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December 14, 2020

When the Electoral College meets today and confirms Democrat Joe Biden as the president-elect, it will mark just the second time since 1892 that a president’s political party has held the White House for just a single term. The only other time this happened in either the 20th or 21st century came in 1976 when Democrat Jimmy Carter narrowly defeated Republican Gerald Ford.[1]

A recent column for the Deseret News noted a number of similarities between this year’s election and the results in 1976. It also noted similarities between President-elect Biden and the candidates in 1976—Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.[2]

In the late-19th century, there were three consecutive times when the president’s party held the White House for just a single term. In 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected after the Republicans had won six consecutive elections. Cleveland was then narrowly defeated in 1888 by Republican Benjamin Harrison. Cleveland, however, came back in 1892 to win another term in office for himself and the Democrats.[3]

Following that transition period, the Republicans then won four consecutive presidential elections and seven of the next nine.[3]

An earlier Number of the Day noted that 2020 marked the 9th consecutive presidential election where the winning candidate received 53% of the vote or less. That was the longest such streak in history. The previous record was seven consecutive elections from 1876 to 1900. That particular stretch included the three elections involving Grover Cleveland.
 

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Each weekday, Scott Rasmussen’s Number of the Day explores interesting and newsworthy topics at the intersection of culture, politics, and technology. Columns published on Ballotpedia reflect the views of the author.

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