Bush's Election in Perspective

Elsewhere, I have commented that some Bush supporters are already calling his victory a "landslide" and talking about mandates. Out of curiosity, I checked elections where the incumbent president was re-elected, using data from the Federal Register. Below, I list the electoral vote for the victorious incumbent, as well as the percentage of the total electoral vote.

Year Winner Electoral Vote Total Electoral Vote Percentage 1792 Washington 132 132 100% 1804 Jefferson 162 176 92.0% 1812 Madison 128 217 59.0% 1820 Monroe 231 235 98.3% 1832 Jackson 219 286 76.6% 1864 Lincoln 212 233 91.0% 1872 Grant 286 352 81.3% 1900 McKinley 292 447 65.3% 1904 Roosevelt 336 476 70.6% 1916 Wilson 277 531 52.2% 1924 Coolidge 382 531 71.9% 1936 Roosevelt 523 531 98.5% 1948 Truman 303 531 57.1% 1956 Eisenhower 457 531 86.1% 1964 Johnson 486 538 90.3% 1972 Nixon 520 538 96.7% 1984 Reagan 525 538 97.6% 1996 Clinton 379 538 70.4% 2004 Bush 286 538 53.2%

Please note that when a president died in his first term and his vice-president was elected in the following election, that is considered a re-election because, at the time of the election, that vice-president was the president. For this reason, Johnson, Coolidge, and Teddy Roosevelt's sole election victories are counted as re-elections. Further, to keep everyone on an equal footing, I have only considered FDR's first re-election.

Interestingly, only Woodrow Wilson claimed a smaller percentage of the electoral vote when re-elected than Bush in this election. Of the nineteen presidents listed, fifteen were re-elected with at least 65% of the popular vote. Seven of the ten from 1916 (when the total electoral vote became comparable to today's 538) through the present received at least 70% of the electoral vote.

So, from an historical point of view, Bush's re-election is decidedly unspectacular. I don't really know what this means, if anything. But it is interesting.