Well this list certainly does feel…Coincidental, considering what happened with the recent election.
While many continue to process the outcome of the latest U.S. general election, the idea that the pollsters and the media were wrong about a candidates chance of winning or how close an election could be is nothing new.
In fact, here are five examples of this happening in American History.
#5. The Election of 2024
Okay let’s just get this one out of the way and fast…
After losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, Donald Trump spent the next several years embroiled in scandals and lawsuits before running for the presidency a third time in 2024 and winning the GOP’s nomination.
Joe Biden looked like the obvious pick for the Democrats, until a number of factors chief among them was a disasterous performance during a presidential debate forced him to reconsider and opening the door for his Vice President, Kamala Harris to go on a 107 day campaign across the nation to run for president.
Despite many predicting a close race and after numerous election polls were conducted, notably the one by Ann Selzer which showed Harris doing much better than Trump in the state of Iowa.
Everyone expected a super close race with the outcome probably taking days if not an entire week to determine; Of course this proved to be not the case as the pollster and mainstream media were once again stunned as Donald Trump not only became the 47th President of the United States, but also outperformed his polling numbers in three straight general elections.
#4. The Election of 1916
Perhaps the earliest example of the press predicting the wrong outcome of an election, the 1916 presidential race took place during the first World War and Americans were divided on whether they should get involved or not.
Incumbent Democratic President, Woodrow Wilson ran on the idea of staying out of the conflict as many Americans didn’t want anything to do with the war. Wilson’s opponent was former New York Governor turned Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, whose platform called for military preparedness in case the war comes to their front door.
Considering that he only won the presidency due to a split in the Republican Party in 1912, some questioned if Wilson had what it took to win the election…In fact the president himself supposedly devised a plan to have both him and his VP resign from their positions to get Hughes into the White House much sooner than inauguration day as American involvement in the war looked impending.
Newpaper outlets like the New York Sun, The Portland Daily Press and Rhode Island’s Brown Daily Herald are predicting a victory for Hughes with the former New York Governor going to sleep believing he’ll be the next president.
Sadly for Hughes and the GOP, Woodrow Wilson would narrowly win re-election thus defying the odds once again and leaving many news outlets baffled by the outcome.
#3. The Election of 2016
Fast forward a century from the previous entry and we have another presidential election with former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton taking on celebrity businessman Donald Trump.
Upon announcing his bid for the presidency in 2015, the majority of the media and politicians laughed at the idea of Trump running for public office never mind becoming President of the United States, So when Trump won the Republican Party’s nomination and on a few occasions surpassed Clinton in the polls…Some were in disbelief.
Across 14 different polls with some conducted by the BBC, Huffington Post, Reuters, CNN and the New York Times all them saw Clinton winning the election with only a small few predicting things end in a tie.
When the time came to see who would become the new president-elect, Donald Trump shocked the world when he decisively beat Clinton in the electoral vote to become the 45th President and the first to do so with little to no political experience.
#2. The Election of 1948
You know the pollsters were way off when the candidate destined to lose not only wins but exceeds expectations…Just ask Donald Trump.
Anyway, the 1948 election is infamous for the media and pollsters at the time all claiming that Republican Candidate and Governor of New York, Thomas Dewey was going to win the election against incumbent Harry Truman despite the president’s best efforts on the campaIgn trail.
With the U.S. economy in shambbles following World War Two, plus third party challenges from the conservative Dixiecrats and the socialists leaning Progressive Party, made it appear that Truman was going to be the recipient of an landslide defeat come election day courtesy of the Republican Party.
Much like Hughes in 1916, Dewey believed he would wake up the following day believing himself to be the new commander-in-chief, only to discover that he’d been thrashed by the former Missouri Senator in one of the biggest election upsets in American History.
#1. The Election of 1936
If the pollsters and media in the 1940’s were way off about Truman’s chances of victory then those people who predicted the outcome of the 1936 presidential election were dead wrong.
President Franklin Roosevelt was seeking a second term as the U.S. was struggling through the Great Depression, meanwhile the Republicans nominated the moderately conservative Governor of Kansas, Alf Landon as their pick to go against FDR and despite a lackluster campaign effort on Landon’s end, some believed that the Governor was going to win.
One of the more infamous pollsters came from the then weekly magazine known as ‘The Literary Digest’ who had accurately predicted the winner of every presidential election since 1916. In 1936, they conducted a poll amongst 10 million of their readers as to whom would win the election and around 2 million of them responded with Landon beating FDR with 57% of the popular vote and 370 electoral votes.
On November 3rd 1936, the results came back and it showed Roosevelt won not only 60.8% of the popular vote but also 523 electoral votes compared to Landon getting 36.5% and an abysmal 8 electoral votes from the states of Vermont and Maine.
The results of this election showed some glaring problems with the Literary Digest’s way of polling as most of their readers were either Republicans or wealthy people who were more bias for Landon and the polling wasn’t representative of the entire country.
To the surprise of no one, the Literary Digest was out of business by 1938 and thus the Gallup Poll which was a scientific way to conduct prediction polling has become the standard on how to guess who could win a election and their overall chances…Although Truman proved them wrong in 1948, so nothing is perfect.
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