Voters throughout 50 states within the US are casting ballots to decide on the forty seventh president of the nation in an election that has changed into a neck-and-neck battle between the 2 principal candidates.
To this point, election analysts say this 12 months’s presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is just too near name.
In line with FiveThirtyEight’s day by day polls tracker, Harris has a 1.2-point lead over Trump nationally. However Trump has begun narrowing the hole in current days, and has slim leads within the battleground states of North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona.
But it’s not the primary time that the trail to the USA presidency has primarily seen a lifeless warmth between candidates. Earlier intently fought presidential elections have additionally seen California and New York – not the everyday swing states – and likewise the US Supreme Court docket play a task in deciding the winner.
Let’s check out 5 presidential races in US historical past that got here down to some thousand votes:
1824: US Home of Representatives weighs in
The 1824 battle for the White Home was a turning level in American historical past as 4 candidates, all from the identical political occasion, competed for the highest publish and the US Home of Representatives needed to decide the winner.
After the demise of Alexander Hamilton, America’s first US secretary of the treasury and a founding father in 1804, the Democratic-Republic Social gathering which had defeated Hamilton’s Federalist Social gathering, was assured of its simple path to presidency.
However choosing one presidential candidate proved to be onerous for members of the occasion, and John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson and William H Crawford, all from the Democratic-Republic Social gathering, campaigned throughout the nation, hoping to turn out to be the subsequent president.
When polls closed throughout all 28 US states (the nation now has 50), Jackson was within the lead with 99 electoral votes, adopted by Adams who acquired 84, Crawford who obtained 41 and Clay who obtained 37 electoral votes.
However no candidate acquired a majority.
In line with the Twelfth Modification of the US Structure, in such a case, “the Home of Representatives shall select instantly, by poll, the President”. Furthermore, because the Structure additionally acknowledged that solely the highest three within the race transfer forward, Clay was disqualified.
For round a 12 months, every candidate lobbied members of the Home of Representatives – the decrease chamber of the US Congress, together with Clay, who was the speaker of the Home.
Lastly, on February 9, 1825, the Home voted to elect Adams because the president of the US, a end result that got here to type after a essential vote by Clay. In line with the US Nationwide Archives, he shelved his help for his house state candidate Jefferson, and picked Adams.
Adams, who was additionally the son of John Adams, the second president of the US, finally picked Clay as his secretary of state.
This didn’t go down nicely with Jackson, and he accused Clay and Adams of participating in a “corrupt cut price” and sought an election rematch.
Through the subsequent presidential election in 1828, Jackson managed to beat Adams and have become the president. However his anger in the direction of Clay remained.
In line with a US Senate Historic Spotlight transient, in the direction of the top of his presidency, when Jackson was requested if he had any regrets, he stated: “I remorse I used to be unable to shoot Henry Clay…”
1876: One vote modified the sport
Half a century later, the presidential election was determined by one vote within the Electoral Fee – a gaggle created by the US Congress comprising 14 congressmen and a Supreme Court docket justice, to resolve the disputed presidential race.
The 1876 election noticed Republican Social gathering candidate Rutherford B Hayes, who had additionally fought within the US Civil Warfare, up towards Democratic Social gathering candidate Samuel Tilden, a politician identified for his anti-corruption insurance policies. Furthermore, this being an period when the US was simply recovering from the 18th-century Civil Warfare and Congress had handed a number of Reconstruction Acts, one of many targets was guaranteeing that the voting rights of Black People have been safe.
However in lots of southern states like Louisiana, white People needed a return to white supremacy and had been protesting towards efforts to enfranchise Black folks within the nation since 1873. Describing the state of affairs within the south, in his essay Black Reconstruction: An Essay Towards a Historical past of the Half Black People Performed within the Try to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880, historian WEB Du Bois wrote: “The slave went free; stood a short second within the solar; then moved again once more towards slavery.”
By the 1876 presidential election, the Black vote had nearly been repressed and this led to the Democratic Social gathering turning into fashionable amongst Black voters within the South, particularly in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida.
In line with White Home archives, “The favored vote apparently was 4,300,000 for Tilden to 4,036,000 for Hayes”. Nonetheless, Hayes’s probabilities of election depended upon contested electoral votes in Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida. So the Republicans demanded a recount.
After months of uncertainty, in 1877, Congress weighed in and shaped the Electoral Fee, which voted in favour of Hayes. After the fee’s vote, Hayes defeated Tilden by one vote: 185 electoral votes to 184.
