The States Which Picked the Winners

In May, I posted two separate blog topics regarding some presidential election history. They touched on the issue of realignments.

This blog topic combines histories of states and presidential election winners in terms of numbers. It addresses the fact that, with 50 states we have today (a number we did not always have), presidential winners tend to carry a majority number of the participating states; not a minority. Those who carried a minority were 1824 John Quincy Adams, 1960 John Kennedy, and 1976 Jimmy Carter. There have been 58 previous U.S. presidential elections. 55 of them saw a majority count of states carry for presidential winners.

So, like an accounting exercise, I looked into the numbers in two areas: the records of states’ reliability in carrying for presidential-election winners; the presidential winners, from 1789 George Washington to 2016 Donald Trump, for their numbers of carried states. And, of course, there are the percentages.

Since 1992, the average number of carried states has been 29 with the range between 26 and 32. That is 58 percent of today’s states from the range of 52 to 64 percent. We are, at this point in history, underperforming past performance. Elections 1992 to 2016 lowered the overall percentage of carried states of where we were effective with Election 1988. We used to average 37 carried states. (Which is about three of every four. Lately, we have been performing around three of every five.) It has since lowered historical average to 34 carried states.

Election 2020 will likely align with the overwhelming majority of past examples in which the winner will carry a majority number of participating states. But, when you look at the list of states, for where they rank, it may be interesting to note which particular ones tend to be more historically reliable.

The U.S. Popular Vote has been recorded since 1824, and has been applicable in 49 elections from which it and the Electoral College/presidential winner aligned 44 times. So, the five split outcomes were in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. In those particular election cycles, I gave the popular-vote carried states half-credit. (They should not be fully penalized.) And I gave those which carried for the presidential winner full credit. In elections in which a presidential winner carried both—which is commonly the case—I gave those states which carried full credit while those which did not received zero credit. And, from that point, I figured out their percentages and ranked them accordingly. (Those states in tied positions are listed in the order of when they entered the Union.) 

As a former member on another website, on which I don’t routinely post anymore, I researched and came up with the following list just after Election 2016. 

The above map uses a color-coding that avoids typical red and blue, because of their color association, and opts instead for warm secondary colors orange and green. (Orange, because of particular states having been warm or hot in their reliability for carrying for presidential winners. Green, for the opposite reason. I used Yellow, for New Mexico, because it not only has the best record but is the only state which has been carried more than 90 percent in its thus far history.) 

I copied the list and pasted it below. Hopefully, this will be okay to follow. It should be interesting to update after the general election.


The States

RANK | STATE | CARRIAGE | PERCENTAGE

   01   New Mexico   25 of 27 cycles   92.59%
   02   Illinois   42 of 50 cycles   84.00%
   03   New York   47.5 of 57 cycles   83.33%
   —   Ohio   45 of 54 cycles   83.33%
   —   California   35 of 42 cycles   83.33%
   06   Pennsylvania   48 of 58 cycles   82.75%
   07   Nevada   31.5 of 39 cycles   80.76%
   08   Wisconsin   33.5 of 43 cycles   77.90%
   09   Arizona   21 of 27 cycles   77.77%
   10   West Virginia   30 of 39 cycles   76.92%
   11   Indiana   39 of 51 cycles   76.47%
   12   Missouri   38 of 50 cycles   76.00%
   13   Iowa   32.5 of 43 cycles   75.58%
   14   New Hampshire   43.5 of 58 cycles   75.00%
   —   Michigan   34.5 of 46 cycles   75.00%
   —   Florida   31.5 of 42 cycles   75.00%
   —   Minnesota   30 of 40 cycles   75.00%
   —   Oregon   30 of 40 cycles   75.00%
   —   Montana   24 of 32 cycles   75.00%
   20   Utah   23 of 31 cycles   74.19%
   21   New Jersey   42.5 of 58 cycles   73.27%
   22   Rhode Island   41 of 57 cycles   71.92%
   23   North Dakota   23 of 32 cycles   71.87%
   —   Washington   23 of 32 cycles   71.87%
   —   Idaho   23 of 32 cycles   71.87%
   26   Tennessee   39.5 of 55 cycles   71.81%
   27   Oklahoma   20 of 28 cycles   71.42%
   28   Colorado   25.5 of 36 cycles   70.83%
   29   Connecticut   41 of 58 cycles   70.68%
   30   North Carolina   39.5 of 56 cycles   70.53%
 •    AVERAGE: U.S. President (1789–2016: 58 election cycles)…

 1,539 carried states (from 2,220 voting states)   69.32% 

   31   Kansas   27 of 39 cycles   69.23%
   32   Maryland   40 of 58 cycles   68.96%
   33   Virginia   38.5 of 56 cycles   68.75%
   —   Wyoming   22 of 32 cycles   68.75%
   35   Maine   34 of 50 cycles   68.00%
   36   Massachusetts   39 of 58 cycles   67.24%
   37   Hawaii   10 of 15 cycles   66.66%
   38   Nebraska   25 of 38 cycles   65.78%
   39   Delaware   38 of 58 cycles   65.51%
   40   Louisiana   32.5 of 50 cycles   65.00%
   41   Vermont   37 of 57 cycles   64.91%
   —   Kentucky   37 of 57 cycles   64.91%
   43   Arkansas   27 of 44 cycles   61.36%
   44   Texas   25 of 41 cycles   60.97%
   45   Alaska   09 of 15 cycles   60.00%
   46   Georgia   34 of 57 cycles   59.64%
   —   South Carolina   34 of 57 cycles   59.64%
   48   South Dakota   19 of 32 cycles   59.37%
   49   Mississippi   26.5 of 48 cycles   55.20%
   50   Alabama   26.5 of 49 cycles   54.08%



