When the Popular Vote Doesn't Win: Understanding Electoral College Outcomes

The United States presidential election system employs the Electoral College, a body of electors who formally choose the President and Vice President. This system, established by the Constitution, allocates electors to each state based on its representation in Congress (House and Senate), plus three electors for the District of Columbia. While citizens cast ballots for a presidential candidate, they are technically voting for a slate of electors pledged to that candidate. This can lead to situations where a candidate wins the national popular vote but loses the election due to the Electoral College outcome.

How the Electoral College Works

Each state receives at least two electoral votes, one for each Senator, and an additional number of votes equal to the state’s number of representatives in the House of Representatives. To ensure that even the least populous states receive at least three electoral votes. Forty-eight states and Washington, D.C. award all their electoral votes to the candidate who receives the greater vote share statewide (“winner take all”). The two exceptions are Maine (four electoral votes) and Nebraska (five), which each allot two electoral votes to the candidate who wins the most votes statewide.

After state election officials certify the popular vote, the winning electors meet in their state capital to cast two ballots - one for President and one for Vice President. Electors cannot vote for a Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate who both hail from an elector’s home state.

Electors are typically elected officials or significant party members, and each state legislature determines the process and timeline for selecting its electors. After Election Day, each state’s chief election official prepares a certificate of ascertainment detailing the names of and total number of votes cast for each elector. Electors are then required to convene in person in their states to formally cast their votes on “the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December following the general election”.

While the Constitution does not require electors to vote according to the popular vote in their state, some states do. The rare elector who votes for someone else may be: Fined, Disqualified, Replaced by a substitute elector or Prosecuted by their state.

In January, Congress convenes a joint session to count and certify each state's electoral votes. The sitting Vice President presides over the meeting and opens the votes from each state in alphabetical order. He passes the votes to four tellers-two from the House and two from the Senate-who announce the results. During the Joint Session, lawmakers may object to individual electoral votes or to state returns as a whole. An objection must be declared in writing and signed by at least one Representative and one Senator. If both chambers agree to the objection, the electoral votes in question are not counted. If either chamber opposes the objection, the votes are counted.

Faithless Electors

Although electors are expected to vote for the candidate they pledged to support, there have been instances of "faithless electors" who cast their ballot for someone else. While not unconstitutional, many states bind electors to their candidate through oaths and fines. Faithless electors were more common in the 19th century, but are rare today and have never altered the outcome of a presidential election. There has been one faithless elector in each of the following elections: 1948, 1956, 1960, 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1988. A blank ballot was cast in 2000.

Contingent Elections

In the event of an Electoral College deadlock or if no candidate secures a majority of electoral votes, a "contingent election" occurs. The House of Representatives then elects the President, with each state delegation casting a single vote. This has only happened twice in presidential elections (1800 and 1824).

Times When the Popular Vote Winner Lost the Election

Five presidential elections have resulted in a candidate winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College and, therefore, the presidency:

1824: John Quincy Adams vs. Andrew Jackson

The 1824 election marked the end of the Era of Good Feelings, with four candidates vying for the presidency: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. All members of the now-defunct Democratic-Republican Party, the contentious election marked the end of the Era of Good Feelings, a period of political harmony and united national purpose that began in the aftermath of the War of 1812. Army general Andrew Jackson rallied voters in the South and West, Adams, a leading political figure in Massachusetts, secured votes across New England and the Northeast. Jackson won the popular vote, polling 152,901 votes to John Quincy Adams's 114,023; Henry Clay won 47,217, and William H. Crawford won 46,979. However, the electoral college returns gave Jackson only 99 votes, 32 fewer than he needed for a majority of the total votes cast. As no candidate secured the required number of votes (131 total) from the Electoral College, the House of Representatives decided the election under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As the 12th Amendment states that the top three candidates in the electoral vote are candidates in the contingent election, Henry Clay, who finished fourth, was eliminated. The contingent election was held on February 9, 1825, with each state having one vote, as determined by the wishes of the majority of each state's congressional representatives. Adams narrowly emerged as the winner, with majorities of the Representatives from 13 out of 24 states voting in his favor. Most of Clay's supporters, joined by several old Federalists, switched their votes to Adams in enough states to give him the election.

