National Elections Getting Closer; Individual Congressional Elections Getting Less Close

FiveThirtyEight

Presidential elections have been closer in the past few decades than they were for most of American history. Here's a list of all the U.S. presidential elections that were decided by less than 1% of the vote:

1880
1884
1888
1960
1968
2000

Funny, huh? Other close ones were 1844 (decided by 1.5% of the vote), 1876 (3%), 1916 (3%), 1976 (2%), 2004 (2.5%).

Four straight close elections in the 1870s-80s, five close elections since 1960, and almost none at any other time.

At the congressional level, however, NY-20 notwithstanding, close elections are less and less likely to be close.

Posted via web from jimnichols's posterous