 election set new records for voter turnout. Despite the global coronavirus pandemic, which many thought could cause the lowest turnout in decades, a record number of voters cast their ballots early or by mail, setting a new record of votes just shy of 160 million. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden and Donald Trump received 81.3 million and 74.2 million votes respectively, both beating Barack Obama's previous record of 69.3 million ballots in 2008.

The 2016 U.S. presidential election was contested by Donald J. Trump of the Republican Party, and Hillary Rodham Clinton of the Democratic Party. Clinton had been viewed by many as the most likely to succeed President Obama in the years leading up to the election, after losing the Democratic nomination to him in 2008, and entered the primaries as the firm favorite. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders soon emerged as Clinton's closest rival, and the popularity margins decreased going into the primaries. A few other candidates had put their name forward for the Democratic nomination, however all except Clinton and Sanders had dropped out by the New Hampshire primary. Following a hotly contested race, Clinton arrived at the Democratic National Convention with 54 percent of pledged delegates, while Sanders had 46 percent. Controversy emerged when it was revealed that Clinton received the support of 78 percent of Democratic superdelegates, while Sanders received just seven percent. With her victory, Hillary Clinton became the first female candidate nominated by a major party for the presidency. With seventeen potential presidential nominees, the Republican primary field was the largest in US history. Similarly to the Democratic race however, the number of candidates thinned out by the time of the New Hampshire primary, with Donald Trump and Ted Cruz as the frontrunners. As the primaries progressed, Trump pulled ahead while the remainder of the candidates withdrew from the race, and he was named as the Republican candidate in May 2016. Much of Trump's success has been attributed to the free media attention he received due to his outspoken and controversial behavior, with a 2018 study claiming that Trump received approximately two billion dollars worth of free coverage during the primaries alone. Campaign The 2016 presidential election was preceded by, arguably, the most internationally covered and scandal-driven campaign in U.S. history. Clinton campaigned on the improvement and expansion of President Obama's more popular policies, while Trump's campaign was based on his personality and charisma, and took a different direction than the traditional conservative, Republican approach. In the months before the election, Trump came to represent a change in how the U.S. government worked, using catchy slogans such as "drain the swamp" to show how he would fix what many viewed to be a broken establishment; painting Clinton as the embodiment of this establishment, due to her experience as First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State. The candidates also had fraught relationships with the press, although the Trump campaign was seen to have benefitted more from this publicity than Clinton's. Controversies Trump's off the cuff and controversial remarks gained him many followers throughout the campaign, however, just one month before the election, a 2005 video emerged of Trump making derogatory comments about grabbing women "by the pussy". The media and public's reaction caused many high-profile Republicans to condemn the comments (for which he apologized), with many calling for his withdrawal from the race. This controversy was soon overshadowed when it emerged that the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton for using a private email server while handling classified information, furthering Trump's narrative that the Washington establishment was corrupt. Two days before the election, the FBI concluded that Clinton had not done anything wrong; however the investigation had already damaged the public's perception of Clinton's trustworthiness, and deflected many undecided voters towards Trump. Results Against the majority of predictions, Donald Trump won the 2016 election, and became the 45th President of the United States. Clinton won almost three million more votes than her opponent, however Trump's strong performance in swing states gave him a 57 percent share of the electoral votes, while Clinton took just 42 percent. The unpopularity of both candidates also contributed to much voter abstention, and almost six percent of the popular vote went to third party candidates (despite their poor approval ratings). An unprecedented number of faithless electors also refused to give their electoral votes to the two main candidates, instead giving them to five non-candidates. In December, it emerged that the Russian government may have interfered in this election, and the 2019 Mueller Report concluded that Russian interference in the U.S. election contributed to Clinton's defeat and the victory of Donald Trump. In total, 26 Russian citizens and three Russian organizations were indicted, and the investigation led to the indictment and conviction of many top-level officials in the Trump campaign; however Trump and the Russian government both strenuously deny these claims, and Trump's attempts to frame the Ukrainian government for Russia's involvement contributed to his impeachment in 2019.

Since 1964, voter turnout rates in U.S. presidential elections have generally fluctuated across all age groups, falling to a national low in 1996, before rising again in the past two decades. Since 1988, there has been a direct correlation with voter participation and age, as people become more likely to vote as they get older. Participation among eligible voters under the age of 25 is the lowest of all age groups, and in the 1996 and 2000 elections, fewer than one third of eligible voters under the age of 25 participated, compared with more than two thirds of voters over 65 years.

