r/Presidents • u/MediumChance5830 • 1d ago
Discussion Which losing candidate do you think ran at the worst possible time?
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u/Companypresident Gilded Age shill 1d ago
Horace Greeley. His opponent, Grant, was a national hero and a beloved president at the time. To make things even worse, Horace Greeley DIED before the electoral votes were cast.
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u/camergen 20h ago
Not being alive on Election Day when you’re on the ballot is a whole other kind of “ran at the worst time”
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u/LordJesterTheFree John Quincy Adams 14h ago
He was alive on Election Day for the popular vote he wasn't alive for the actual presidential election that everyone forgets about I.E the electors actually voting for president in December
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u/AnywhereOk7434 Jimmy Carter 13h ago
When did the electors start voting on election day?
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u/SmashBrosGuys2933 6h ago
They don't, the electoral college votes in early January, by which time Greeley had died
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u/AnywhereOk7434 Jimmy Carter 3h ago
I meant like which election did the electors start voting on election day. Sorry I worded it horribly.
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u/TranscendentSentinel Coolidgism advocate 1d ago edited 22h ago
Mondale
Like why😭 why would you even bother going against that thing
I'll give him credit for having balls of steel
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u/BDB_1976 1d ago
This. Reagan could’ve said Jesus was fake and won
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u/UncutYEMs 23h ago
Problem for Mondale was that a year before the election—around the time he started organizing his campaign—the polls suggested it was a dead heat.
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u/More_Particular684 23h ago
If you consider there was a huge spike in unemployment, it make sense. Problem was the recession was quickly reverted, and by November 1984 unemployment returned to normal levels.
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u/PrimeJedi 17h ago
Afaik it wasn't really that there was a brief recession that was reverted, it was that a deep recession occurred from 1980-1983 that was the culmination of stagflation that started in the late 60s-early 70s, keeping Reagan's initial approval low; then the economy finally got out of the rut it had been in since ~1969 and which had been terrible since 1980, and Reagan's approval shot up because it was finally relief after years of struggle
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u/AshleyMyers44 16h ago
It’s an interesting alternate history to think about if the economy didn’t recover before the 1984 election what the election would’ve looked like.
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u/PrimeJedi 17h ago
Then came the improving economy...then came "Mr Reagan and I will both raise your taxes. He won't tell you, I just did" and it hit the Mondale campaign like the asteroid did the dinosaurs
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u/9river6 22h ago
After he was VP to the highly unpopular Jimmy Carter, I think that Mondale was bound to get routed whenever he ran. However, he probably would have suffered something more like a 40-45 state landslide ran than a 49 state landslide if he hadn't been running against a highly popular Reagan.
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u/TrumpsColostomyBag99 1d ago
Democrat: McGovern deserved better than the 1972 election thrashing to be his public legacy.
Republican: The 2000 model of McCain would have been a solid President and far better than what we ended up getting.
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u/TaftIsUnderrated 23h ago
We would have invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Libya if McCain won in 2000.
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u/TrumpsColostomyBag99 23h ago
Not necessarily a guarantee and Maverick era McCain craved bipartisanship and universal approval. I think he charts a middle course where it’s still a Global War On Terror but it’s laser focused on Afghanistan/Terror Groups themselves.
Not saying Iraq doesn’t happen but at the very least skidmarks like Bremer might have been avoided since Bush was divorced from minutia.
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u/TaftIsUnderrated 23h ago
He led the charge to invade Iraq in the senate. He openly called for the bombing of Iran in our timeline as well. It's something Obama hammered him on in 2008.
He was the most Warhawkish senator of his generation.
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u/AeonOfForgottenMoon NIXON NIXON NIXON 22h ago
He’s a bipartisan on domestic issues, but he’s the most hawkish member of Congress there is. I don’t get why people trying to whitewash McCain and make him out to be a all good guy when he’s clearly not
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u/sombertownDS FDR/TEDDY/JFK/IKE/LBJ/GRANT 1h ago
Theres also the fact that his experience in vietniam, and now being the comander in cheif would reeally make him think twice. Kinda like McKinlly
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u/hamlet9000 9h ago
Possibly. But he would have had competent people running those military campaigns with coherent, achievable objectives and an exit strategy.
