Facts and figures of the U.S. presidential elections

If Donald Trump becomes the new president of the United States next November, he will overtake incumbent Joe Biden as the oldest US-elected president ever.

The current GOP candidate would be the second head of state in history with two non-consecutive periods if he wins. The first one was Grover Cleveland (1885-1889) and (1893-1897).

Cleveland was 47 when he took office for the first time.

Only six men became president of the United States at a younger age. Theodore Roosevelt was 42 years old when he had to assume office due to the assassination of William McKinley in 1901. It made him the youngest chief of state in the country's history.

(a) John Tyler (51) assumed the presidency on April 4, 1841 due to the death of WIlliam Henry Harrison, thirty-two days after Harrison began his term in office.

(b) Millard Fillmore (50) assumed the presidency on July 9, 1850 due to the death of Zachary Taylor, who passed away of natural causes after just over a year in office.

(c) Andrew Johnson (56) assumed the presidency on April 15, 1865 due to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

(d) Chester Arthur (51) assumed the presidency on September 20, 1881 due to the assassination of James Garfield.

(e) Theodore Roosevelt (42) assumed the presidency on September 14, 1801 due to the assassination of William McKinley.

(f) Calvin Coolidge (51) assumed office on August 2, 1923 due to the myocardial infarction of Warren Harding that led to his death.

(g) Harry Truman (60) assumed office on April 12, 1945 due to the brain hemorrhage of Franklin Roosevelt that led to his death.

(h) Lyndon Johnson (55) assumed office on November 22, 1963 due to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

(i) Gerald Ford (61) assumed office on August 9, 1974 after Richard Nixon's resignation due to the Watergate scandal.

Biden was 77 when he was declared the winner of the 2020 election. Thirteen days later, the incumbent turned 78.

Popular votes by party and winners (1856-2020)

The former vice president under Barack Obama is the only candidate to surpass the 80 million popular-vote barrier (81,283,501) in a presidential election. It's fair to say that he and Trump (74,223,975) are the only ones to have surpassed 70 million votes, both in the 2020 race.

Since the first Republican nominating convention in 1856, in which ex-senator John Charles Frémont got the nomination, Democrats and Republicans have been pitted against each other every four years, taking center stage in every election.

The following two line charts show the popular vote performances of Democratic and Republican candidates from that year to the last election in 2020.

Twenty-four GOP candidates won the United States presidential election. The first one was Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Since then, the Republicans achieved six consecutive U.S. presidencies until Democratic aspirant Grover Cleveland defeated former Secretary of State James G. Blaine in the 1884 election.

From James Buchanan (1856) to Joseph R. Biden, eighteen Democratic candidates were elected U.S. president.

The Democrats won five consecutive times beginning in 1932. Franklin D. Roosevelt started the streak. He also triumphed in '36, '40 and '44.

Roosevelt was the only president in history to occupy the presidential spot for over two consecutive terms. However, he did not finish the last of his terms, as he died on April 12, 1945, days before the end of World War II. Harry S. Truman took office immediately. Three years and a half later, he defeated Thomas E. Dewey and States' Rights candidate Strom Thurmond in the election of 1948.

The following table shows the popular votes of Democrats and Republicans and the winning party in each election. In the United States, the winner is not the candidate with the most votes but the one with the highest electoral votes.

NOTE: The 2016 elections are, along with those of 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000 the only ones in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote.

Electoral votes by party (1856-2020)

Hillary Clinton (2016), Al Gore (2000), Grover Cleveland (1888), and Samuel Tilden (1876), all Democrats, were all victims of the Electoral College system. They obtained more ballots, but fewer electoral votes. That is why they were not elected president of the United States then.

The case of the 1824 election is unique. Candidate Andrew Jackson gathered 41.3% of the popular votes and 99 electors, 32 below the majority required to be elected.

Second place in both instances was John Quincy Adams with 30.9% of the votes and 84 electors. Henry Clay placed third in popular ballots with 13% and fourth in electors with 37 seats. Lastly, William H. Crawford obtained 11.2% of the votes, but surpassed Clay by four electors with 41, placing third in this instance.

It has been the only occasion where no presidential candidates obtained a majority of the electoral vote.

Faced with a fragmented Electoral College, the election had to be carried to the House of Representatives. Each state cast only one vote, resulting in the elimination of Clay from the contingent election by placing fourth. Clay supported Adams, with whom he shared views on many major issues. Thus, Adams won the vote of 13 states against seven for Jackson and four for Crawford, gaining the presidency.

The four subsequent instances where the popular vote winner had not achieved a majority in the Electoral College were:

1876: Democrat candidate Samuel Tilden achieved 51% of the popular vote but one less electoral vote than Rutherford Hayes, who won the presidency in one of the tightest elections ever.
1888: Grover Cleveland was prevented from a second term in a row because Republican Benjamin Harrison outscored Cleveland by 35 electoral votes.
2000: Al Gore got over 540K votes than George W. Bush, but the Republican candidate got five more electoral votes in one of the most controversial presidential elections.
2016: Even though Hillary Clinton obtained almost three million more suffrages than Donald Trump, the latter won the presidency by surpassing the 300 electoral vote mark.

In 1936, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president with 523 electoral votes out of 531. The Democratic party achieved over 400 electoral votes five times (1912, 1932, 1940, 1944, 1964).

Ronald Reagan (1984) and Richard Nixon (1972) won the presidency with over 500 electoral votes (525 and 520, respectively). In 1920, 1928, 1952, 1956, 1980, and 1988, the Republican candidate obtained more than 400 EVs.

The table below shows the number of electoral votes obtained by Republicans and Democrats from the first time they participated in the same election until now.

The evolution of electoral votes collected by Democratic and Republican candidates election over election can be seen in the two graphs below.

How many popular and electoral votes will Kamala Harris and Donald Trump get in the next presidential election? Let's see what the data on November 5th and the following days will say.