Where 2020 Ranks in America’s Closest Elections

Defying the pattern for incumbent reelection contests, only a handful of the 58 previous presidential elections were closer than 2020.

H ow close was the 2020 presidential election? It has been difficult to disentangle this question from the arguments of Donald Trump partisans who contend the election was stolen and Joe Biden partisans focused on the national popular vote. But in comparing presidential elections over time, the real question is: What would it have taken to go the other way? In comparative terms, defying the pattern for incumbent reelection contests, only a handful of the 58 previous presidential elections were closer than this one.

Let’s rank the 15 closest elections in American history since the beginning of popular voting in 1828. While there are a few different numerical ways to do this, there is no single quantitative metric that captures all the variables, for reasons that will be obvious as we walk through the examples. “Cumulative margin” here means the percentage margin in the decisive states, added together if there is more than one state. “Closeness rating” is my effort to create a rough metric combining the margin per million votes and the cumulative margin (I then multiplied by 150,000 to avoid having these numbers run into eye-squinting fractions).

1. 2000, George W. Bush over Al Gore (271–266 in the Electoral College)

EC margin: Four for a Gore victory, two for a tie
Vote margin: Five votes per million nationwide, 537 votes out of 105.4 million cast nationally (Rank: 1)
Cumulative margin: 0.01 percent in one state (Rank: 1)
Closeness rating: 764 (Rank: 1)

Decisive state: Florida (0.01 percent margin of victory, 29 electoral votes), or any of several others, the second-closest being New Hampshire (1.27 percent margin, 4 EV).

The 2000 election still stands as our closest ever, by any quantitative measurement. The “what if” scenarios are concentrated on a single state whose margin of victory was by far the closest ever, as a proportion of the votes cast nationwide: 105 million people voted, and just 537 of them going the other way in Florida would have decided the election differently.

Moreover, in ranking the closeness of elections, I consider it a mark of closeness when there were multiple close paths for the losing candidate to win (as in 2000 or 1876) rather than just one decisive state (as in 1884). Any state carried by Bush would have altered the outcome if Gore had won it, with even the smallest Bush states being enough to send the election to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives if they had gone for Gore. Gore would have won with tiny New Hampshire, which was decided by 7,211 votes (1.27 percent of the state). Then again, only those two states went for Bush by less than three percentage points, while Gore carried New Mexico by 366 votes, and also won Wisconsin, Iowa, and Oregon by 0.44 percent or less.

A bit of trivia: Because the Electoral College was designed to equal the number of House districts (which is always an odd number) plus the number of senators (which is always an even number), there were an odd number of electors until the 23rd Amendment added three electors for the District of Columbia, beginning in the 1964 election. That amendment greatly increased the odds of an evenly divided election that would have to be settled in the House.

2. 1884, Grover Cleveland over James G. Blaine (219–182)

EC margin: 19 for a Blaine victory or a Cleveland loss
Vote margin: 114 votes per million, 1,149 votes out of 10.1 million cast (Rank: 3)
Cumulative margin: 0.10 percent in one state (Rank: 2)
Closeness rating: 171,320 (Rank: 2)

Decisive state: New York (0.10 percent margin, 36 EV).

I’ve noted before the uniqueness of 1884: The largest state in the union was also the closest and decided the election, and its winner was its sitting governor. A single phrase from a single speech by a James Blaine surrogate (“Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion”) may have turned enough Irish votes in New York to flip the election.

3. 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden (185–184)

EC margin: One for a Tilden victory or a Hayes loss
Vote margin: 106 votes per million, 889 votes out of 8.4 million cast (Rank: 2)
Cumulative margin: 0.49 percent in one state (Rank: 4)
Closeness rating: 776,151 (Rank: 3)

Decisive state: South Carolina (0.49 percent margin, 7 EV), or any of several others, the second-closest being either Ohio (1.14 percent margin, 22 EV, 7.516 votes) or Florida (1.97 percent, 4 EV, 922 votes).