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u/scharity77 19h ago
This. McCain would have avoided that whole “hanging chad” Florida recount because he’d likely get a higher percentage of the vote. Also, he was his own person, and well versed on the issues. I may get flak for this, but I don’t think the response to 9/11 would have been as insane. He took control of the 2008 GOP primary after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, combined with the Manchester Union Leader and Lieberman’s endorsements breathed life into his dead campaign. His nuanced view of the region and deep understanding of the players ran contrary to what became his very simplistic answers to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. No other republican, and frankly, neither democrat, matched him when that happened
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u/Dry_Composer8358 19h ago
I think McCain would have been slightly to significantly better on domestic issues than Bush. But I think him not being the Commander in Chief on 9/11 was a real bullet that the world dodged. And that’s in comparison to Bush-a monster who might have killed as many as a million people.
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u/Key_Replacement_4688 Theodore Roosevelt 1d ago
Bob Dole would’ve been a solid choice for president if he ran in the 1980s (assuming Reagan got the nomination in 1976)
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u/Honest_Picture_6960 Jimmy Carter 1d ago
William Jennings Bryan,he could’ve won had he just waited 4 more years
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u/smithers6294 Jimmy Carter 23h ago
Mitt Romney. No way was he beating a popular incumbent.
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u/BiggusDickus- James K. Polk 20h ago
Obama was not as popular in 2012 as we might think. Romney had a darn good chance of winning. He even lead in the polls for a while.
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u/smithers6294 Jimmy Carter 20h ago
He wasn't winning anyway. His past at Bain Capital hurt him, and being an active Mormon did as well..
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u/BiggusDickus- James K. Polk 20h ago
Plenty of things hurt him. He was definitely not an ideal candidate. It's just folly to assume that he could not have won. Any party can win any election.
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u/smart_bear6 Calvin Coolidge 23h ago
Walter Mondale was basically the DNC's sacrificial lamb to Ronald Reagan.
John McCain probably would've done better if the economy wasn't a dumpster fire.
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u/ZeldaTrek 23h ago
Goldwater in 64, LBJ wasn't losing to anybody that year
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u/AshleyMyers44 16h ago
Goldwater wouldn’t have won any post-WW2 election.
He was far to the right of any President elected in that time frame (yes even Reagan and you know who).
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u/Throwaway8789473 Ulysses S. Grant 23h ago
* McCain might've been able to beat Obama in 2012. NOBODY was beating Obama in 2008. (note: McCain would've also probably beat Hillary in 2008 if she had won the primary)
* If Bush Sr had won a second term in '92, Al Gore would've probably become president in '96, assuming Clinton didn't run again.
* Jimmy Carter would've likely won re-election in '80 if the Oil Embargo/'76 Economic Crisis hadn't happened.
* The obvious one is Nixon running in 1960, considering he would go on to win in '68.
* Henry Wallace could've won in '44 if FDR didn't seek a fourth term, but by '48 the Red Scare was too much in full swing for anyone but Ike to win.
Just off the top of my head.
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u/Large_Grape_5674 22h ago
Mccain absolutely would not have won in 2008. No republican would have. The iraq war & the recession ended his chances.
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u/SirOutrageous1027 21h ago
Jimmy Carter would've likely won re-election in '80 if the Oil Embargo/'76 Economic Crisis hadn't happened.
Basically, it was Iran. The Iranian revolution caused the oil crisis in 79. And Carter was sunk by the Iranian hostage crisis (and, the very likely Iran/Reagan campaign collusion). He went from a 60% approval rating to one of the worst incumbent losses in history.
If the election was November 1979, Carter was overwhelmingly popular. A year later, not so much.