Throughout United States history, voter turnout among the voting eligible population has varied, ranging from below twelve percent in uncontested elections, to 83 percent in the 1876 election. In early years, turnout in presidential elections was relatively low, as the popular vote was not used in every state to decide who electors would vote for. When this was changed in the 1824 election, turnout increased dramatically, and generally fluctuated between seventy and eighty percent during the second half of the nineteenth century. Until the 1840 and 1842 elections, midterm elections also had a higher turnout rate than their corresponding presidential elections, although this trend has been reversed since these years.

Declining turnout in the twentieth century An increase in voting rights, particularly for black males in 1870 and for women in 1920, has meant that the share of the total population who are legally eligible to vote has increased significantly; yet, as the number of people eligible to vote increased, the turnout rate generally decreased. Following enfranchisement, it would take over fifty years before the female voter turnout would reach the same level as males, and over 150 years before black voters would have a similar turnout rate to whites. A large part of this was simply the lack of a voting tradition among these voter bases; however, the Supreme Court and lawmakers across several states (especially in the south) created obstacles for black voters and actively enforced policies and practices that disenfranchised black voter participation. These practices were in place from the end of the Reconstruction era (1876) until the the Voting Rights Act of 1965 legally removed and prohibited many of these obstacles; nonetheless, people of color continue to be disproportionally affected by voting restrictions to this day.

Recent decades In 1971, the Twenty-sixth Amendment lowered the minimum voting age in most states from 21 to 18 years old, which greatly contributed to the six and eight percent reductions in voter turnout in the 1972 and 1974 elections respectively, highlighting a distinct correlation between age and voter participation. Overall turnout remained below sixty percent from the 1970s until the 2004 election, and around forty percent in the corresponding midterms. In recent elections, increased political involvement among younger voters and those from ethnic minority backgrounds has seen these numbers rise, with turnout in the 2018 midterms reaching fifty percent. This was the highest midterm turnout in over one hundred years, leading many at the time to predict that the 2020 election would see one of the largest and most diverse voter turnouts in the past century, although these predictions then reversed with the arival of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, 2020 did prove to have the highest turnout in any presidential election since 1900; largely as a result of mail-in voting, improved access to early voting, and increased activism among grassroots organizations promoting voter registration.

United States presidential elections are quadrennial elections that decide who will be the President and Vice President of the United States for the next four years. Voter turnout has ranged between 54 and 70 percent since 1964, with white voters having the highest voter turnout rate (particularly when those of Hispanic descent are excluded). In recent decades, turnout among black voters has got much closer to the national average, and in 2008 and 2012, the turnout among black voters was higher than the national average, exceeded only by non-Hispanic white voters; this has been attributed to Barack Obama's nomination as the Democratic nominee in these years, where he was the first African American candidate to run as a major party's nominee. Turnout among Asian and Hispanic voters is much lower than the national average, and turnout has even been below half of the national average in some elections. This has been attributed to a variety of factors, such as the absence of voting tradition in some communities or families, the concentration of Asian and Hispanic communities in urban (non-swing) areas, and a disproportionate number of young people (who are less likely to vote).

The 1940 United States presidential election was contested between incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party's Wendell Willkie. Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented third term in office, as US involvement in the Second World War drew ever closer. Although Roosevelt promised that the US would not take part in the war in Europe, Willkie claimed that Roosevelt was secretly plotting to deploy US troops, as well as criticizing Roosevelt's New Deal for being too wasteful, and criticizing the President for seeking a third term. In contrast, Willkie's detractors highlighted his association with big corporations and business leaders, whom many people still blamed for the Great Depression. Results With 55 percent of the popular vote, and 85 percent of the electoral vote, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first President in US history to be elected for a third term. Although his winning margins were smaller than in the 1932 and 1936 elections, Roosevelt was still able to take 38 of 48 states,winning a third consecutive landslide. Willkie was popular in the Midwest and in rural areas, however Roosevelt' strong support in the Democratic stronghold of the south and his popularity among urban workers made Willkie's task an onerous one. Roosevelt would also go on to win the 1944 election, until his untimely death in 1945.