The United States Presidential Winners

CYCLE | YEAR | CARRIAGE | PERCENTAGE

   01   1789   George Washington (10 of 10)   100.00%
   02   1792   George Washington (10 of 10)   100.00%
   03   1796   John Adams (F, 09 of 16)   56.25%
   04   1800   Thomas Jefferson (D–R, 09 of 16)   56.25%
   05   1804   Thomas Jefferson (D–R, 15 of 17)   88.23%
   06   1808   James Madison (D–R, 12 of 17)   70.58%
   07   1812   James Madison (D–R, 11 of 18)   61.11%
   08   1816   James Monroe (D–R, 16 of 19)   84.21%
   09   1820   James Monroe (D–R, 24 of 24)   100.00%
   10   1824   John Quincy Adams (D–R, 07 of 24)   29.16%
   11   1828   Andrew Jackson (D, 15 of 24)   62.50%
   12   1832   Andrew Jackson (D, 16 of 24)   66.66%
   13   1836   Martin Van Buren (D, 15 of 26)   57.69%
   14   1840   William Henry Harrison (W, 19 of 26)   73.07%
   15   1844   James Polk (D, 15 of 26)   57.69%
   16   1848   Zachary Taylor (W, 15 of 30)   50.00%
   17   1852   Franklin Pierce (D, 27 of 31)   87.09%
   18   1856   James Buchanan (D, 19 of 31)   61.29%
   19   1860   Abraham Lincoln (R, 17 of 32)   53.12%
   20   1864   Abraham Lincoln (R, 22 of 25)   88.00%
   21   1868   Ulysses Grant (R, 26 of 34)   76.47%
   22   1872   Ulysses Grant (R, 31 of 37)   83.78%
   23   1876   Rutherford Hayes (R, 21 of 38)   55.26%
   24   1880   James Garfield (R, 19 of 38)   50.00%
   25   1884   Grover Cleveland (D, 20 of 38)   52.63%
   26   1888   Benjamin Harrison (R, 20 of 38)   52.63%
   27   1892   Grover Cleveland (D, 24 of 44)   54.54%
   28   1896   William McKinley (R, 23 of 45)   51.11%
   29   1900   William McKinley (R, 28 of 45)   62.22%
   30   1904   Teddy Roosevelt (R, 32 of 45)   71.11%
   31   1908   William Howard Taft (R, 29 of 46)   63.04%
   32   1912   Woodrow Wilson (D, 40 of 48)   83.33%
   33   1916   Woodrow Wilson (D, 30 of 48)   62.50%
   34   1920   Warren Harding (R, 37 of 48)   77.08%
   35   1924   Calvin Coolidge (R, 35 of 48)   72.916%
   36   1928   Herbert Hoover (R, 40 of 48)   83.33%
   37   1932   Franklin Roosevelt (D, 42 of 48)   87.50%
   38   1936   Franklin Roosevelt (D, 46 of 48)   95.83%
   39   1940   Franklin Roosevelt (D, 38 of 48)   79.166%
   40   1944   Franklin Roosevelt (D, 36 of 48)   75.00%
   41   1948   Harry Truman (D, 28 of 48)   58.33%
   42   1952   Dwight Eisenhower (R, 39 of 48)   81.25%
   43   1956   Dwight Eisenhower (R, 41 of 48)   85.41%
   44   1960   John Kennedy (D, 22 of 50)   44.00%
   45   1964   Lyndon Johnson (D, 44 of 50)   88.00%
   46   1968   Richard Nixon (R, 32 of 50)   64.00%
   47   1972   Richard Nixon (R, 49 of 50)   98.00%
   48   1976   Jimmy Carter (D, 23 of 50)   46.00%
   49   1980   Ronald Reagan (R, 44 of 50)   88.00%
   50   1984   Ronald Reagan (R, 49 of 50)   98.00%
   51   1988   George Bush (R, 40 of 50)   80.00%
   52   1992   Bill Clinton (D, 32 of 50)   64.00%
   53   1996   Bill Clinton (D, 31 of 50)   62.00%
   54   2000   George W. Bush (R, 30 of 50)   60.00%
   55   2004   George W. Bush (R, 31 of 50)   62.00%
   56   2008   Barack Obama (D, 28 of 50)   56.00%
   57   2012   Barack Obama (D, 26 of 50)   52.00%
   58   2016   Donald Trump (R, 30 of 50)   60.00%

Cumulative Totals:
   • 1,539 cumulative carried states, from 2,220 cumulative participating states, is 69.32% of cumulative carried states.
Today’s Standard:
   • This is a historical average of 34.66 [34] carried states.