11 Most Popularly Elected US Presidents

These 11 most popularly elected US presidents have defeated their opponents by the largest margin of the popular vote.

In order to compensate for the increase of voters’ numbers during history, the presidents are ranked according to the margin of victory percentages. It wouldn’t be fair to compare George Washington, who won his 1792 presidency with 28,579 votes and Barack Obama who won his in 2008 with 69.5 million votes. These are the two presidents who were elected with the smallest and largest popular vote count in history, by the way. It is worth noting that the states weren’t obliged to cast their elector votes based on popular voting, so in 1792 only two states, Pennsylvania and Maryland, held popular elections. Speaking of states, it would be interesting to compare how these most beautiful states voted throughout history.

The part that is confusing to foreigners is that it is possible to win the popular vote and still lose the elections. It happened at least 4 times in history. John Quincy Adams, Rutherford Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, and George W. Bush all became presidents while receiving fewer votes than their opponents.  John Quincy Adams even lost the electoral vote, but since his opponent, Andrew Jackson didn’t receive a majority vote, the House of Representatives choose the president. Andy Jackson was less than pleased and in his usual manner called the elections a corrupt bargain, the phrase that was used to describe two more presidential elections.

Two names appear twice on the list. Roosevelt’s elections in 1932 and 1936 earned him two spots on the list of most popularly elected us presidents. Herbert Hoover also appears twice, albeit in different roles. He won the 1928 elections by a landslide, only to lose in 1932 in a similar fashion. Incumbent candidates lost just 5 elections since 1900. To be fair to Hoover, he did have to deal with the minor inconvenience called The Great Depression during his term and that may had something to do with his disastrous results.

11 most popularly elected US presidents on our list didn’t have problems winning the popular vote. In fact, they all won it by a landslide. Let’s see who won by the largest margin.