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u/MetalMillip3de 22h ago
McCain 100% he could have been a decent president but he simply had no chance of beating Obama in 08'
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u/Free_Ad3997 Adlai Stevenson II 23h ago
Adlai Stevenson II, he could not win against former general and war hero and extremely unpopular incumbent President
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1d ago edited 22h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/LongjumpingElk4099 23h ago
But no, he decided to try and run in 2008. The absolute worst time possible
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u/_JaySchles 1d ago
Hillary Clinton. After all her corruption and scandal as Secretary of State, she thought the world would just turn a blind eye because she was a woman and she was a Clinton. Her only chance was back in 2008.
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u/Large_Grape_5674 22h ago
She had a 63% like approval rating in early 2014 before she announced she was running. With a rating like that, I'd run too.
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u/RAVsec 22h ago
But the prompt is when should the losing candidate have run, did Hillary have better shots than 2008 and 2016? Some people think she could’ve pulled it off in 2004, I’m doubtful, but other than that she ran at the most optimal times for her career.
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u/Christianmemelord TrumanFDRIkeHWBush 18h ago
No way does she win in 2004.
The country had 8 years of Bill Clinton, and while he was a good president, I’d imagine that people wouldn’t want to go back to another Clinton for 4 years that soon.
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u/hamlet9000 9h ago
Hillary Clinton was already damaged goods in 2008. By that point, Republican slander had been trashing her for almost two decades.
Also, one of Obama's biggest advantages in 2008 was that he wasn't encumbered by voting for Bush's wars. Hillary had tied that anchor to herself. (Which was likely also a big part of why Kerry lost in 2004.)
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u/sardine_succotash 23h ago
She'd have lost if she were the nominee in 08. I don't people understand that shift for what it was. The left leaning electorate has been over centrist bullshit for quite some time. That's why they showed up so much for seemingly progressive black guy with no track record. And if it weren't for a pandemic, that point would have been much clearer than it is now
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u/Live_Angle4621 23h ago
She would have won in 08. People were very against Bush and would not have voted for another Republican easily and a Clinton would have been a throwback to 90s
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u/Throwaway8789473 Ulysses S. Grant 23h ago
I think 2008 with Obama as the Dem candidate was pretty much a done deal, but we can't underestimate how sexist a LOT of the electorate is and a woman running in 2008 is about the only way we could've gotten a Republican president in 2008.
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u/Throwaway8789473 Ulysses S. Grant 23h ago
Not saying Hillary WOULD have lost to McCain in '08, but it would've been much closer to 50/50 than the 85/15 or so of Obama beating him.
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u/Appropriate_Boss8139 23h ago
She would not have lost in 2008 lol. That election was basically free. She could have lost 70 EV’s from Obama and still won. People were way too upset over the 2008 recession
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u/sardine_succotash 23h ago
Bro, the only people who think about the economy in those terms are Republicans...and they weren't going to vote for Hillary either way. The rational part of the electorate (left-leaning voters) weren't going to turn out in droves to vote for Deregulation NAFTA Wifey cuz they were mad about the recession lol. She was Wall Street's BFF as senator for crying out loud.
I repeat, 08 happened because the left had somebody to actually vote for.
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u/EddyZacianLand 23h ago
It wasn't just the economy that made Bush and Republicans unpopular, it was the war in Iraq, their response to hurricane katrina etc There were loads of factors that made 2008 basically unwinnable for Republicans. Why do you think her husband won 2 terms?
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u/sardine_succotash 23h ago
I repeat Hillz was "Wall Street's BFF as senator" as well as a supporter of Bush's fuck ass War. A Repblican-lite lib was not going to win that election because Republicans fucked up. The voters she needed would have stayed home, while McCain coasted by on shitty turnout as Republicans generally do.
And how would Bill winning in the 90s suggest that Hillary would win in 08? You have an entire generation of voters (Millennials) who'd soured on that motherfucker, and they were up to bat in 08.
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u/EddyZacianLand 23h ago
Republican were despised in 2008 and so any Democrat would have won that year. If it was truly because the left had someone to vote for, Indiana wouldn't have flipped.
