Regardless of your political position, the 2016 position felt like a free-for-all, ending with the political upset of the century, or at least the century so far. It’s easy to look at President Trump’s win as an anomaly or at least an interesting moment in Presidential history, but Trump is certainly not the only President who faced a rocky and somewhat unexpected road to the White House. In fact, there is a long history of disputes, unexpected Presidents, and Presidents who lose the popular vote only to win the Electoral College. Trump’s victory, in context then, may not seem as surprising as it does at first glance.
The Presidency as a Game
Recently, the popular Netflix series House of Cards has looked at the surprising and underhanded ways an individual might be able to achieve the Presidency. In fact, the very title House of Cards implies that there may be a game-like aspect to politics in the United States. We often use terms like “playing the game” of politics. Certainly, some of the political maneuvering and twists and turns we have historically seen associated with the Presidency can seem like game playing. Now, you too can play your own free political games. But what happens when real Presidential history plays out as though it were a game?
Harry S. Truman, 1948
In 1948, incumbent President Harry S. Truman ran against Thomas E. Dewey. All prognostications predicted a win for Dewey. At the time the Democratic vote was split between Truman, far-left Henry Wallace, and Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond.
As Dewey, his staff, and his family awaited a win in the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City the night of the election, Truman retired early, expecting defeat. However, as the election results began to roll in, Truman took an early lead that he never gave up. The election ended with Truman winning 49.55% of the popular vote and 303 Electoral College votes to Dewey’s 45.07% and only 189 Electoral College votes. Famously, the Chicago Daily Tribune went to press early, printing the erroneous headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.” Truman was photographed holding up the paper with this headline.
The mispredictions about Dewey’s win have been attributed to errors in polling, a still-emerging practice at the time.
Vice Presidents Who Became President
Truman is also interesting in that although he was the incumbent in 1948, he was not actually elected President in the previous election. In 1944, he was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s running mate and was elected as Vice President of the United States. Truman initially took office in 1945 when Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1945, during the last months of World War II.
Truman is one of 14 American Vice Presidents to assume the Presidency upon the death or resignation of the President. This means that if Trump is our 45th President and 14 Presidents took office when they were serving as Vice President, then just over 30% of American Presidents were not elected to the office of President directly but were elected as Vice Presidents.
Andrew Johnson assumed the office after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. Calvin Coolidge was sworn in at his Vermont home soon after President Harding died of a heart attack in 1923. This swearing in is reenacted each year at the historic Coolidge homestead. Lyndon B. Johnson became President after President John F. Kennedy was famously shot in Dallas, Texas. Gerald Ford became President in 1974 after Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal. And this list is only a representation of the 14 individuals who became President after the death or resignation of a sitting President.
Nixon, Ford, and Watergate
Although Gerald Ford became President after President Nixon resigned, rather than face impeachment over Watergate, Ford was not actually elected to the office of Vice President. Instead, Spiro Agnew had been Nixon’s Vice President. Prior to Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Agnew himself resigned in 1973, when he was facing charges pertaining to kickbacks and corruption.
Per the United States Constitution, specifically Section 2 of the 25th Amendment, Ford, then House Minority Leader, succeeded Agnew as Vice President. The 25th Amendment stipulates the succession of the Presidency, and should the Vice President be indisposed, Section 2 states that a new Vice President be nominated by the sitting President and confirmed by Congress. At the time, Ford and the rest of the nation had no idea he would become President less than a year later.
While real life can occasionally look like a game, certainly a number of games are meant to mirror real life. Sadly, in politics it’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference.
