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The 2016 Election: Like 1888 but not 1876 or 2000

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2018

Fabrice Barthélémy ,
Mathieu Martin  and
Ashley Piggins Open the ORCID record for Ashley Piggins [Opens in a new window]
Fabrice Barthélémy
Affiliation:
Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
Mathieu Martin
Affiliation:
Université de Cergy-Pontoise
Ashley Piggins
Affiliation:
National University of Ireland Galway
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Abstract

Donald J. Trump won the 2016 US presidential election with fewer popular votes than Hillary R. Clinton. This is the fourth time this has happened, the others being 1876, 1888, and 2000. In earlier work, we analyzed these elections (and others) and showed how the electoral winner can often depend on the size of the US House of Representatives. This work was inspired by Neubauer and Zeitlin (2003, 721–5) in their paper, “Outcomes of Presidential Elections and the House Size.” A sufficiently larger House would have given electoral victories to the popular vote winner in both 1876 and 2000. An exception is the election of 1888. We show that Trump’s victory in 2016 is like Harrison’s in 1888 and unlike Hayes’s in 1876 and Bush’s in 2000. This article updates our previous work to include the 2016 election. It also draws attention to some of the anomalous behavior that can arise under the Electoral College.

Type
Articles
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 20 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018 

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References

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