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Electing the President, 1840-2020

Most election maps emphasize the candidates and parties who won the Electoral College. This project shifts the focus to voters, revealing a more nuanced story.
Joe Biden sitting in the Oval Office.

There Has Been Nothing Like This in American History

Joe Biden is hardly the first president who has decided not to seek a second term—but the circumstances this time are unique.
Then President Donald Trump, right, and Joe Biden, then the Democratic presidential nominee, during the U.S. presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 22, 2020.
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The Biden-Trump Rematch May Mark the End of an Era

Over the course of U.S. history, presidential rematches have signaled momentous political upheavals.
Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The Wild History of “Lesser of Two Evils” Voting

For as long as Americans have been subjected to lousy candidates, they’ve been told to suck it up and vote for one of them.
Roger Stone

How to Steal an American Election

From Alexander Hamilton to Richard Nixon and more: meddling, fixing, rigging, fraud, and violence.
A women in a newsroom covering the election
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Good TV Demands Results on Election Night, but That’s Bad for Democracy

The history of tuning in to televised election returns.

A Definitive Case Against the Electoral College

Why the framers created the Electoral College — and why we need to get rid of it.

The Corrupt Bargain

Eric Foner reviews two new books that make the case against the Electoral College.
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Jimmy Carter and The Myth That Gave the Iowa Caucuses Their Political Power

What does winning in Iowa really mean?

The Electoral College Was Terrible From the Start

It’s doubtful even Alexander Hamilton believed what he was selling in “Federalist No. 68.”

Here’s Every Defense of the Electoral College — and Why They’re All Wrong

Most of the arguments for preserving our insane system are morally odious, unsubstantiated, and/or factually incorrect.
Delegates on the floor at the Democratic National Convention at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, August 26, 1964.

How to Steal an Election

The crazy history of nominating Conventions.
Attendees look at a map of the U.S. electoral college during the Republican National Convention (RNC) near the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
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The Debate That Gave Us the Electoral College

John Dickinson's contributions to the Constitution continue to reverberate today.
President Dwight Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie, left, with Vice President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, wave at a crowd after winning the 1956 residential election.

‘No Antidote for Bad Polls’

In 1956, The New York Times, dismayed by wayward polls in the prior presidential race, sent teams of reporters across the nation to better gauge public opinion.
Kamala Harris on stage at a campaign rally

The Polling Imperilment

Presidential polls are no more reliable than they were a century ago. So why do they consume our political lives?
Theodore Roosevelt giving a speech.

A Brief History of Former Presidents Running for Reelection: 3 Losses, 1 Win and 1 Still TBD

History illustrates that voters become galvanized and change their party allegiance when former US presidents run for a nonconsecutive term.
A drawing of two people speaking with a third person's head listening between them.

Diverging Majority

Demography has not managed to be destiny in the past half-century—but predictions of a millenarian shift have not lost their appeal.
A photograph of Joe Biden next to a photograph of Lyndon Baines Johnson imposed on a red background.

Lyndon Johnson Knew That Part of Wielding Power Is Knowing When to Let It Go

As Democrats debate whether Joe Biden should stay in the race against Trump, LBJ’s often misunderstood example looms.
Then-Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton speaks at the Human Rights Campaign forum in Washington, July 15, 2003.

Remembrance of Ratf**ks Past

As Cornel West is receiving ballot access help from Republicans, 20 years ago Al Sharpton’s campaign for president was largely orchestrated by Roger Stone.
John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.

A Trump-Biden Tie Would Be a Political Nightmare — But Maybe a Boon to Democracy

The political upheaval of 1824 changed America. The same could happen in 2024.
A large crowd listening to Harry Truman give a speech on a train.

Harry Truman's Train Ride

A whistle-stop train tour, and some plain speaking spur Harry Truman's come from behind win in 1948 over Thomas Dewey.
A cartoon Trump is shooed away by a hand in a judge's robe

The Case for Disqualification

Three years later, amid another national election, the American public is still slow to understand the enormity of January 6, 2021.
A sign left behind by Trump supporters at a rally outside the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, September 27, 2023.

American Fascism

On how Europe’s interwar period informs the present.
Photo of Donald Trump at a podium and pointing.

The Supreme Court Must Unanimously Strike Down Trump’s Ballot Removal

Excluding him, wrongfully, by a close vote of the Supreme Court could well trigger the next Civil War.
Donald Trump behind bars made of the US Constitution

The Constitution Prohibits Trump From Ever Being President Again

The only question is whether American citizens today can uphold that commitment.
Cover of the book "24/7 Politics," featuring photos of Nixon and Carter.

The Battlefields of Cable

How cable TV transformed politics—and how politics transformed cable TV.
Former President Donald Trump with his attorneys inside the courtroom during his arraignment at the Manhattan Criminal Court on April 4, 2023.

A Brief History of the Ku Klux Klan Acts

These 1870s laws to protect Black voters, ignored for decades, now being used against Trump.
President Warren G. Harding throws out the first ball to open the Washington Senators' baseball season on April 13, 1921.

A Century Before Trump’s Term, a President Paid a Mistress to Stay Silent

President Warren G. Harding paid not one, but two women to remain quiet about their affairs with him.
Table of election returns printed in newspaper in 1796.

Collusion, Theft, Violence, and Lies: Lurid Tales of American Elections

1796, the first contested presidential election.
Blue and red donkey logo of the Democratic Party.

Hope in the Desert: Democratic Party Blues

In 'What It Took to Win,' Michael Kazin traces the history over the past two centuries of what he calls ‘the oldest mass party in the world’.

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