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In 4 of the 56 Presidential elections, the candidate who failed to garner the most votes nationally was declared the winner by the Electoral College. That is a ratio of 1 in every 14 elections. This occurred with John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden in 1876, Benjamin Harrison over Grover Cleveland in 1888, and Al Gore over George W. Bush in 2000. In the case of 1876, Tilden actually won an outright majority of the popular vote, before he was stripped of the win in the Electoral College.
In addition, there have been times when this scenario came very close to occurring again. In the 1880 Presidential election, Republican James Garfield defeated Democrat Winfield S. Hancock by just 7,368 popular votes. However, in the Electoral College the margin was much wider, with Garfield garnering 214 votes and Hancock mustering just 155 votes. In 1968, Republican Richard M. Nixon defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey by less than one percentage point in the popular vote, yet in the Electoral College Nixon won by over 100 electoral votes. In 1976, Democrat Jimmy Carter defeated Republican Gerald R. Ford by just 1,682,970 votes. Had just 3,687 votes shifted in Hawaii from Carter to Ford, and, at the same time, had just 5,559 votes in Ohio changed from Carter to Ford, Incumbent President Ford would have garnered the 270 requisite electoral votes to win the election. In 2004, Republican George W. Bush won nationally by 3,012,166 votes, yet if just 59,393 votes had switched in Ohio, Democrat John Kerry would have assumed the Presidency.
With the closely divided nation we have, an electoral landslide is not likely in the near future, meaning that there is a good chance of another candidate winning the national popular vote but losing the Presidency in the Electoral College. Ironically, we could once again have a President with no electoral mandate assuming the Presidency.
