Ranking The Ten Presidential Elections of My Lifetime

Whether it's a Presidential cycle, a midterm cycle, or those cruel off years that end with odd numbers like this one, I always get election nostalgia in November.  I recorded network coverage of most Presidential elections of my lifetime on VHS and routinely revisit those cassettes each autumn, or at least I did until I reached an impasse with my 20+ year old VCR.  Fortunately, You Tube exists as a replacement option, featuring recorded coverage from past election cycles.  I took a trip down memory lane this past month and watched a couple of old election night broadcasts.  The trip down memory lane is always a thrill, particularly testing how well your memory serves you in recalling the timing and pecking order of events.

I figured it would be a fun exercise to break down the 10 Presidential elections of my lifetime, or at least the elections that I recollect going back to age 11.  It was an even split with Democrats victorious in five of them and Republicans victorious in the other five.  My nostalgia for them doesn't necessarily break down strictly on partisan lines though.  Without further adieu....

#10.  2016

I had a really bad feeling on the eve of election 2016.  Not only were some polls getting too close for comfort, the vibe was really, really off at Hillary's election eve party in Philadelphia.  I remember warning coworkers that with polls tightening in Michigan and Pennsylvania, they should be prepared to wait until after midnight to find out who our next President would be, contrary to the conventional wisdom that Hillary would wrap things up early.  

But even though I had that sinking feeling on election eve, it never occurred to me that Trump might still win.  Even if Michigan and Pennsylvania went off the rails, there was no indication that Hillary was in any trouble in Florida, North Carolina, or Wisconsin.  Not a single poll showed Trump winning there.  It seemed as though she had every pathway to 270 electoral votes locked down.

Unfortunately for our republic, the polls were wrong.  They were weighted too heavily to 2008 and 2012 turnout models and didn't correctly measure the tectonic shift to Trump by the white working class.  When things had started to go haywire in Florida and North Carolina early in the evening, and with bellwether counties in red states like Vigo County, Indiana, shifting dramatically toward Trump compared to Romney, I knew we were in the deepest imaginable trouble.  By 8 p.m. central when exit polls showed Hillary and Trump tied in Minnesota and Michigan, I knew Trump was gonna win.  

It was a gut punch unlike anything I've ever felt on an election night.  Not only was it a worst-case scenario, it was an entirely unexpected worst-case scenario that came from entirely out of right field.  I try to never go into an election night thinking I have the country figured out, but after November 8, 2016, I've taken my own advice on that to an even further heightened level of paranoia....and apparently for good reason!

Ever since I was a teenager, I've stayed up all night on election nights, knowing votes typically keep rolling in until daybreak before a cooling period first thing in the morning.  But I went to bed at 4 a.m. the day after the 2016 election, having seen all I could bear to see and feeling an ache in my gut that demanded me to power down.  And honestly, election nights have never really been much fun after November 8, 2016.  I lost my innocence along with the country.

#9. 2024

I went into election 2024 recognizing that America was about to do the unthinkable and reelect Donald Trump even after all he put the country through and how much worse he openly promised to be if given a second term.  I recognized the multiple layers of ruinous darkness that awaited us with the world's biggest and most sociopathic con man on the precipice of governing with unlimited court-bequeathed impunity.  We've only scratched the surface of the consequences of the decision American voters made in November 2024 by reelecting this man.

And while the consequences of the 2024 election will almost certainly be more devastating than the consequences of the 2016 election, I was less distraught on election night because I saw November 5, 2024, coming in a way I didn't eight years earlier.  There's something to be said about making peace with one's own mortality in advance of the moment of reckoning, and I guess that's true with a country just as it is individually.  Dying of a house fire on election night 2016 still hit harder than dying from a long-spiraling asteroid on election night 2024.

#8. 2020

As the election results began to roll in on November 3, 2020, it was deja vu all over again.  Biden was further ahead of Trump in virtually every poll than Hillary had been four years earlier, but it was abundantly clear very early in the night that the polls were even more wrong than they had been in 2016.  I'd been warned of the "red mirage" we were expected to see in the swing states on election night because so many ballots were coming by mail, but I also knew enough about elections to sniff out problems in the early results even before the more Democratic surge of mail ballots flowed in.

Even if Biden had performed consistent with 2020 polling, that election still would have been a drag.  Deep into the throes of the pandemic, the country was already in a very dark place and the election winner would be governing an embittered country with a tidal wave of problems.  And at a more superficial level, it just isn't fun when no calls can be made on election night because of the uncertainty of ballots delivered by mail, an uncertainty that wouldn't be resolved for days to come.

