50% + 1 = 270 votes • What if no candidate has a majority? The House of Representatives determines who the next President will be. Each state may cast one vote and an absolute majority is needed to win. Similarly, the Senate decides who the next Vice President will be. • What is the purpose of the popular vote?
For example the three mid-terms where this happened were 1934, when Roosevelt won 9 more seats, 1998, when Clinton won 5 more seats and 2002, when George W. Bush won 8 more seats. This helps to show that the President’s performance is judged massively and it’s almost certain that if the electorate feel that the President’s performance has been unsatisfactory then the President’s party will do poorly in the midterms. This really emphasis’s the fact that midterms act as almost a voice for the electorate, which can let the President know exactly what they think about what type of job he or she is doing so far, by simply voting for the other party in the election. Therefore commentators have argued that midterms are a referendum on the performance of the president because the President almost always seems to lose seats in the House of Representatives, which can act as almost a ‘wake up call’ for the President, letting him or her know that they need to improve the job their doing in office so far. However other commentators have argued that mid-term elections are not merely a referendum on the performance of the President because the turnout is almost always low.
Since 1946, the average loss in a president's first term is 25 seats in the House of Representatives and three seats in the Senate. Truman (in 1946) and Clinton (in 1994) both lost 54 House seats, while Johnson (in 1966) lost 48. Why not elect everybody at the same time? The American system is designed to be overlapping, both in terms of the powers of the different bodies and in terms of when people are elected to them. The House of Representatives is the larger of the two houses of Congress.
When the time comes for the people of America to vote they go to the voters booth and actually cast their ballots for the electors committed to vote for the candidate of their party not the President and Vice President. Electors of the party receiving the highest vote in each state are elected. Their votes are mailed to the president of the U.S. Senate and he reveals the final decision. The candidates have to win a majority of 270 of the 538 elector votes in order to become elected as President.
The Electoral College is the main part of the government that elects the president. Article II section I of the constitution establishes that each state is set up to have as many electors equal to their number of senators and representative in congress (Patterson A-10). When the presidential election time comes around these electors cast their votes and decide the president based of what their district wanted. The reason this system was set up was because the framers were afraid that a direct vote would link executive power to popular majorities (Patterson
Though Al Gore won the popular vote by 48.4% Bush won the votes of the Electoral College which resulted in him winning the Presidential election. Another example that presents Electoral Colleges distorted nature is the 1996 election in which Bill Clinton achieved 49% of the popular vote and went on to achieve 70% of the Electoral College vote. However, this is a weak argument as prior to this election it never occurred that a running candidate had more Electoral College votes without gaining the majority of votes in the national popular vote. A national popular vote would allow democracy to function in its most pure form by selecting the President based on the national popular
Pledged Delegates, The fifty states and the District of Columbia are awarded a number of delegates equal to fifteen percent of their number of base delegates to be filled by party leaders and elected officials. Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa are also awarded Pledged Delegates. Unpledged Delegates, Primarily Democratic Members of Congress, Governors, and distinguished party leaders. Base Delegates where each stated (including the District of Columbia) is awarded a number of delegates to the national convention based on its share of the total Democratic popular vote and its share of the electoral votes in the three most recent presidential
Among the many analyses about the 2004 Republican National Convention, one offered by the eminent conservative columnist George F. Will caught my eye. "Barry is back," he wrote, referring to Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who won the Republican presidential nomination forty years ago but was then crushed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the general election, receiving only 38.5 percent of the popular vote and carrying just six states. Notwithstanding his resounding defeat in the fall of 1964, wrote Will, Goldwater's nomination sealed "the ascendancy of conservatism in the [Republican] party." Goldwater's brand of conservatism, Will explained, included a "muscular foreign policy," economic policies of low taxation and light regulation, and a "libertarian inclination" regarding cultural questions. While not "fully ascendant" in the GOP, suggested Will, Goldwaterism made a comeback at the 2004 convention, as evidenced in the "rapturous reception" of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, known for their unyielding opposition to terrorism and their tolerant views regarding abortion and gay rights.
Nebraska is traditionally a Republican-voting state, and as a result, voters in the state are leaning toward Republican, Mitt Romney. (270towin) Nebraska's recent presidential voting history Election in 1996: Bob Dole (R) 54%, Bill Clinton (D) 35% Election in 2000: George W. Bush (R) 62%, Albert Gore, Jr (D) 33%, Election in 2004: George W. Bush (R) 51%, John F. Kerry (D) 48%, Election in 2008: Barack Obama (D), electoral vote – 365, popular vote – 69,297,997 Main opponent, John McCain (R), electoral vote – 173, popular vote – 59,597,520 Recent polling data from Nebraska for the 2012 presidential general
People vote for electors, and those electors elect the president. The problem with this is that someone can win the presidency without winning the popular vote. Majority of Americans could have voted for President X, but President Y could still win. One recent example of this occurring is in the 2000 election, Bush v. Gore. “In 2000, Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote in the election, with 50,992,335 votes to 50,455,156 votes for George W. Bush.” (http://www.deseretnews.com/top/1093/9/2000-George-W-Bush-vs-Al-Gore-10-of-theclosest-presidential-elections-in-United-States-history.html) Al Gore had about half of a million more votes than George Bush.