The 1876 election was marred by all manner of terrorism, fraud, and controversy at the end of Reconstruction. Indeed, amidst a mass campaign to terrorize black Southerners out of voting for many years, there was just barely enough federal protection of black voters to deliver South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana to the Republicans one last time. It still required the Electoral Commission appointed by Congress to side with the Republican slates of electors. Samuel Tilden remains the only candidate ever to win a national popular majority and not win an Electoral College majority. While it is impossible at this remove to take the election returns on either side at face value, the official results show that it would have gone the other way in South Carolina — but also that Hayes came uncomfortably close to losing it in his own home state of Ohio, in the midst of the presidency of three consecutive Ohio Republicans.

4. 1916, Woodrow Wilson over Charles Evans Hughes (277–254)

EC margin: Twelve for a Hughes victory or a Wilson loss
Vote margin: 203 votes per million, 3,773 votes out of 18.5 million cast (Rank: 4)
Cumulative margin: 0.38 percent in one state (Rank: 3)
Closeness rating: 1,159,902 (Rank: 4)

Decisive state: California (0.38 percent margin, 13 EV), or any of several others, the second-closest being a combination of New Hampshire (0.06 percent, Four EV, 56 votes), North Dakota (1.50 percent, five EV, 1,735 votes) and New Mexico (3.56 percent, three EV, 2,375 votes).

Slow-counting California kept the nation waiting in 1916. The schism between moderate establishment Republicans such as Hughes and the progressives who went third-party with Teddy Roosevelt may have been decisive in 1916. Hughes failed to campaign with Hiram Johnson, Roosevelt’s 1912 running mate, who cruised to an easy statewide Senate victory in California as a Republican in 1916. The oddity of 1916 is that Hughes won an average of 14 electoral votes per state, carrying the nation’s three largest states (New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois), while only four of the 30 states carried by Wilson were worth as many as 14 electoral votes.

5. 1960, John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon (303–219)

EC margin: 50 for a Nixon victory, 35 to potentially send the election to the House
Vote margin: To 35 EV: 274 votes per million, 18,838 votes out of 68.8 million cast (Rank: 7). To 50 EV: 595 votes per million, 40,929 votes
Cumulative margin: To 35 EV: 0.71 percent in two states (Rank: 6). To 50 EV: 1.51 percent in three states
Closeness rating: To 35 EV: 2,914,681 (Rank: 5). To 50 EV: 13,468,087

Decisive states: To 35 EV: Illinois (0.19 percent margin, 27 EV), plus Missouri (0.52 percent margin, 13 EV). To 50 EV: Illinois, plus Missouri, plus New Jersey (0.80 percent margin, 16 EV). Other states with close margins for Kennedy: Hawaii (0.06 percent, three EV), New Mexico (0.74 percent, three EV), Delaware (1.64 percent, three EV).

We think politics is paranoid now, but the 1960 election has spawned more than its share of urban legends and stolen-election conspiracy theories (up there with the 1876 and 2000 elections in that regard). The big gap between 35 electoral votes needed to send this race to the House and 50 needed for an outright Nixon victory is explained by 14 unpledged electors: eight in Mississippi and six of the eleven in Alabama. Had those electors remained unpledged, they would have sent the election to the Democrat-dominated House.

The unpledged electors from Mississippi and Alabama represented disgruntled Dixiecrats who hoped that, if the election threatened to go to the House without their votes, they could use their leverage to drag anti–civil-rights concessions out of Kennedy or Nixon. (There was also one faithless elector out of eight in Oklahoma, but he was an eccentric anti-tax crank.) The political history of the 1960s might have been quite different if they had been able to pull that off, and select a president in 1960 bound by promises against civil-rights legislation or enforcement.

As a result of the unpledged electors, ranking 1960 among the closest elections is not merely a numerical exercise. Still, removing Illinois and Missouri from the Kennedy column would have been enough to deprive Kennedy of an outright win and set in motion a highly uncertain and disruptive process that could have handed the White House to Richard Nixon eight years earlier and under dramatically different circumstances.