And while it became a bit more clear in the a.m. hours on Wednesday that Biden was poised to come back and win, Trump set the poisonous tone in the wee hours of the night by defying the pending election outcome, declaring himself the winner, and setting up the bowling pins for what would inevitably become January 6.  It all just felt gross, especially since Biden ended up only winning by a 43,000-vote margin in three states whose electoral votes got him to 270.  And it felt even more gross as I could feel it in my bones that this monster who's darkened the country's doorstep like the Grim Reaper for more than a decade was probably poised for a comeback.  

#7. 1988

My cynicism about American politics and the judgment of voters can be easily explained by the era in which I came of age.  Whatever economic boom that was allegedly going on nationally after two terms of Ronald Reagan could just as well have been occurring on Mars for those of us living in the rural Midwest and experiencing the worst economy since the Great Depression.  It was inexplicable to a fifth-grade Mark--growing up in a staunchly Democratic home and being dealt one economic body blow after another--why voters would ever choose to stick with the same team for another four years.

It didn't help that old man Bush came across as such as a prickly smartass, much more so than the son who despite my distaste for his Presidency generally seemed affable.  It defied belief to me that anyone could compare the mild-mannered Michael Dukakis with the sneering Bush-41 and decide they wanted to vote for the latter, but heading into November 8, 1988, I was plugged in enough to acknowledge that that seemed likely.  My dad was the eternal optimist and kept predicting Dukakis victory, but my mom was realistic enough to keep him in check and prevent me from getting my heart broken too badly.

I rode with my parents as they went to the polls around 6 p.m. that night to vote.  Before we left, only Indiana and Kentucky had been called, both for Bush.  It was less than an hour when we returned and the map was full of red, with Bush already beginning to close in on 270 electoral votes.  Things had gone badly earlier than I was prepared to accept, and if I recall, it was the call for Maryland of all places that formally tipped the race to Bush.  I remember tears flowing after the Bush win, but I also remember bouncing back as the night went on and being fascinated by the states yet to come, cheering for Dukakis to save as much face as possible and score some wins.  I think he actually overperformed expectations by winning 10 states, which made him the most successful Democratic Presidential nominee since the year before I was born.  

The 1988 election did little to quell my early cynicism about elections, but it set up a more satisfying claim of victory the next go-round.

#6. 2004

This was my first "online election", and my goodness was it ever exciting.  There was a trio of now-defunct election-themed websites of all ideological stripes that I frequented daily, and along with Real Clear Politics and their poll aggregators, I barely remember anything else I did in the summer and fall of 2004.  Presidential politics was the fuel that kept my engine running, and I was refilling the tank constantly.

I was by no means convinced of John Kerry's victory at any point in that campaign, but there was no point where a Kerry win seemed out of reach, and the rather rudimentary conventional wisdom that I clung to was that undecideds overwhelmingly broke for the challenger.  When the polls were tied on the final weekend of the election, I went into November 2, 2004, thinking Kerry would pull it out.  It didn't take long after the returns started rolling in for me to realize that my preferred scenario--and the rosy early exit polls--were gonna come up short.  

Still, it was an exciting night with a lot of swing-state cliffhangers.  In the end, Kerry didn't even do as well as Gore in most of the swing states but still won more than he lost.  Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to get to 270 electoral votes, blocked primarily by a 100,000-vote Bush win in Ohio that ostensibly came down to provisional ballots that were supposed to be counted in the days ahead.  I went to my newspaper job before sunrise to fill in the election return grid before press time, but I was despondent knowing the hill was almost certainly too high for Kerry to crest.

I went home at noon as Bush was declaring victory and bragging about "earning political capital to privatize Social Security".  Then I crashed in bed for seven hours and wondered how everything had gone so wrong, realizing that with expanded GOP majorities in the House and Senate that little was standing in the way to stop Bush.  Part of me wasn't surprised that Bush began to slump quickly in his second term, and as he finished that second-term neck deep in an Iraqi quagmire and a paralyzing financial crisis, I also appreciated that it was a good thing for the Democratic Party that Kerry didn't win that one.

#5. 1992

I was most excited about the 1992 election during primary season.  I had an early favorite in Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and watched every news program, read every primary-related story, and watched every candidate debate cheering on my guy.  Alas, Harkin's campaign was over by March and I had limited enthusiasm for presumptive nominee Bill Clinton.