On profitable the elections, Hayes pledged to guard Black People’ rights within the South and likewise inspired the “restoration of smart, sincere, and peaceable native self-government”.
1884: When New York was a swing state
New York has been a stronghold for the Democratic Social gathering in more moderen years. However in 1884, the state was a swing state and performed a essential position in deciding the winner of the presidential race, which was additionally marred by a scandal.
Republican candidate James G Blaine was up towards the Democratic Social gathering’s Grover Cleveland, who was additionally the mayor of New York.
Again then, the US was rife with financial drama and stuffed with corrupt money-making offers. The Democratic Social gathering was fashionable within the southern states within the US and Cleveland had impressed folks in New York together with his anti-corruption insurance policies. He and the Democratic Social gathering believed that they had a straightforward path to success.
However simply days after Cleveland was nominated because the presidential candidate of the Democratic Social gathering on July 11, the Buffalo Night Telegraph reported that he had fathered a son with a lady named Maria Halpin. In line with the US Library of Congress, the kid had been given away to an orphanage since Cleveland was not sure the kid was his. However he helped the kid financially till he was adopted.
The Republican Social gathering latched on to this story as its candidate, Blaine, had been painted by the Democratic Social gathering marketing campaign as a liar and politician concerned in money offers.
In flip, in line with the Library of Congress, a preferred satirical publication known as The Decide ran a cartoon of Cleveland titled: “Ma, Ma, The place’s my Pa?”
Whereas Cleveland was working on the slogan, “Inform the reality”, the scandal dented his help base in New York, probably the most populous state carrying 36 electoral votes again then.
When polls closed, Cleveland’s lead was slender within the state and he acquired 563,048 votes in New York to Blaine’s 562,001.
In the long run, the few thousand votes determined by New York along with the mixed help of reform Republicans who disliked Blaine helped Cleveland win.
In line with White Home archives, President Cleveland pursued a coverage of not providing favours to any financial teams. He was additionally stated to not significantly benefit from the comforts of the White Home.
As president, he as soon as wrote to a good friend: “I have to go to dinner…however I want it was to eat a pickled herring, a Swiss cheese and a chop at Louis’ as a substitute of the French stuff I shall discover.”
1916: California calls the pictures
In 1916, a drink in Lengthy Seashore, California was what it took to upend the US presidential race between Woodrow Wilson, from the Democratic Social gathering, and Republican candidate Charles Evans Hughes.
Again then, the western US state identified for its picturesque seashores and redwood forests had 13 electoral votes and was a swing state. At present, being probably the most populous state, it has 54 electoral votes – probably the most within the US.
Furthermore, moreover presidential candidates, two members of California’s Republican Social gathering – Hiram Johnson and conservative William Sales space – hoped to win seats within the US Senate.
In line with the Historical past Channel, whereas campaigning in Lengthy Seashore, Hughes was informed that Johnson was staying in the identical lodge as him however didn’t have interaction with Johnson or provide him a drink.
Johnson wasn’t very happy and didn’t provide his help to Hughes in California, which means Wilson gained the swing state by round 3,000 votes. Wilson additionally gained the presidency.
2000: US Supreme Court docket decides
The presidential race of 2000 noticed Democrat Al Gore, the vice chairman of the nation again then, and Republican George W Bush, who was the governor of Texas, compete. The competition finally got here all the way down to Florida — and the US Supreme Court docket needed to weigh in.
On election evening, as polls closed throughout the nation, it grew to become clear the 25 electoral votes in Florida, a swing state, would decide the winner. When outcomes from the Sunshine State trickled in, TV networks throughout the US started asserting that Bush had gained the state’s electoral votes. Gore known as Bush to congratulate him, however quickly withdrew his concession when Bush’s lead in Florida started dropping.
Attorneys from the Democratic Social gathering and Republican Social gathering started a authorized battle over the votes, with Gore’s legal professionals additionally demanding a recount.
The battle went to the nation’s Supreme Court docket and, after weeks of uncertainty, the courtroom stated the recounts couldn’t be established and voted 5-4 in favour of Bush’s victory.
The Bush versus Gore election continues to hang-out the nation’s courtroom, which has usually stayed away from elections.
In 2013, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who voted with the bulk within the Supreme Court docket, informed the Chicago Tribune that the “courtroom took the case and determined it at a time when it was nonetheless an enormous election difficulty. … Perhaps the courtroom ought to have stated, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye’.”