6. 2020, Joe Biden over Donald Trump (306–232)

EC margin: 38 for a Trump victory, 37 to send the election to the House
Vote margin: To 37 EV: 271 votes per million, 42,918 votes out of 158.4 million cast (Rank: 6). To 38 EV: 656 votes per million, 103,896 votes
Cumulative margin: To 37 EV: 1.17 percent in three states (Rank: 9). To 38 EV: 1.72 percent in three states
Closeness rating: To 37 EV: 4,761,365 (Rank: 6). To 38 EV: 16,970,921

Decisive states: To 37 EV: Georgia (0.24 percent margin, 16 EV), plus Arizona (0.31 percent margin, eleven EV), plus Wisconsin (0.63 percent margin, 10 EV). To 38 EV: Georgia plus Arizona plus Pennsylvania (1.18 percent margin, 20 EV).

A total of 42,918 votes in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin kept this election from being decided by the House, where Republicans have control of enough delegations to reelect Trump. That’s a lot of votes if you are trying to overturn the election in a recount or a court case, but as a proportion of 158 million votes nationwide, it’s still a tiny number of people. Trump’s two-month tantrum over the outcome has obscured how close he actually came to winning this election.

7. 1948, Harry Truman over Tom Dewey (303–189)

EC margin: 77 for a Dewey victory, 38 to send the election to the House
Vote margin: To 38 EV: 512 votes per million, 24,972 votes out of 48.8 million cast (Rank: 8). To 77 EV: 1,201 votes per million, 58,584 votes
Cumulative margin: To 38 EV: 0.48 percent in two states (Rank: 5). To 77 EV: 1.52 percent in three states
Closeness rating: To 38 EV: 5,220,139 (Rank: 7). To 77 EV: 27,374,262

Decisive states: To 38 EV: Ohio (0.24 percent margin, 25 EV) plus California (0.44 percent margin, 25 EV). To 77 EV: Ohio plus California plus Illinois (0.84 percent margin, 28 EV).

As in 1960, the 1948 election faced a third front from Dixiecrats coming unglued from their party’s coalition, but still trying to use the leverage of a close election to dictate terms to their ancestral party. Strom Thurmond, running as a third-party candidate, drew 39 electoral votes across the Deep South. As a result, while Tom Dewey fell 77 electoral votes short of winning, Harry Truman only made it to an Electoral College majority by 38 electoral votes. In any event, three states went to Truman over Dewey by less than one point, and they were big ones, each carrying 25–28 electoral votes. One of those three was Illinois, home of the infamous early printed “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline.

This election might rank higher but for the fact that Democrats picked up 75 House seats in 1948, which may have been enough to guarantee Truman the White House even with some defections from Southern Democrats.

8. 1976, Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford (297–240)

EC margin: 30 for a Ford victory, 28 to send the election to the House
Vote margin: To 28 EV: 227 votes per million, 18,488 votes out of 81.5 million cast (Rank: 5). To 30 EV: 314 votes per million, 25,579 votes
Cumulative margin: To 28 EV: 2.8 percent in two states (Rank: 14). To 30 EV: 2.15 percent in two states
Closeness rating: To 28 EV: 9,522,793 (Rank: 8). To 30 EV: 10,116,689

Decisive states: To 28 EV: Ohio (0.27 percent margin, 25 EV) plus Hawaii (2.53 percent margin, four EV). To 30 EV: Ohio plus Mississippi (1.88 percent margin, seven EV).

The Ford–Carter race was mostly decided in Ohio, although Ford would have needed to add Mississippi to steer clear of a contested race in the House. The close margin at the end was a major surprise, given that a national Gallup poll had Jimmy Carter leading by over 30 points in midsummer. Carter also won Wisconsin by 1.68 percent, but Gerald Ford won eight states by margins of less than two percentage points.