As is so often the case, partisan tribalism prevailed and I ultimately came around.  Still, it was never the same.  After living under Republican Presidents for most of my 15-year-old life, it took a while for me to accept that Clinton was poised to end that streak.  Further, I was never fully convinced that Clinton's victory wouldn't be spoiled by Ross Perot, who remains the biggest Presidential cycle wild card of my lifetime.  For better or for worse, I went into the evening November 3, 1992, largely at peace that Clinton was likely to win.  

And it was satisfying...sort of.  Even though exit polls showed Perot drew evenly from would-be Bush voters and would-be Clinton voters, it never really felt as though Clinton got the mandate that the Electoral College victory implied given that he prevailed with only 43% of the popular vote.  As I reflect upon election night 1992, my two primary takeaways have been that my best memories of that election cycle occurred several months before November 1992, and that George H.W. Bush's one-term Presidency holds up quite a bit better with the passage of time.

#4. 2008

I'm guessing most Democrats of my vintage would declare 2008 as their favorite election night of their lifetimes, and would probably be surprised that it's not at the top of my list, or at least closer to the top.  Make no mistake that I enjoyed the decisive, map-expanding Obama win even if part of me was a little disappointed that it wasn't even a bigger blowout.  So why does election 2008 only rank fourth of the 10 elections of my lifetime?

First, I was exhausted and demoralized by the extended primary fight where my preferred candidate (Obama) limped to the finish line, even losing the final primary of the year in South Dakota when he had already locked up the nomination but a majority of Democratic voters still came out to cast a vote of no confidence against him.  In retrospect, I think the drawn-out primary slugfest made Obama a better candidate by the time the general came around, but the magnitude of weakness it exposed toward our nominee by a huge chunk of the Democratic coalition kept me checked out of election season until after Labor Day.

Second, the financial crisis that preceded election 2008 lurked like the Grim Reaper.  I knew the election winner would be inheriting a calamity and would see his political capital drained quickly.  

Still, it was an emotional night listening to the acceptance speech of the first black President and witnessing how many others were genuinely moved by it.  If only for a moment, it felt like maybe the nation's racial sins were absolved, and that felt good for about five minutes.  But there was no lingering buzz on November 5, 2008.  There was no sunshine on the horizon or general feeling of immense satisfaction that should come after a victory that comprehensive. Compared to the last three election nights, I'd take 2008 a thousand times over, but I didn't feel as much love toward it as most of my ideology and I don't think it holds up particularly well in retrospect.

#3. 1996

I wasn't exactly loving life during my freshman year of college, but the 1996 Presidential election gave me something to be passionate about that fall.  "Passionate" might be kind of a strong word for an election in which the architect of NAFTA was running for reelection, but I had long predicted that the overreach of the Gingrich Congress would help Clinton look like a moderate, and election 1996 vindicated me.  It also didn't help that Republicans ran the fossilized and charisma-free Bob Dole as Clinton's challenger.

Nonetheless, it was exciting going into an election night confident of a Democratic blowout.  My two favorite Senators--Paul Wellstone and Tom Harkin--were up for reelection that year and their prospects also looked increasingly sunnier as the election drew closer.

I couldn't help but be a little disappointed though as the aforementioned lack of "passion" surrounding Clinton was evident by the lethargic turnout, the lowest for a Presidential election since 1924.  This led to Dole beating expectations on election night and avoiding the GOP equivalent of 1988 that I went into the night anticipating.  The polling average had Clinton prevailing by 15 points, but he ended up winning by barely half that, and ultimately losing three states he'd won in 1992 while picking up two that he didn't.  

Furthermore, there was an astounding lack of coattails to go with Clinton's big win, with the GOP actually netting a couple of Senate seats.  Democrats failed to hang onto open seats even in friendly places like Oregon and Clinton's home state of Arkansas.  Voters seemed to be making a conscious split decision and hedging their bets against Clinton's first-term agenda being realized.

Still, Clinton won.  Wellstone won.  Harkin won.  It was a great election night at a time in my life when I needed something to celebrate.

#2. 2012

Democrats were crowing about their narrow but steady polling advantage in the lead-up to the 2012 election.  They've made a habit of this for most of my adult life and have had to eat plenty of crow over the years due to their irrational exuberance.  But they delivered in 2012...big time!