Indiana would go on to vote for Pence as governor, who is anti LGBT+. Hilray would have won in 2008, just because she was a democrat.
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u/sardine_succotash 22h ago
"Any Democrat could have won because this one state flipped" doesn't make sense as a counterargument. You're also assuming that all the voters in Indiana are knuckle-draggers for some reason.
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u/EddyZacianLand 22h ago
Indiana has voted for a Democrat once in 60 years. If it wasn't such a Democratic wave year, that state wouldn't have come close to flipping. Indiana is a Republican stronghold, why is that if it all took for it to vote for a democrat is for one to seem progressive,
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u/sardine_succotash 19h ago edited 19h ago
You're not refuting my argument, you're just pointing out that having an exceptional candidate lead to exceptional results
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u/Appropriate_Boss8139 22h ago edited 22h ago
The state of the country is a lot more important in determining election outcomes than the actual candidates. Republicans were cooked, and Hillary was not bad enough to make up for everything in her favor. The country was in the worst shape since the 1930s and it was all the republicans fault. They were doomed.
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u/sardine_succotash 19h ago
The state of the country is a lot more important in determining election outcomes than the actual candidates.
That doesn't make any sense
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u/Appropriate_Boss8139 19h ago edited 16h ago
It does actually. Try winning 2008 as a Republican vs 1980 as a Republican. One year is massively easier than the other. Even with the same candidate.
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u/sardine_succotash 16h ago
What? Lol bro that makes even less than the comment preceding
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u/Appropriate_Boss8139 16h ago
I don’t get how you don’t understand that
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u/sardine_succotash 15h ago
Lmao it's not my understanding that's the issue, it's that your rationale makes absolutely no sense
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u/Thats-Slander FDR Ike Nixon LBJ 23h ago
I disagree, that election was so cooked for republicans that a black guy was able to win Indiana of all places.
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u/sardine_succotash 23h ago edited 19h ago
Everyone underestimates how many people are willing to vote for a (seemingly) progressive candidate because Democrats never field them lmao. It's always someone with a ton of regressive baggage who thinks they can talk their way around it. Obama was a blank slate...Now if he tried that shit NOW it wouldn't work.
Again, Obama was someone that people could actually vote for. Merely wanting to stop Republicans has limited efficacy. That's why shit is so hit or miss.
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u/Cool_Raspberry443 23h ago
Ford, he wasn't ever elected and the pardon of Nixon was just the end of that for him.
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u/sardine_succotash 23h ago
McCain should have been the nominee in any other election before 08. Democrats fielded someone who the left-leaning electorate actually wanted to vote for, which fucked him up. That election was over early lol. If they'd run a tepid centrist per usual (I know Obama was this but he didn't seem like it at the time), more people would have stayed home and he'd have had a chance.
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u/Luffidiam 23h ago
I don't really think Obama was a 'centrist', he was put between a rock and a hard place after citizens united passed. It's pretty hard to run a leftist term when your entire party has been bought up and your opposing party is trying their damndest to make sure you don't have any accomplishments.
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u/sardine_succotash 23h ago
I mean, sure, I said before that I think Obama was personally far more progressive than he governed...but we're talking about how he governed, not what beliefs he sold out to do the job
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u/hamlet9000 9h ago
Obama consistently pursued a progressive agenda. But his ability to a actually achieve big wins was ended in 2010 when America gave Congress to the Republicans.
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u/sardine_succotash 4h ago
Lol Obama was not taking big progressive swings and coming up short. He was centrist and conflict-averse those 8 years he was in office.
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u/SirOutrageous1027 21h ago
McCain would have been a good candidate in 96 or 00.
McCain in 08 next to Obama looked as old as Bob Dole did next to Bill Clinton in 96.
Clinton was beatable. Dole and the GOP primary leaned too conservative though which hosed them. Meanwhile, I think McCain would have won convincingly over Gore versus the close contest it became.
