Presidential History Geeks

The 1948 election was more of a November Surprise than an October one, but the month of October was pivotal for Harry Truman, as he refused to believe what almost everyone else in the country believed: that the election was a slam dunk for the Republicans. Instead Truman used October to fight back, and his perseverance paid off.  

In 2012, it looked as if incumbent President Barack Obama might be vulnerable and the Republicans could possibly retake the White House. He had used considerable political capital passing the Affordable Care Act in his first term, and in the mid-term elections, control of the House of Representatives changed from the Democrats to the Republicans. Although the President's party usually loses congressional, statewide and local seats in a midterm elections, the 2010 midterm election season featured some of the biggest losses for the president's party since the Great Depression. The Republican Party gained 63 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, recapturing the majority, and making it the largest seat change since 1948. The Republicans gained six seats in the U.S. Senate, expanding its minority, and also gained 680 seats in state legislative races, to break the previous majority record of 628 set by Democrats in the post-Watergate elections of 1974. This left Republicans in control of 26 state legislatures, and 29 of the 50 State Governorships.

There were no "October" surprises per se in the election of 1796, which was the first contested election. For one thing, presidents were chosen differently. Under the system at the time, each state had an allotted number of electors based on population. (In slaves states, slaves were counted at 3/5 of a person. The electors from each state cast votes for two persons. Both votes were for president and there were no such things as running mates. The candidate who received the most votes became president and the runner-up in the presidential race was elected vice-president. (This would present problems in the election of 1800, when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received the same number of votes).

In 1944, the second world war was in its fifth year. It appeared to be drawing to a close and had turned in the Allies favor, but before the June 6th D-Day Normandy Landing, this wasn't quite so clear. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was coming to the end of his third term and the strain that the presidency and the war had taken on his health was showing.

In 1916, Democrat Woodrow Wilson was running for re-election as President. Four years previously, he had ended a four election string of White House victories for the Republicans, largely from being the beneficiary of a split in the GOP. Incumbent President William Howard Taft and his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt split the Republican vote, with Roosevelt running as the candidate for the Progressive Party (also known as the "Bull Moose" Party), supported by the progressives in the Republican ranks. Taft ran as the party's official candidate, but his support came from the conservative wing of the party. When the votes were counted on election day in 1912, Wilson won handily, with Taft finishing a distant third.

No doubt you all remember the 1880 election. It came four years after the closest election in presidential history when Rutherford Hayes was elected president after he was awarded the disputed electoral votes of three states just days before he was inaugurated. Many believe that a deal was made in which Hayes was declared president in return for a pledge to pull federal troops out of southern states where they were protecting the rights of the freed former slaves. Whatever deal was or wasn't made, Democrats entered the 1880 campaign pledging to get even for the "stolen election" of 1876.

155 years ago today, on October 8, 1869, Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States, died at his home in Concord, New Hampshire, at the age of 64. He died from cirrhosis of the liver, the result of what was almost certainly Pierce's alcoholism. Pierce is quoted, truthfully or otherwise, as saying, when he lost his party's bid for re-nomination, "there's nothing left, but to get drunk." Whether or not the quote is accurate, the sentiment is one which is unfortunately present in much of Pierce's later life.

The 1884 election was a vicious one in which each party launched attacks on the personal character of the other party's candidate. Maine Senator James G. Blaine had won his party's nomination after having failed to do so in the two previous elections. He came to the nomination with some baggage. Firstly, he had been the leader of one of two opposing factions within the Republican Party (known as the "half-breeds") with the other faction known as the "Stalwarts".

For a time it looked as if racial equality might be a reality for the former enslaved persons of the deep south, for a very brief time. After the Civil War, and following the election of Ulysses Grant to the Presidency, and the passage of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the federal government and states from denying a citizen's right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude, former enslaved persons were actually elected to high political office in some of the former Confederate states. But this would not last long, as intense violence rooted in racial prejudice led to the unravelling of reconstruction, and the ushering in of the era of Jim Crow.

In their new book America's Deadliest Election: The Cautionary Tale of the Most Violent Election in American History, CNN's Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash and prolific history author David Fisher tell the story of one of the the 1872 gubernatorial election in Louisiana, one that led to hundreds of murders, open warfare in the streets of New Orleans as well as in rural regions of the state and how this intense political violence changed the future of the nation.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy overcame what was then the political obstacle of his Catholicism when he won the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States. His opponent was incumbent Vice-President Richard Nixon, who won his party's nomination with much less opposition.