The 1964 United States presidential election was contested by incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson of the Democratic Party, and Barry M. Goldwater of the Republican Party. This was the first election to be contested in all fifty states and Washington DC, and it took place on November 3, 1964, less than one year after Johnson ascended to the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Johnson won the Democratic nomination quite easily, while Goldwater, a self-proclaimed conservative "extremist" defeated Nelson Rockefeller in a symbolic loss for the more moderate wing of the Republican Party. This marked the beginning of transitional period in US politics, where the Republican Party gradually became the de facto party of conservatism by 1980, and the Deep South became the Republican stronghold it is today. This was the only Republican ticket between 1948 and 1976 not to feature Richard Nixon. Campaign The civil rights movement was the prevalent issue in the election, and Johnson's progressive policies and pro-civil rights campaign compared with Goldwater's opposition of the civil rights movement and hardline conservative approach presented voters with two of the most converse candidates in US election history. Although Goldwater had come from behind to win the Republican nomination, he had pushed away many moderate Republicans along the way with his controversial and often harsh rhetoric. The Johnson campaign painted Goldwater as a right-wing extremist, while many prominent Republicans (including former President Eisenhower) refused to endorse Goldwater, with some even campaigning for Johnson. The Johnson campaign also made ads targeting Goldwater's willingness to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam, and used parodies of Goldwater's own slogans against him. Throughout the campaign Johnson led in all polls by significant margins, and as election day drew nearer his campaign's focus was on getting people to actually go out and vote, as they feared that many voters would stay at home as they believed their votes were not necessary for a Johnson win. Results President Johnson won re-election with the largest popular vote margin in any election that included all states and Washington DC (as of 2016). Johnson won 61 percent of the popular vote, carrying 44 states (and Washington DC) which returned him over 90 percent of the electoral votes. In contrast, Goldwater won just his home state of Arizona, and five states in the Deep South, further solidifying the South's transition from blue to red. In history, Johnson is remembered as an effective leader who accomplished much in his five years in office, particularly in the civil rights movement, although his escalation of the Vietnam War has been a black mark on his legacy.

Since the 1860 election, U.S. presidential elections have been dominated by candidates affiliated with the Democratic and Republican parties. While the electoral votes decide the winner of the election, these are generally decided by the winner of the popular vote in each state (or district), and the winner of the nationwide popular vote does not always go on to win the electoral vote. Interestingly, there have been a number of occasions where the winner of the popular vote did not go on to win the electoral vote, for example in the 2016 election, or, most famously, in 2000.

Throughout U.S. history, the difference in the proportion of electoral votes has often been several times larger than the difference in the popular vote. For example, in the 1980s Ronald Reagan received roughly nine and eighteen percent more popular votes than his respective candidates, however he then received roughly seventy percent more electoral votes than both candidates. There are many critics of the electoral college system, whose main argument is that the most popular candidate is not always elected president, while its defenders argue that the system gives proportional representation to all Americans, and prevents candidates from ignoring the interests of those in less-populated states.

The United States uses the electoral college system to elect its presidents, which generally means that the most popular candidate in each state is then given that state's allocation of electoral votes (based on the state's population). Since 1968, there have been 538 electoral votes on offer in each election, meaning that he first candidate to reach 270 electoral votes is declared President. Since 1824, a popular vote has been held among the general public in order to determine the most popular candidate in each state (although women were not granted suffrage until 1920, while black and Native American voters faced widespread voter suppression until the 1960s). Because of the electoral college system, the proportion of popular votes won by a candidate may be very different than the proportion of electoral votes, and this has caused some instances where the candidate with the most electoral votes is declared President of the United States, despite losing the popular vote (such as in 2000 and 2016).

The 1860 election was one of the most divisive and influential elections in US history, with scholarly consensus citing it as one of the most decisive factors or catalysts that led to the outbreak of the American Civil War. The election saw candidates from four separate parties compete, with candidates not appearing on ballots in multiple states. The Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln, and opposed the extension of slavery into new states, while the Democratic Party nominated Stephen A. Douglas and favored popular sovereignty, which allowed states to vote on the legality of slavery. This approach however did not appeal to many Democrats in the south, who feared that this did not protect the status of slavery, and so rather than supporting Douglas, southern Democrats split and nominated John C. Breckenridge as their candidate. The fourth candidate was John Bell of the Constitutional Union, whose party's main focus was to avoid the secession of the south at all costs. Results With a plurality of the popular votes, Abraham Lincoln won almost sixty percent of the electoral votes, and was named the sixteenth President of the United States. Despite winning almost thirty percent of the popular votes (the second highest amount), Douglas carried only one state, and received just four percent of the electoral votes. Breckenridge carried eleven states, however if both Democratic candidates pooled they would have received more popular votes, yet Lincoln would have still won due to the electoral college system. There were also ten southern states where Lincoln's name was not on the ballot, as he was so unpopular in the slave states that his team could not print or distribute ballots for voters to choose him (this issue would be rectified in the 1880s, with the introduction of the secret ballot). Outbreak of the war Political leaders and merchants in the south believed that a President with abolitionist views would implement measures that threatened the institution of slavery. Following Lincoln's victory, seven states seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, and elected Jefferson Davis to President of the Confederacy (despite Breckenridge's strong performance in the election). Lincoln did not take any action against the Confederacy, but also refused to surrender federal property in the area. This led to Davis ordering a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861, which led to retaliation from the Union, the cessation of four more states into the Confederacy, and the beginning of the deadliest war in US history.

