After the US presidential election of 2020, there was significant outcry, from his supporters, that incumbent president Donald Trump had lost the election because of irregularities within the voting system. As near as I could determine, there was little or no discussion as to why it was so widely assumed that he would win. He had lost the popular vote, in the 2016 presidential election, by a full two percentage points. There was no discussion, in the media, as to which 2016 Clinton voters he had won over, in time for the 2020 election, nor how he had done so. I wanted to see if, when a sitting president chose to run for a second term, his election was always a slam dunk. So I looked to the results of all the presidential elections since 1952. Data comes from wikipedia.org.
Year Candidate __%__
1952 Ike 55.2
Stevenson 44.3
1956 Ike 57.4
Stevenson 42.0
Here we have a case of the incumbent's popularity clearly increasing by the second election. General Eisenhower's immense popularity, after the war, catapulted him to election, twice.
1960 JFK 49.7
Nixon 49.6
1964 LBJ 61.0
Goldwater 38.5
1968 Nixon 43.4
Humphrey 42.7
Wallace 13.5
1972 Nixon 60.7
McGovern 37.5
To look at the trajectory of Richard Nixon's presidential campaigns, we must start in 1960, where he loses to JFK by the narrowest of popular vote margins. He shows up again, eight years later, and with the help of a third party candidate - George Wallace - squeaks past Hubert Humphry (vice president under LBJ). Four years later he buries George McGovern, although he doesn't go on to complete his second term.
1976 Carter 50.1
Ford 48.0
1980 Reagan 50.7
Carter 41.0
Anderson 6.6
In Jimmy Carter we have a very clear example of an incumbent president not succeeding in being re-elected. Analysts consider third party candidate John Anderson (a Republican, running as an Independent) a significant factor. Perhaps what we're also seeing is a comparison of Gerald Ford's and Ronald Reagan's respective popularity. In the 1976 Republican primary, Gerald Ford squeaked past Ronald Reagan, 1,121 delegates to 1,078. By the 1980 primary, Ronald Reagan's star was ascending. In the Republican primary he crushed his closest rival, George H.W. Bush, winning 44 states to Bush's 6 + D.C.
1984 Reagan 58.8
Mondale 40.6
In 1984 Ronald Reagan was re-elected with an even bigger landslide than four years earlier.
1988 Bush Sr. 53.4
Dukakis 45.6
1992 Clinton 43.0
Bush Sr. 37.4
Perot 18.9
In 1992 we have another example of a re-election bid, in this case the one of George H.W. Bush, going very poorly. In fairness, the presence of a third party candidate, Ross Perot, was significant.
1996 Clinton 49.2
Dole 40.7
Perot 8.4
Both the incumbent Democrat - Bill Clinton - and his Republican challenger did better than in 1992, perhaps because the returning third party candidate, Ross Perot, didn't do as well as when he ran the first time.
2000 Bush Jr. 47.9
Gore 48.4
2004 Bush Jr. 50.7
Kerry 48.3
In the 2000 election, George W. Bush did not win the popular vote, though did win the election.
In 2004 Bush's re-election attempt went well. The percentage of popular vote, for the Democratic candidate, was nearly unchanged.
2008 Obama 52.9
McCain 45.7
2012 Obama 51.1
Romney 47.2
In 2012 we have the incumbent, Barack Obama, receiving a smaller percentage of the popular vote than in 2008, and the Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, receiving more (than the 2008 Republican challenger), but Obama won re-election.
2016 Trump 46.1
Clinton 48.1
2020 Biden 51.3
Trump 46.9
In 2016 Trump received a full 2.0% less of the popular vote than did his challenger, Hillary Clinton, but he did quite well in the electoral college.
In 2020, Trump received a slightly higher percentage of the popular vote (than he had in 2016), though the Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, also received a higher percentage (than the 2016 Democratic candidate) and won the election.
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