Why Are US Presidential Elections So Close? - Issue 42: Fakes
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It’s not hard to find close elections. In 2015, a Mississippi state house race ended in a tie, after which the winner was decided by drawing straws. A 2013 mayoral race in the Philippines was deadlocked and resolved with a coin toss. A 2013 legislative election in Austria was decided by a single vote, after wrangling over the validity of a ballot featuring a vulgar cartoon. Heck, I didn’t have to look far to find examples: In 1990, my own uncle lost his bid for Congress by less than 1 percent of the vote. But there is one election that is so consistently close, and so important, that it deserves special consideration—the United States presidential election. I plotted the top two popular vote-getters in every U.S. presidential election since 1824, using data from The American Presidency (...)