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1876: Rutherford B. Hayes vs. Samuel Tilden

The 1876 presidential election, held on November 7, 1876, was one of the most contentious and controversial presidential elections in American history. The result of the election remains among the most disputed ever. Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York outpolled Ohio's Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote, with Tilden winning 4,288,546 votes and Hayes winning 4,034,311; however, widespread allegations of electoral fraud, election violence and voter intimidation by paramilitary groups like the Red Shirts, and other sources of disenfranchisement of Black (predominantly Republican) citizens in the South, tainted the results. After a first count of votes, Tilden won 184 electoral votes to Hayes' 165, with 20 votes unresolved. These 20 electoral votes were in dispute in four states; in the case of Florida (4 votes), Louisiana (8 votes), and South Carolina (7 votes), each party reported its candidate had won the state. In Oregon, one elector was declared illegal (as an "elected or appointed official") and replaced. An Electoral Commission, consisting of 15 men, was formed on January 29, 1877, to debate about the 20 electoral votes that were in dispute. The Commission consisted of five men from the House and the Senate each, plus five Supreme Court justices. Eight members were Republicans; seven were Democrats. On March 2, an informal deal was struck to resolve the dispute: the Compromise of 1877. In return for the Democrats' acquiescence in Hayes' election (who agreed to serve only one four-year term as president and not to seek reelection as a provision of the deal), the Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.

1888: Benjamin Harrison vs. Grover Cleveland

The 1888 presidential election saw incumbent Democratic President Grover Cleveland face Republican nominee Benjamin Harrison. Tariff policy was the principal issue in the election. Harrison took the side of industrialists and factory workers who wanted to keep tariffs high, while Cleveland strenuously denounced high tariffs as unfair to consumers. His opposition to Civil War pensions and inflated currency also made enemies among veterans and farmers. Although Cleveland received 5,534,488 popular votes against 5,443,892 votes for Harrison, a 90,596 vote lead, he lost in the Electoral College. Harrison swept almost the entire North and Midwest states, losing the popular vote only in Connecticut (by 336 votes) and New Jersey (by 7,148 votes), and narrowly carried the swing states of New York (by 14,373 votes) and Indiana (by 2,348 votes) (Cleveland and Harrison's respective home states) by a margin of 1% or less to achieve a majority of the electoral vote (New York with 36 electoral votes and Indiana with 15 electoral votes).

2000: George W. Bush vs. Al Gore

The 2000 presidential election pitted Republican candidate George W. Bush against Democratic candidate Al Gore. The result of the election hinged on voting in Florida, where Bush's narrow official margin of victory of just 537 votes out of almost six million votes cast on election night triggered a mandatory recount, with mechanical failure by the machines used to cast votes a key issue. Litigation in select counties started additional recounts. This litigation ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court. The Court's contentious decision in Bush v. Gore, announced on December 12, 2000, ended the recounts, effectively awarding Florida's 25 Electoral College votes to Bush and granting him the victory. Al Gore (left) won 0.5 percentage points more of the popular vote than elected President George W. Although Bush had won the Electoral College and presidency, Gore took the popular vote, securing 48.4% of the votes, while Bush received only 47.9%. For the first time since 1888, the nominee who won the popular vote did not take the presidency.

2016: Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton

The 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was one of the most contentious in recent history. During the 2016 election, "pre-election polls fueled high-profile predictions that Hillary Clinton's likelihood of winning the presidency was about 90 percent, with estimates ranging from 71 to over 99 percent." National polls were generally accurate, showing a Clinton lead of about 3% in the national popular vote (she ultimately won the two-party national popular vote by 2.1%). State-level polls "showed a competitive, uncertain contest … but clearly under-estimated Trump's support in the Upper Midwest." Trump exceeded expectations on Election Day by winning the traditionally Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by narrow margins. Clinton recorded large margins in large states such as California, Illinois, and New York, winning California by a margin of nearly 4.3 million votes, while coming closer to winning Texas, Arizona, and Georgia than any Democratic nominee since the turn of the millennium, but still losing by a significant margin. When the Electoral College cast its votes on December 19, 2016, Trump received 304 votes to Clinton's 227 with seven electors defecting to other choices, the most faithless electors (2 from Trump, 5 from Clinton) in any presidential election in over a hundred years.

Attempts to Change the System

There have been numerous attempts to reform or eliminate the Electoral College, particularly after elections where the popular vote winner lost. The closest Congress came to amending the system was during the 91st Congress (1969-1971) when the House passed H.J. Res. 681, which would have replaced the Electoral College with direct election of the President and Vice President.

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