An election night that was supposed to be a cliffhanger turned into a perfect storm for Democrats, with Obama knocking down steady and decisive victories in just about every swing state.  How did they do it?  By turning out black voters at a rate higher than their share of the overall population for the only time in recorded history.  By improving upon Obama's already overwhelming advantage among Hispanics four years earlier.  By maintaining shockingly steady numbers among working-class whites, especially in the battleground Midwest.  And by depressing turnout among Republicans who either couldn't abide Romney's Mormonism or didn't deem his private equity persona compatible with the rising tide of right-wing populism.

The story was even more joyous in the Senate as Democrats overperformed across the board in a substantial battleground map, winning effectively every race on the table and managing to pick up two seats in a cycle where they were very exposed going in.  They managed to hold seats in North Dakota and West Virginia at a time when support for Democrats was in collapse in both places at the top of the ballot.

2012 was what an incredible election night felt like, and I was old enough to know it at the time.  It was more satisfying to me than Obama's first win in 2008, and by no small amount.  I couldn't have predicted how quickly and how severely it would all fall apart, but at least I had one last hurrah before the American electoral landscape became unthinkably ugly.  I'm skeptical I'll ever experience an election night this comprehensively satisfying again.

#1. 2000

I was 23 years old and recently out of college when the first Presidential election of the new millennium was on the cusp of shaking me to my core.  Despite the early lack of enthusiasm by pretty much everybody, this race was getting interesting as it approached the finish line.  The polls swung dramatically after each convention but by the time of the debates had settled into an evenly split affair.  I had never experienced a Presidential election that was too close to call going into election night, and the prospect of the electoral vote going one way and the popular vote going the other seemed very real. I sensed that something special was about to happen on November 7, 2000, but I still wasn't mentally prepared for the roller coaster ride that evening afforded me.

My suspicion was that Bush would win the popular vote but Gore would eke out the Electoral College with the Florida win that most people thought seemed likely.  The opposite happened of course, with Gore finding the kind of late momentum that seldom goes to the incumbent party in an open-seat election.  I suspect this was fueled by a bunch of would-be Nader voters who got the willies at the prospect of a Bush Presidency and changed their vote to Gore at the last minute.  As a result, Gore was able to hang on to some states that Nader was expected to cost him, and thus remain competitive nationally even with Florida on the knife's edge.

The monthlong recount in Florida is what lives on in everybody's memories about election 2000, but there were a half dozen states won by less than one percentage point that year, leading to multiple cliffhangers extending well after midnight.  And while the networks' malpractice in calling states far earlier than the tabulated data justified was annoying at the time, it also lent itself to the high drama of the night.  For hours, the electoral vote was just as close as the popular vote, with Bush pulling narrowly ahead, and then Gore, and then Bush again.  I never could have imagined an election night being this exciting until I lived it, and at the perfect age to really soak it all in.

Election 2000 did not go the way I hoped it would, and in less than a year, the stakes of America's choice manifested itself in ways vastly more serious than anyone who went to the polls in November 2000 could have possibly imagined.  But even knowing all of that, I feel fortunate to have lived through the most thrilling election night in American history, and to do so as a young man who was able to ride that wave for the rest of my life.  

 

I'm pretty sure the best elections of my lifetime are all in the past.  That's not just a matter of nostalgia.  It's a matter of polarization making elections less fun, more nasty, and vastly more consequential.  Hardened partisanship also makes things less interesting.  It's increasingly rare to see candidates from one party outperform the top of the ticket by more than 1 or 2 points.  Hardscrabble working-class voters in Ohio will toss out an incumbent like Sherrod Brown, an avatar of a blue-collar Democrat, and replace him with a Mercedes dealership owner like Bernie Moreno because it's now unthinkable to deviate from your tribe.  This not only makes for poisonous politics.  It makes for boring election nights.

Even on logistical matters, the media is more conservative about making calls than they were a quarter century ago, in large part after getting egg on their face from premature calls in the past.  But there doesn't seem to be a good balance between calling Florida 45 minutes after poll closing time in 2000 and waiting five hours after poll closing time to call Rhode Island in 2024.  Again, this makes for boring election nights.

Perhaps I'll live long enough to usher in a new era of elections where things become fun again.  I'm not counting on it, but it would be lovely for both democracy and my own preferences if election nights once again resembled a civic affair and a fair-fight competition.  Who can say if that time will ever return, but I feel very confident in proclaiming we shouldn't expect it for 2028.