The president is chosen by the Electoral College, not the national popular vote. Most of the time the two agree. Five times, they haven’t.
1. John Quincy Adams (1824)
Andrew Jackson led both the popular vote and the electoral vote, but with four major candidates, nobody reached an electoral majority. Under the 12th Amendment, the House chose among the top three, and it picked Adams. (The 1824 popular vote is incomplete: several states still had their legislatures choose electors.)
2. Rutherford B. Hayes (1876)
Samuel Tilden won the popular vote by about 250,000 votes and needed just one more electoral vote. Disputed returns from three Southern states and Oregon went to a congressional Electoral Commission, which awarded all of them to Hayes. He won 185–184.
3. Benjamin Harrison (1888)
Incumbent Grover Cleveland won the popular vote by roughly 90,000 votes but lost New York and Indiana, Harrison’s home state, and with them the Electoral College. Four years later Cleveland beat Harrison, making Cleveland the only president until Donald Trump to serve two non-consecutive terms.
4. George W. Bush (2000)
Al Gore won the national popular vote by more than 500,000 votes. The election came down to Florida, where Bush’s certified margin was 537 votes. After the Supreme Court halted the recount in Bush v. Gore, Bush won the Electoral College 271–266.
5. Donald Trump (2016)
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by about 2.9 million votes, the largest margin for a candidate who lost the Electoral College. Trump won narrow victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which together decided the outcome. In 2024, Trump won both the Electoral College and the popular vote.
Why it happens
Most states award all of their electoral votes to the statewide winner, so a candidate can win several states narrowly and lose others by large margins — and win the Electoral College while losing nationwide. Small states also get a slight boost because every state receives two electoral votes for its senators, regardless of population.
The debate
Supporters of the Electoral College say it forces candidates to build support across many states and contains disputes within individual states. Critics argue every vote should count equally and that the system focuses campaigns on a handful of swing states. Proposals range from a constitutional amendment to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement among states to award their electors to the national winner once states with 270 electoral votes join.
Sources
- National Archives, “Electoral College Results” (archives.gov)
- Federal Election Commission, official 2000 and 2016 presidential results (fec.gov)
- U.S. Constitution, Article II and the 12th Amendment (constitution.congress.gov)