9. 2016, Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton (304–227)

EC margin: 43 for a Clinton victory, 35 to send the election to the House (or 38 for a Clinton victory, 37 to go to the House in the absence of faithless electors)
Vote margin: To 43 EV: 567 votes per million, 77,736 votes out of 137.1 million cast (Rank: 9)
Cumulative margin: To 43 EV: 1.70 percent in three states (Rank: 10)
Closeness rating: To 43 EV: 14,453,999 (Rank: 9)

Decisive states: To 43 EV: Michigan (0.22 percent margin, 16 EV) plus Pennsylvania (0.72 percent margin, 20 EV), plus Wisconsin (0.76 percent margin, 10 EV). Other close Trump states: Florida (1.19 percent margin, 29 EV).

Given that the three closest states would have been enough for Hillary Clinton to win with or without faithless electors or a House vote, I did not bother including alternative scenarios. The 2016 election was not quite as close at the margins as 2020, but the difference between the two is not large. Trump simply pulled out four of the five closest states in 2016 (excepting New Hampshire, which Clinton won by 0.37 percent, a 2,736-vote margin), while losing the four closest states in 2020. Live by narrow margins, die by narrow margins.

10. 1888, Benjamin Harrison over Grover Cleveland (233–168)

EC margin: 33 for a Cleveland victory or a Harrison loss
Vote margin: 1,262 votes per million, 14,373 votes out of 11.4 million cast (Rank: 11)
Cumulative margin: 1.09 percent in one state (Rank: 8)
Closeness rating: 20,634,097 (Rank: 10)

Decisive state: New York (1.09 percent margin, 36 EV). Other close Harrison states: Indiana (0.44 percent margin, 15 EV).

The remarkable thing about the 1888 election, in which Grover Cleveland won the national popular vote for the second of three consecutive elections without ever winning a majority, is that only two states flipped from 1884: Cleveland’s home state of New York, and Benjamin Harrison’s home state of Indiana. Cleveland did, however, win Connecticut, West Virginia, and Virginia by margins ranging from 0.22 percent to 0.53 percent. His national popular plurality came from racking up huge margins in the South, as he carried the states of the Confederacy 63 percent to 37 percent.

11. 1844, James K. Polk over Henry Clay (170–105)

EC margin: 33 for a Clay victory or a Polk loss
Vote margin: 1,888 votes per million, 5,106 votes out of 2.7 million cast (Rank: 13)
Cumulative margin: 1.05 percent in one state (Rank: 7)
Closeness rating: 29,742,435 (Rank: 11)

Decisive state: New York (1.05 percent margin, 36 EV). Other close Polk states: Indiana (1.65 percent margin, twelve EV), Pennsylvania (1.91 percent, 26 EV).

The 1844 election was yet another 19th-century election decided by New York. James K. Polk’s victory — which would have been a 179–96 blowout for Henry Clay if Clay had carried New York, Pennsylvania, and Indiana — was sandwiched between two Whig victories, and Polk was short of a majority in the national popular vote, winning it 49.5 percent to 48.1 percent. The spectacular collapse of the Whigs in 1852, and their death as a party in 1854, obscures their strength as a competitive party over the previous decade and a half.

12. 2004, George W. Bush over John Kerry (286–251)

EC margin: 19 for a Kerry victory, 17 to send the election to the House
Vote margin: 970 votes per million, 118,601 votes out of 122.3 million cast (Rank: 10)
Cumulative margin: 2.11 percent in one state (Rank: 12)
Closeness rating: 30,691,835 (Rank: 12)

Decisive state: Ohio (2.11 percent margin, 20 EV). Other close Bush states: Iowa (0.67 percent margin, seven EV), New Mexico (0.79 percent, five EV).

In raw numbers, Bush’s margin in Ohio in 2004 was nearly three times that of Biden’s cumulative margin in 2020, and ten times that of Biden’s victories in Georgia or Arizona. That of course didn’t stop a number of Democrats from contesting the counting of the electoral votes. By the standards of 2000, 2016, or 2020, Bush’s 2.11 percent margin in Ohio looks pretty comfortable, but it still ranks on this list. John Kerry won Wisconsin by 0.38 percent and New Hampshire by 1.37 percent.