With Abraham Lincoln's victory in the 1860 presidential election, the Republican Party cemented its position as one of the two major political parties in the United States. Since 1860, candidates from both parties have faced one another in 41 elections, with the Republican candidate winning 24 elections, to the Democrats' 17. The share of electoral college votes is often very different from the share of the popular vote received by each candidate in the elections, as the popular vote differences tend to be much smaller. Electoral college system In the U.S., the electoral college system is used to elect the president. For most states, this means that the most popular candidate in each state then receives that state's allocation of electoral votes (which is determined by the state's population). In the majority of elections, the margin of electoral votes has been over thirty percent between the two major party candidates, and there were even some cases where the winner received over ninety percent more electoral votes than the runner-up. Biggest winners The largest margins for the Republican Party occurred in the aftermath of the American Civil War, in the pre-Depression era of the 1920s, with Eisenhower after the Second World War, and then again with the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush campaigns in the 1970s and 80s. For the Democratic Party, the largest victories occurred during the First and Second World Wars, and for Lindon B. Johnson and Bill Clinton in the second half of the 20th century. In the past six elections, the results of the electoral college vote have been relatively close, compared with the preceding hundred years; George W. Bush's victories were by less than seven percent, Obama's victories were larger (by around thirty percent), and in the most recent elections involving Donald Trump he both won and lost by roughly 14 percent.

In U.S. presidential elections since 1964, voter turnout among male and female voters has changed gradually but significantly, with women consistently voting at a higher rate than men since the 1980 election. 67 percent of eligible female voters took part in the 1964 election, compared to 72 percent of male voters. This difference has been reversed in recent elections, where the share of women who voted has been larger than the share of men by around four percent since 2004.

The 1956 presidential election in the United States saw a rematch of the two main candidates who contested the 1952 election. Incumbent President Dwight D. Eisenhower was seeking re-election for the Republican Party, while Adlai E. Stevenson was again on the ballot for the Democratic Party. Eisenhower maintained his considerable popularity from the Second World War, by keeping his campaign promise of ending the Korean War, as well as growing the economy and being an effective and charismatic leader. Despite a heart attack in 1955, Eisenhower faced no competition for the Republican Party's re-nomination, with Richard Nixon returning as his running mate. The Democratic primaries were not as certain however, yet Stevenson was re-nominated in due course, as his campaign was better funded and organized than any of his opponents. The Democratic National Convention nominated Stevenson on the first vote (future-President Lyndon B. Johnson was also on the ballot), but then Stevenson made an unprecedented move by allowing the DNC to also choose his running mate. Estes Kefauver was eventually named as Stevenson's running mate, with John F. Kennedy and Al Gore Sr. coming in second and third place respectively. Eisenhower's campaign boost In 1954, during Eisenhower's first term, his administration had supported the Supreme Court's ruling in the Brown v Board of Education, which ended the racial segregation of schools. While this angered many white voters in the Deep South (where segregation was deeply entrenched in daily life), it did earn Eisenhower the support of almost forty percent of black voters, which was the last time a Republican candidate received such support from the African-American community. In the weeks before the election, Eisenhower's response to the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt also increased his popularity at home. Eisenhower condemned both invasions while speaking at the UN, and even pressured the withdrawal of troops from Egypt. Results Eisenhower won by yet another landslide, increasing his margins of victory in the 1952 elections. Eisenhower carried 41 states, taking 84 percent of the electoral vote, and 57 percent of the popular vote. Stevenson won a majority in just seven states, taking 42 and 14 percent of the popular and electoral votes respectively. A faithless elector in Alabama also cast one electoral vote for Walter Jones (a local judge) instead of giving it to Stevenson. This was the final election to be contested in just 48 states, with Hawaii and Alaska being represented from 1960 onwards.

