Presidential Elections: 1789-1996 (Presidential Elections Since 1789) [Paperback]

Congressional Quarterly Books (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1997 | ISBN-10: 1568020651 | ISBN-13: 978-1568020655

From George Washington's unanimous election to the presidency in 1789 to incumbent Bill Clinton's victory over Bob Dole in 1996, Presidential Elections 1789-1996 provides important facts and statistics behind more than 200 years of presidential elections.

This updated book provides all the data necessary to understand presidential elections: electoral votes and electoral maps from 1789, popular votes from 1824, and primary votes from 1912. Explanations of the electoral college, the popular vote and voter turnout, primaries and caucuses, and national party conventions set the data in context. A biographical directory of presidential and vice presidential candidates, texts of major election laws, a bibliography, and an index complete the volume. The appendix includes presidential and vice presidential biographies, texts of constitutional provisions and statutes relating to presidential elections, and a bibliography.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Congressional Quarterly Books (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568020651
• ISBN-13: 978-1568020655
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,582,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Presidential Election Statistics are stuck in 1965, December 1, 1999

By 

Seth Hinshaw - See all my reviews

This review is from: Presidential Elections: 1789-1996 (Presidential Elections Since 1789) (Paperback)

Congressional Quarterly's book detailing statistics for presidential elections since 1789 represented the best scholarship at the time of its original printing.

Much of the information in this book comes from data collected by the ICPR in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The ICPR collected election returns for several political offices (including President) during the 1960s, drawing as much as possible from the original election returns in the various state archives. This collection of statistics represented a great advance over the research of prior historians, most of whom had relied on unofficial returns or newspaper results.

Another significant element of this book is the collection of statistics on the presidential primaries, which had not been systematically collected prior to the first edition of this book.

During the past thirty years, historians have found several errors in the ICPR data. CQ has chosen not to incorporate new scholarship into this book.

In reviewing the presidential primary statistics in Ohio, I noticed that CQ had several important errors (the most prominent being the 1948 Republican primary between Taft and Stassen).

In addition, CQ's source for pre-Depression primaries (Davis rather than ICPR) did not illustrate every primary state. For 1912, each of the states which voted for Oscar W. Underwood in the primaries (AL, FL, and GA) is left out of Davis's and CQ's account. Three other states were omitted in 1912 and several others for 1916 and 1920.

One other drawback to this book is that it continues the false notion that no states recorded popular votes for President before 1824. Philip Lampi has collected this information from the same sources that ICPR reviewed, but I don't expect CQ to incorporate his research either.