Share of electoral and popular votes by runner up in US elections 1824-2020

The electoral college system is used to determine the outcome of the presidential elections every four years in the United States. Generally, this means that the winner of the popular vote in most states (excluding Maine and Nebraska) is then allocated a that state's allocation of electoral votes, and the candidate with the most electoral college votes is declared president. Because of this, the candidate with the most overall votes may not necessarily become president, and this has happened in five elections since 1824. In 1876, Samuel J. Tilden was the first candidate to win an outright majority but lose the election, as Rutherford B. Hayes won 50.14 percent of the electoral college votes (despite only receiving 48 percent of the popular vote). More recently, in 2000 and 2016, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won the respective popular votes, however lost due to the electoral college. The largest difference occurred in 1872, however this was because Horace Greeley died after the popular vote, but before the electoral vote, therefore his electoral votes were spread among the candidates. The largest difference in the past fifty years was in 1984, when Walter Mondale received over forty percent of the popular vote, yet Ronald Reagan received almost 98 percent of the electoral votes.