1.The first official
presidential election in the United States took place in 1789 with George
Washington becoming the first president. However, only 10 of the 13 states
participated in the election, as New York had chosen no electors, and North
Carolina and Rhode Island had not yet ratified the Constitution.a
2.The Antimasonic Party was the first to hold an official party convention to
nominate candidates for the president and vice-president in 1832. Such
conventions are now part of the standard process for the Republican and
Democratic parties.a
3.Prior to the 12th Amendment of the Constitution in 1804, the presidential
candidate who received the second highest number of electoral votes was named
the vice-president. The amendment mandated that electors vote for the offices of
president and vice-president separately.a
Ronald Reagan was the oldest presidential candidate ever to be elected; he was
69 at the time of election
4.The oldest presidential candidate to be elected was Ronald Reagan at age 69,
while the youngest candidate to be elected was John F. Kennedy at age 43. If
elected in the 2008 election, John McCain would have taken over the title of
oldest elected president at age 72.b
5.In the 1984 presidential election, Ronald Reagan received both the highest
number of popular votes (54,455,075) and the highest number of electoral votes
(525) in the history of U.S. presidential elections. These numbers have yet to
be surpassed by another presidential candidate.b
6.Richard Nixon (in 1972) and Ronald Reagan (in 1984) are tied for carrying the
highest number of states in an electoral vote at 49. Nixon failed to carry
Massachusetts, and Reagan failed to carry Minnesota.b
7.Grover Cleveland is the only candidate ever to be elected to one term,
defeated for a second term, and then elected again four years later. Thus, he
became both the 22nd president and the 24th president.b
8.Norman Thomas of the Socialist Party goes down in history as the only
candidate to run for president six times; he was never elected.a
9.The 1960 presidential election holds the title of the closet presidential
race. John F. Kennedy won just a tenth of a percent more popular votes than
Richard Nixon, but he did carry a clear majority in the Electoral College with
303 votes, as opposed to Nixon’s 219 votes.b
10.The first general election presidential debate was held on September 26,
1960, between John F. Kennedy, candidate for the Democratic Party, and Richard
Nixon, nominee for the Republicans. Prior to this election, presidential
candidates occasionally debated, but not in an official manner—and not on T.V.a
11.Four times in the history of presidential elections, the candidate who won
the most popular votes has not been elected president. This occurred in the
1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000 elections.a
12.There are currently a total of 538 electors in the Electoral College. Each
state receives a number of electors equal to the number of its Senators and
Representatives in Congress. Washington, D.C., is also given three electors, the
number given to the least populous states.a
13.Only two states, Nebraska and Maine, allocate their electoral college vote in
proportion to the popular vote. The other 48 states and the District of Columbia
declare all of their electoral votes to the winning popular candidate in the
state, despite the margin of victory.a
14.At least 270 electoral votes are required for a candidate to be declared
president. If this number is not reached in the Electoral College, the House of
Representatives elects the president.a
15.While an elector in the Electoral College is supposed to vote in accordance
with his state’s voters, he may not always do so. For example, a West Virginia
elector in 1988 chose to vote for Lloyd Bentsen instead of Michael Dukakis, the
candidate who had carried the state.a
16.In order to be elected president, a candidate must be at least 35 years old,
a natural-born citizen of the United States, and a resident of the U.S. for at
least 14 years.c
Election day is traditionally held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in
November
17.The presidential election is traditionally held on the Tuesday after the
first Monday in November. November was chosen as the election month because it
was a convenient time for farmers when the weather was still nice enough to
travel to the county seat and the bulk of their harvest chores were finished.
The Tuesday after the first Monday was chosen to prevent the election from ever
falling on the first day of the month and to thwart travel on Sunday. It was
preferred that the election not be held on the first day of the month, as many
business owners completed their accounting for the previous month on that day,
and a poor business month could affect the vote of these owners.a
18.Voter participation in presidential elections has fallen in the last four
decades from an average of nearly 62% of registered voters participating in
1960s elections to an average of just over 54% for the 2000s elections.c
19.The 2008 presidential election was the first time since the 1928 election
that neither the incumbent president nor the incumbent vice-president ran for
election.c
20.While the popular vote may decide the president in early November, a
candidate is not officially elected president until the Monday after the second
Wednesday in December, when members of the Electoral College cast their votes.a
21.The president officially enters office on January 20th during a formal
inauguration ceremony. Prior to a Constitutional amendment in 1933, the
inauguration ceremony was held on March 4th, to allow enough time for election
results to be collected and the winning candidate to travel to Washington, D.C.a
Barack Obama was the first ever African American presidential candidate for a
major political party and the first African American president
22.The 2008 presidential election was the first time in U.S. election history
when two sitting senators ran against each other for president. From this
election, Barack Obama became just the third sitting senator ever elected.c
23.Barack Obama, presidential candidate for the Democratic Party in the 2008
election, was the first ever African American presidential candidate for a major
party.c After his election, Obama became the first African American president in
U.S. history.c
24.Only two women have ever won the nomination of a major party in a U.S.
presidential election: Geraldine Ferraro was the Democratic vice-presidential
nominee in 1984, and Sarah Palin was the 2008 Republican vice-presidential
nominee.c
25.The 2008 presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, were the only
two presidential candidates to be born outside of the continental U.S. Obama was
born in Hawaii, and McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, a U.S. naval base.
A bipartisan legal review agreed that McCain was a natural-born citizen and thus
eligible to run for president.