13. 1880, James Garfield over Winfield Scott Hancock (214–155)

EC margin: 30 for a Hancock victory or a Garfield loss
Vote margin: 2,282 votes per million, 21,033 votes out of 9.2 million cast (Rank: 15)
Cumulative margin: 1.91 percent in one state (Rank: 11)
Closeness rating: 65,375,789 (Rank: 13)

Decisive state: New York (1.91 percent margin, 35 EV). Other close Garfield states: Indiana (1.41 percent margin, 15 EV), Oregon (1.63 percent, four EV).

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: An election decided by New York, which helps explains why James Garfield had Chester Arthur (whose most significant governing experience was as collector of the Port of New York) as his running mate. Winfield Scott Hancock carried California by 0.09 percent, New Jersey by 0.82 percent.

14. 1968, Richard Nixon over Hubert Humphrey (301–191)

EC margin: 79 for a Humphrey victory, 32 to send the election to the House
Vote margin: To 32 EV: 1,515 votes per million, 110,916 votes out of 73.2 million cast (Rank: 12). To 79 EV: 4,196 votes per million, 307,137 votes
Cumulative margin: To 32 EV: 3.41 percent in two states (Rank: 15). To 79 EV: 8.46 percent in four states
Closeness rating: To 32 EV: 77,504,829 (Rank: 14). To 79 EV: 532,454,724

Decisive states: To 28 EV: Missouri (1.13 percent margin, twelve EV) plus Ohio (2.28 percent margin, 25 EV). To 79 EV: Missouri plus Ohio plus New Jersey (2.13 percent margin, 17 EV) plus Illinois (2.92 percent margin, 26 EV).

The 1968 election, in which George Wallace ran as an independent, marked the end of the two-decade effort of Dixiecrats to work outside the two-party system and use presidential elections as leverage to extract concessions. Wallace’s campaign, in fact, was more of a populist protest than a strategic play. While just Ohio and Missouri would have been enough to send the race to the Democrat-controlled House, Hubert Humphrey was much further than that from winning in his own right. Humphrey, for his part, won Texas by 1.27 percent and Maryland by 1.64 percent.

15. 1836, Martin Van Buren over William Henry Harrison (170–73)

EC margin: 75 for a Harrison victory, 23 to send the election to the House
Vote margin: To 23 EV: 2,809 votes per million, 4,222 votes out of 1.5 million cast (Rank: 16)
Cumulative margin: To 23 EV: 2.36 percent in one state (Rank: 13)
Closeness rating: To 32 EV: 99,452,825 (Rank: 15)

Decisive states: To 23 EV: Pennsylvania (2.36 percent margin, 30 EV). Many more required to 79 EV.

The 1836 election remains the only one in which a major political party did not even bother running for an Electoral College win, but instead sought to send the election to the House. The Whigs ran William Henry Harrison as their main candidate, but also ran regional favorite-son candidates in a number of other states. It came somewhat close to working: Only 2.36 percent separated Martin Van Buren from Harrison in Pennsylvania, giving Van Buren an Electoral College majority. The joke would have been on the Whigs in the House, however, because strong Democratic gains in the House in 1836 would likely have saved the election for Van Buren anyway.

Honorable mention: The 1796 and 1800 elections both swung on New York, with the state giving John Adams his margin of victory over Thomas Jefferson in 1796, and giving Jefferson his margin over Adams in 1800. James Madison’s victory in 1812 over DeWitt Clinton would have gone the other way if Madison had lost either Pennsylvania or his native Virginia. We lack popular vote data, however, to meaningfully evaluate how close any of those states were.

Here’s the data supporting the rankings. First, the Electoral College standings:

The elections ranked by margin per million voters:

The elections ranked by state-by-state cumulative margins:

And, finally, the “Closeness” measurement combining the two: