Which Post-1900 Presidential Candidates Could've Surpassed LBJ's Popular Vote Share?

[Zyobot]

Winning in a landslide of 486 electoral votes and 61.1% of the popular vote, the 1964 victory achieved by President Lyndon B. Johnson currently holds the record for the largest share of the popular vote won by a modern president--a tally that narrowly exceeded FDR's 1936 victory over Alf Landon, and was only rivaled by a handful of presidents since then. So, with that in mind, which post-1900 presidential candidates--whether they actually held office or not--could've surpassed LBJ's share of the popular vote, had circumstances been tweaked in their favor?

The only plausible contenders I can think of right now include an incumbent FDR, 1972 Richard Nixon and 1984 Ronald Reagan--all of whom "merely" approached that proportion of the popular vote, although they all blew past LBJ in the Electoral College at least once. Maybe also Warren G. Harding in 1920, though I know less about him than post-WW2 presidents. I've also seen Herbert Hoover racking up 493 electoral votes in 1928, RFK in a 1968 where Nixon's corruption is exposed early and he gets assassinated, and George H.W. Bush going up against Jesse Jackson in 1988 as suggestions in a version of this thread that I've posted elsewhere on the Web.

Thank you in advance,
Zyobot

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

My man teddy. prior to his bull moose run.

 

[Zyobot]

My man teddy. prior to his bull moose run.

Third parties consistently face dim prospects for getting their candidates elected, it seems. Which I find more understandable in the case of someone like George Wallace or John B. Anderson, but not as much a popular former POTUS like Teddy Roosevelt.

Dwight Eisenhower is another reasonable suggestion I’ve seen before, and one I forgot to include in the OP at that. While I’m no expert on the era or election cycle in question, 1956 seems like the most opportune time for Ike to sweep with well over sixty percent of the popular vote, incumbency on his side and all. Not to mention a crushing majority in the Electoral College, perhaps even one big enough to rival Roosevelt’s 1932 bid (which was 472 out of a then-total of 531 electoral votes, for those wondering).

 

[Zyobot]

Third parties consistently face dim prospects for getting their candidates elected, it seems. Which I find more understandable in the case of someone like George Wallace or John B. Anderson, but not as much a popular former POTUS like Teddy Roosevelt.

Dwight Eisenhower is another reasonable suggestion I’ve seen before, and one I forgot to include in the OP at that. While I’m no expert on the era or election cycle in question, 1956 seems like the most opportune time for Ike to sweep with well over sixty percent of the popular vote, incumbency on his side and all. Not to mention a crushing majority in the Electoral College, perhaps even one big enough to rival Roosevelt’s 1932 bid (which was 472 out of a then-total of 531 electoral votes, for those wondering).

Insofar as it relates to more contrived scenarios involving Ike, him going up against a surviving FDR who somehow runs for another term is a possibility I've come up with. Granted, it's remote due to a combination of both voter fatigue and Roosevelt's increasingly obvious health problems, but if the stars aligned and it came down to an election between the two...yeah, Eisenhower in a landslide. Whether he'd achieve a more modest, but still respectable victory akin to Bill Clinton in 1992 or an electoral blowout like Ronald Reagan in 1980 remains debatable, I think.

Still, if there's any case I can think of in which Eisenhower stands a chance of winning well over sixty percent of the popular vote, it's going up against a frail and welcome-overstaying Roosevelt who magically refuses to call it quits.

 

[Zero]

Bill clinton in 1996.The economy was doing good.

 

[Zyobot]

Bill clinton in 1996.The economy was doing good.

I’ve seen projections that if a right-wing extremist like Pat Buchanan ran and somehow clinched the GOP nomination, Clinton would win reelection in a landslide.

In which case, I’m curious about how the election map would look? Not to mention more precise popular-vote projections than just somewhere over 60%.

 

[Zyobot]

This one’s also quite unlikely, but George McGovern receiving the Democratic nomination in 1984 would probably do the trick. Him being a “leftie radical” who lost in a blowout in 1972, McGovern would come out against Reaganomics and probably call for much of what Walter Mondale did, if I were to guess.

He’d still get crushed for his trouble, and likely in a defeat that makes his 1972 loss look like a spanking and a time out. At that point, I imagine that Reagan could take all fifty states and sweep with well over sixty percent of the popular vote. Especially considering how he only lost Minnesota by razor-thin margins in our 1984.

 

[Free-Stater 101]

Have Teddy win the republican nomination and then have Wilson drop dead three weeks before the election and the results are guaranteed but Walter Mondale could also get flat out destroyed more so than in the EC if conditions are right.

 

[Zyobot]

This one’s also quite unlikely, but George McGovern receiving the Democratic nomination in 1984 would probably do the trick. Him being a “leftie radical” who lost in a blowout in 1972, McGovern would come out against Reaganomics and probably call for much of what Walter Mondale did, if I were to guess.

He’d still get crushed for his trouble, and likely in a defeat that makes his 1972 loss look like a spanking and a time out. At that point, I imagine that Reagan could take all fifty states and sweep with well over sixty percent of the popular vote. Especially considering how he only lost Minnesota by razor-thin margins in our 1984.

Having checked on the original version of this thread I posted, someone suggested giving Jesse Jackson the Democratic nomination in 1984 instead (and making Wilson Goode his running mate). I suppose that with his comparative lack of electoral baggage relative to McGovern, having Jackson (somehow) receive the nod would make more sense.

With someone as radical and fiery as Jackson, coupled with how there were still plenty of people who'd have refused to vote for a black presidential candidate during the Eighties, Reagan looks poised to sweep in 1984. That he'd likely win with 535 electoral votes comes as unsurprising to me, but I'm curious about more exact estimates for Reagan's raw-vote total and actual popular-vote share (other than well over sixty-percent, of course).

Specifics aside, I imagine this destroys Jesse Jackson's prospects for mounting future presidential bids as he finds himself in the company of Alf Landon, Barry Goldwater and George McGovern as among the biggest losers in American electoral history.

 

[Zero]

Humphrey could of won by a landslide it came out ,Nixon sabataged the peace talks.

 

[Zyobot]

Humphrey could of won by a landslide it came out ,Nixon sabataged the peace talks.

LBJ comes out with an October Surprise by disclosing those tapes to the public, then? If so, I'm not sure how many strings Nixon could pull to escape the truckload of legal trouble that'll come his way--let alone stand any meaningful chance in the face of a record-shattering landslide for Hubert Humphrey. I'm also curious as to how George Wallace does, especially since the GOP getting knocked out of the race provides him with a meaningful shot at second-place?

Purely electoral matters aside, I imagine that the news opens Nixon up to the hatred of lots of traumatized veterans and the grieving friends/families of American troops killed in Vietnam. More than one assassination attempt is bound to come his way sometime soon--not to mention a far more heated political climate than the one we got in even actual 1968. There will also be questions about how LBJ knew about this in the first place, though perhaps the combination of shock and fury will temporarily offset this in time for Hubert Humphrey to sweep from sea to shining sea on election night.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Huh I did not realize the 1968 Election was so close. Obviously Humphreys was always respected but from everything I heard through was that he wasn't particularly magnetic or inspiring as a politician from the stuff I've read on him by other people (like the autobiography of former South Vietnamese President Nguyen Cao Ky) and others. Like you could never get to know the man beneath his politics. Plus the fallout of avoiding the primaries and that Hail Mary October Surprise that (almost) saved his campaign.

Plus would torpedoing the Peace Deal really result in that dramatic shift? There is a strong connotation of a majority of Americans being Anti-War during the Vietnam War... but it was still more of people being anti-LBJ for a variety of reasons. Many it was because they were anti-war... for another significant fraction of the population it was because they were supportive of the conflict, but not LBJ's handling of it.

 

[WolfBear]

Winning in a landslide of 486 electoral votes and 61.1% of the popular vote, the 1964 victory achieved by President Lyndon B. Johnson currently holds the record for the largest share of the popular vote won by a modern president--a tally that narrowly exceeded FDR's 1936 victory over Alf Landon, and was only rivaled by a handful of presidents since then. So, with that in mind, which post-1900 presidential candidates--whether they actually held office or not--could've surpassed LBJ's share of the popular vote, had circumstances been tweaked in their favor?

The only plausible contenders I can think of right now include an incumbent FDR, 1972 Richard Nixon and 1984 Ronald Reagan--all of whom "merely" approached that proportion of the popular vote, although they all blew past LBJ in the Electoral College at least once. Maybe also Warren G. Harding in 1920, though I know less about him than post-WW2 presidents. I've also seen Herbert Hoover racking up 493 electoral votes in 1928, RFK in a 1968 where Nixon's corruption is exposed early and he gets assassinated, and George H.W. Bush going up against Jesse Jackson in 1988 as suggestions in a version of this thread that I've posted elsewhere on the Web.

Thank you in advance,
Zyobot

Have Howard Dean win the 2004 Democratic presidential election and then somehow bizarrely start making up excuses for what Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein did and you could see George W. Bush win in 2004 in an extremely massive landslide, with only the loony left supporting Howard Dean. However, this would require Dean to be not just an anti-war candidate, but also a total nut, while also managing to conceal his nuttiness throughout the Democratic primaries, only for this hypothetical nuttiness of his to be exposed during the general election.

Alternatively, in any election year, you could have an "October Surprise" that presidential candidate who was trailing in the polls used to be a member of the American Nazi Party as a youth or something like that, and then have them make excuses for this or whatever, subsequently resulting in an extremely crushing landslide loss for them.

 

[Zyobot]

Have Howard Dean win the 2004 Democratic presidential election and then somehow bizarrely start making up excuses for what Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein did and you could see George W. Bush win in 2004 in an extremely massive landslide, with only the loony left supporting Howard Dean. However, this would require Dean to be not just an anti-war candidate, but also a total nut, while also managing to conceal his nuttiness throughout the Democratic primaries, only for this hypothetical nuttiness of his to be exposed during the general election.

Well, I don't know enough about Dean personally to expound on your outline, but he certainly strikes me as an oddball who removes the Democrats' license to ridicule Bush as too goofy for the presidency or whatever.

Alternatively, in any election year, you could have an "October Surprise" that presidential candidate who was trailing in the polls used to be a member of the American Nazi Party as a youth or something like that, and then have them make excuses for this or whatever, subsequently resulting in an extremely crushing landslide loss for them.

Yeah, that'd destroy them. Alternatively, I'm guessing a candidate would lose by similar margins if it's revealed they were a card-carrying Red in their youth and they refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing.

 

[WolfBear]

Well, I don't know enough about Dean personally to expound on your outline, but he certainly strikes me as an oddball who removes the Democrats' license to ridicule Bush as too goofy for the presidency or whatever.



Yeah, that'd destroy them. Alternatively, I'm guessing a candidate would lose by similar margins if it's revealed they were a card-carrying Red in their youth and they refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing.

Yeah, in real life, Dean was notable for the "Dean Scream", which was due to a bad microphone more than anything else, but the voters didn't know that:

Dean scream - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Maybe have Dean win the nomination, then do the Dean Scream, then make excuses for Osama and Saddam, and then refuse to drop out while embracing various conspiracy theories about 9/11 being an inside job or whatever?

And Yeah, anyone who was a Communist in their youth and refuse to acknowledge the errors of their ways would certainly lose heavily. The American voters certainly don't like pinkos:

Pinko - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Zyobot]

Yeah, in real life, Dean was notable for the "Dean Scream", which was due to a bad microphone more than anything else, but the voters didn't know that:

Even if it the microphone weren't a factor, though, I don't know what was so disqualifying about a shrill and enthusiastic cry. Not when far more important things were on the line, though far be it from me to judge Dean's policymaking compared to Bush's.

Maybe have Dean win the nomination, then do the Dean Scream, then make excuses for Osama and Saddam, and then refuse to drop out while embracing various conspiracy theories about 9/11 being an inside job or whatever?

If you could get it to happen, then sure. Don't know how you'd get him to open his mouth even if he is a secret Al-Qaeda or Baathist sympathizer, which I'm not about to accuse him of without some pretty good evidence.

 

[WolfBear]

Even if it the microphone weren't a factor, though, I don't know what was so disqualifying about a shrill and enthusiastic cry. Not when far more important things were on the line, though far be it from me to judge Dean's policymaking compared to Bush's.



If you could get it to happen, then sure. Don't know how you'd get him to open his mouth even if he is a secret Al-Qaeda or Baathist sympathizer, which I'm not about to accuse him of without some pretty good evidence.

Yeah, voters sometimes care about small and stupid stuff like that.

Yeah, I'm not saying that he is in real life. I'm just saying if he was, and he was also stupid enough to open his mouth, then he'd be screwed.

 

[Zyobot]

Yeah, voters sometimes care about small and stupid stuff like that.

Yeah, I'm not saying that he is in real life. I'm just saying if he was, and he was also stupid enough to open his mouth, then he'd be screwed.

Then the Right would have what it needs to tar-brush the anti-war movement as "terrorist sympathizers and Saddam's bootlickers" for years to come. Not to mention how it'd set back the Democratic Party at large, which will lean further right in subsequent elections to compensate.

 

[WolfBear]

Then the Right would have what it needs to tar-brush the anti-war movement as "terrorist sympathizers and Saddam's bootlickers" for years to come. Not to mention how it'd set back the Democratic Party at large, which will lean further right in subsequent elections to compensate.

Maybe this would cause President Obama--or, alternatively, President Hillary Clinton ('coz who'd want a guy with the middle name of Hussein as US President after all of that, right? )--to launch an intervention in Syria in addition to the one in Libya? Or maybe an Iran War? Still, I think that a Syrian intervention is much more likely here. Maybe this could ultimately culminate in ISIS conquering Damascus and the US being compelled to send actual US troops to Syria afterwards? Scary situation!

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Yeah, voters sometimes care about small and stupid stuff like that.

still do. How many people voted for biden because he "Wasn't Racist" or he openly endorsed the LGBT...and then were completely blindsided when his actual economic and domestic policies crippled the economy. Heck most issues like the LGBT and abortion wouldn't have the impact on the country they do if activist and politicians were not able to take advantage of single-issue voters.