The 1960 US presidential election was the first to take place in all fifty states (although not Washington DC), and the first time where the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution prevented the incumbent president from running for a third term in office. The race was contested between John F. Kennedy of the Democratic Party, and incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon of the Republican Party. Kennedy defeated future-President Lyndon B. Johnson in the Democratic National Convention and asked Johnson to serve as his running mate, while Nixon won the Republican nomination comfortably, despite an early challenge from Nelson Rockefeller. This campaign is also notable for being the first to use televised debates between the candidates, including one that used split-screen technology, allowing the candidates to speak live from opposite sides of the country.

Campaign

Early in the campaign, both candidates were vibrant and charismatic, and garnered a loyal follower base. Kennedy spent most of his campaign criticizing the previous administration for falling behind the Soviet Union in terms of the military, economy and the space race, while Nixon highlighted the achievements made by Eisenhower's administration, and promised to build on them. Most historians agree that Kennedy's campaign was more structured and used better tactics than Nixon's, by canvassing heavily in swing states and districts instead of giving equal attention to all parts of the country (as Nixon did), with Kennedy focusing on metropolitan areas while Johnson canvassed in the south. Nixon's campaign was also more prone to mistakes, such as not preparing and refusing make-up for televised debates (making him look ill), while his running mate promised to elect African-Americans to the cabinet, however this just alienated black voters who were ambivalent in their reaction. Kennedy's connection with Martin Luther King Jr. also helped him to take a much larger share of the black vote than his opponent.

Results and Controversy

The popular vote was split by fewer than 120,000 out of seventy million votes. Kennedy took 49.7 percent of the popular vote, while Nixon took 49.5 percent. Nixon, however took more states than Kennedy, carrying 26 to Kennedy's 22, but Kennedy's tactical campaigning paid off, as his 22 states returned 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219. Unpledged Democratic electors in the south gave 15 electoral votes to Harry F. Byrd, as they opposed Kennedy's stance on civil rights. Due to the close nature of the results, many Republicans called for recounts and accused the Kennedy campaign of cheating or committing voter fraud. For example, they highlighted that more votes were cast in certain districts of Texas (Johnson's home state) than the number of registered voters, and when Nixon lost Illinois despite winning 92 out of 101 counties, many suggested a link between the Kennedy campaign and organized crime syndicates in Chicago. These claims have subsequently been proven to be false, and historians generally agree that Kennedy's campaigning methods and Nixon's wastefulness won Kennedy the election. John F. Kennedy was subsequently named the 35th President of the United States, and is remembered favorably as one of the most popular and charismatic leaders in US history. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, less than three years into his first term, and was succeeded by his Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson.

The 1996 US presidential election saw incumbent President Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party take on Bob Dole of the Republican Party, and Ross Perot of the Reform Party. Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were re-nominated with no significant opposition, however the Republican primaries were much more crowded. Bob Dole was the early favorite for the Party's nomination, however the early primaries saw a strong performance by political commentator Pat Buchanan, throwing Dole's lead into doubt. The Republican leadership then rallied around Dole and campaigned heavily on his behalf, eventually securing the nomination for their preferred candidate, also defeating Steve Forbes, Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Magazine, along the way. Following his strong performance as an independent candidate in the 1992 election, Ross Perot founded the Reform Party and was subsequently nominated as their first presidential candidate. Campaign As the Democratic nomination was practically uncontested, Clinton was able to begin his political attacks against Dole quite early, while Dole was still trying to seal the Republican nomination and not in a position to respond. While both candidates attacked one another's age (Clinton was 50, while Dole was 73), Dole's attacks were direct and he frequently pointed to Clinton dodging the Vietnam War draft while highlighting his distinguished service in the Second World War, while Clinton's attacks were more subtle and targeted his "old-fashioned ideas" and "out of touch" policies. The Clinton campaign also faced controversy regarding their finances, and donations received from foreign and religious organizations; while 17 people were eventually convicted for fraud, this did little to derail Clinton's momentum. Results Clinton won re-election comfortably, after maintaining a healthy lead in the polls throughout the campaign. Although Clinton took just under fifty percent of the popular vote, Dole took just 41 percent, which gave Clinton more than seventy percent of the electoral vote. Ross Perot took more than eight percent of the popular vote, but none of the electoral vote. This election was the first time an incumbent Democratic President won re-election since Roosevelt's victory in 1944, while voter turnout was at it's lowest ever for a presidential election since 1924. Two years into his second term, Clinton became the second President of the United States to be impeached by the House of Representatives, under charges of lying under oath and obstruction of justice, although he was then acquitted by the senate.