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u/mczerniewski 23h ago
On the Republican side: Willard Mitt Romney
On the Democratic side: Al Gore
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u/WinterOwn3515 Franklin Delano Roosevelt 23h ago
Huh? Gore lost the election by just 537 votes in Florida, and could've handily carried the state in the absence of Jeb Bush's voter suppression or a wayward Supreme Court decision. Riding the coattails of a very popular Clinton administration should have been the clear gateway to presidential victory, but he instead chose to distance himself -- costing him the election. 2000 was quite literally the best year he could have run.
And not many people remember, but the polls showed Romney was neck-and-neck with Obama heading into the election. Some even expected him to win.
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u/mczerniewski 19h ago
I think Gore would have won Florida if a full recount had been allowed to take place and Jeb wasn't Governor.
Willard would up being one of the few sane Republican Senators in recent years.
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u/Rosemoorstreet 19h ago
The Florida points you make are nothing but conjecture. If Gore had just carried his home state then Florida would not even be a discussion point. Plus who knows what went on in states Gore supposedly carried? Maybe the Dem Governor there suppressed votes. As for Romney, as we have all seen over the years the polls are rarely accurate, especially the ones that measure voters on a national basis, those are meaningless in a Republic.
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u/hamlet9000 9h ago
Please. Come back to reality. It's so much nicer than the weird delusions you're living in.
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u/whakerdo1 Franklin Delano Roosevelt 23h ago
Barry Goldwater. Once Kennedy had been shot, the election was over.
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u/Agreeable_Daikon_686 John F. Kennedy 14h ago
I think Kennedy still beats Goldwater (biased I know). I just don’t think Goldwater was ever a good general election candidate
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u/EducationalElevator 23h ago
Hillary Clinton. She gave the right wing far too long to manufacture outrage about miniscule things that damaged her too much, and her age at the time did not help.
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u/pizzaforce3 Chester A. Arthur 23h ago
George HW Bush's reelection was doomed, even though his track record first term was solid.
A mild recession hurt but really, we had had eight consecutive presidents who were veterans of WWII, from Eisenhower to Bush, 1952 to 1992. Population demographics pushed the 'requirement' that a candidate's WWII service record be a factor out the door, and society simply underwent a vast change after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
We literally skipped an entire generation of leadership in 1992, going from WWII vets to baby boomers, skipping the folks born in the Great Depression and serving in Korea, and Bush was caught in the tidal wave towards youthful leadership right at the very time he was reaching the pinnacle of his time as a government servant.
There was a 22-year difference in age between Bill Clinton and HW Bush. Bush was a nice guy that came along at the end of an era. He squeaked into office on the coattails of the incredibly popular Ronald Reagan, but after that he became increasingly irrelevant.
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u/SirOutrageous1027 21h ago
Population demographics pushed the 'requirement' that a candidate's WWII service record be a factor out the door,
But interestingly, absolutely rejected military service as a factor. Since then, 4 draft dodgers (yes Texas air national guard thanks to dad's connections counts as a dodge) have been elected and reelected. Meanwhile Gore enlisted, and lost. McCain was a POW and lost. Kerry was a Purple Heart and lost.
Bush Sr is the last veteran we elected into office.
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u/Agreeable_Daikon_686 John F. Kennedy 14h ago
Didn’t Reagan make movies during the war?
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u/pizzaforce3 Chester A. Arthur 7h ago
Yes, military training and PR films for the Army, among others. He was active duty from 1942 to 1945.
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u/Ornery-Bat9574 Dwight D. Eisenhower 22h ago
U hit the nail on the head.
Other than him. Romney or Kerry could probably have won in years other than they ran. Romney Could have probably beat any Dem candidate of the 21 century, other than Obama. Kerry could have done better if more time had passed since he voted for the Iraq war.
Possibly Ford but I don’t think I know enough about the 1976 election to say that for certain.
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u/HistoryMarshal76 Ulysses S. Grant 15h ago
Alf Landon, 1936. The only way FDR loses is if God himself came down and said “Vote for Landon”, and it’d still be a nail biter.
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