According to exit polling in the 2020 Presidential Election in the United States, 62 percent of surveyed 18 to 29 year old voters reported voting for former Vice President Joe Biden. In the race to become the next president of the United States, 51 percent of voters aged 65 and older reported voting for incumbent President Donald Trump.

According to exit polling in ten key states of the 2024 presidential election in the United States, almost two-thirds of voters who had never attended college reported voting for Donald Trump. In comparison, a similar share of voters with advanced degrees reported voting for Kamala Harris.

The Twenty-third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted citizens of the District of Columbia the right to vote in U.S. presidential elections; since this came into effect in 1964, the nation's capital has voted for the Democratic Party's nominee in every election, making this the longest ongoing streak in U.S. presidential elections. The record for the longest ever streak in the history of U.S. presidential elections belongs to Vermont (Republican) and Georgia (Democrat), who each voted for the same party's candidate in 27 consecutive elections between 1852 and 1960. The south and west prove loyal There are nine states, mostly across the West and Midwest, that have voted for the Republican candidate in all U.S. presidential elections since Richard Nixon's first victory in 1968. A number of other Republican streaks began in the south with Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in 1980, after briefly turning Democrat for Georgia's Jimmy Carter in 1976; historically the south had been a Democratic stronghold for more than a century, however the Republican Party's "Southern strategy" in the 1960s established them as the dominant party in the region during the civil rights era. Along with the District of Columbia, the only state not won by Reagan in 1984 was Minnesota, as Walter Mondale carried his home state by a very narrow margin. Minnesota's streak is the second-longest for the Democratic Party, while most of the other ongoing Democratic streaks began in either 1988 or 1992.

Recent swing states In the 2016 election, there were six states (with 99 electoral votes combined) that had been won by Barack Obama in 2012, but turned red in 2016. In the 2020 election, Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, managed to win back three of these states, as well as ending a six election Republican streak in Georgia and a five election streak in Arizona. In contrast, Donald Trump failed to flip any further Democratic strongholds, but repeated his victories in Florida, Iowa and Ohio. Going into this election, pollsters had predicted that the races in both Texas and Florida would be tight, with a combined total of 67 electoral votes, however the incumbent president won the popular votes in these states with margins of roughly six and 3.5 percent respectively.

The state of West Virginia was established in 1863, and has taken part in all U.S. presidential elections between 1864 and 2016. In these forty elections, West Virginia has awarded the majority of its electoral votes to the nationwide winner 29 times, giving a success rate of 73, percent. West Virginia has always been won by a major party candidate, with the state voting for the Republican and Democratic nominees twenty times each. There were, however, two occasions where faithless electors voted for a candidate who did not win the popular vote in the Mountain State; these were in 1912, when one elector cast a ballot for Woodrow Wilson, and in 1988, where one elector protested the lack of accountability for electors in the electoral college system by reversing the positions of the presidential and vice presidential nominees. West Virginia has gone through phases of aligning itself with major parties, voting mostly for the Republican nominee between 1896 and 1928, and then siding mostly with Democratic nominees between 1932 and 1996. Between 2000 and 2016, however, Republican winning margins grew with each election, and in the 2016 election, Donald Trump received over two thirds of the popular vote. In the 2020 election, West Virginia proved to be a comfortable victory for Donald Trump, who won the popular vote by a margin of almost forty percent.

As of 2020, no U.S. president has ever been born in West Virginia (including the eight born in Virginia before West Virginia seceded in 1863). The only major party candidate to have come from West Virginia was John W. Davis in 1924, who actually lost the popular vote in his home state by a five percent margin. West Virginia's allocation of electoral votes grew steadily in the late 19th century, and peaked at eight votes between the 1912 and 1960 elections. However, the population has fallen from over two million people in 1950 to just 1.8 million people in 2020, and its allocation of electoral votes has also decreased during this time. As West Virginia's population continues to fall, its allocation of electoral votes is expected to drop to just four in the 2024 election, which would be the lowest in the state's history.