All year long, political Cassandras have been prophesying that November 5 could spell doomsday for American democracy. And with good reason. Given that one candidate falsely calls the 2020 election fraudulent—and has cast doubt on the need for some of the Constitution’s ironclad guarantees—the outcome may be grave, even catastrophic.
Many believe this is the most pivotal election of their lifetime. But just how pivotal is it when compared to all 59 previous White House races? By my own personal tally, it ranks number three.
Here are my top 14, in reverse order, along with my reasoning behind each selection. Some of these races have proved “pivotal” only with the benefit of hindsight. Other elections—like Tuesday’s—have seemed monumental in the moment.
14. JFK VS. NIXON (1960)
Vice President Richard Nixon represented the establishment. Senator John Kennedy, though a son of privilege, was the face of the future: a war hero, the second Catholic to be named his party’s nominee, and at 43, the youngest man ever to be elected president. Many believed that his tanned, photogenic presence in the first-ever televised presidential debate, contrasted with the visage of Nixon (who appeared haggard, partly due to his reported refusal to wear makeup under the harsh TV lights—and a recent hospital stay), helped turn the electoral tide in JFK’s favor. Whatever the case, that maiden broadcast would lay the media-steeped foundation for every televised debate—and national election—since.
When the ballots were tabulated, the race was so close that many believed Nixon should have challenged the results. (Chicago’s mayor Richard Daley, in fact, would be accused of helping to deliver a raft of dubiously procured votes.) Nixon, however, not wanting to send the country into political chaos, chose to stand down.
13. HAYES VS. TILDEN (1876)
The face-off had everything we’ve come to expect in nightmare election scenarios: polling-place intimidation, out-and-out fraud, systemic threats to would-be voters from Black communities, parallel sets of mismatched electoral votes sent to be ratified—and two nominees maintaining they’d won the thing. The proceedings dragged on into March 1877, before Rutherford B. Hayes was eventually declared the victor, squeaking by with a lone Electoral College vote, in a ruling issued by an electoral commission set up by Congress. Writer Jim Windolf, in the book Vanity Fair’s Presidential Profiles, would dub it “the most controversial and hotly contested presidential election in US history (with the possible exception of George W. Bush versus Al Gore).” Admittedly, that pronouncement was made in 2010, 11 years before the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol Building.
12. REAGAN VS. CARTER (1980)
Put aside the many accomplishments of President Ronald Reagan, who, with his Russian counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev, had a not insignificant hand in the eventual dissolution of the Soviet bloc and the USSR. Even more significant on the home front was how the actor turned California governor represented a sea change in the Republican Party. A former Democrat, Reagan had inherited the mantle of right-wing conservatism, which, as historian Todd Brewster notes, “was considered by many to have been vanquished in 1964 with the defeat of presidential aspirant Barry Goldwater.” Buoyed by Reagan’s leadership, the GOP would begin its slow yet ever more steadfast alliance with the so-called Christian right and various conservative organizations, eventually aligning with the Tea Party and, during the Trump years, the MAGA movement. Reagan’s ascension to the White House set all of this in motion.
11. NIXON VS. McGOVERN (1972)
Richard Nixon’s advances in the Middle East, Russia, and China were among the most transformative foreign policy shifts in US history. He won his second term as a defender of the status quo values of what he termed the Silent Majority. In short order, he would become the archenemy of a young, demonstrative New American Left, one that was fueled by cultural change, engaged in political action, and enraged by US involvement in the Vietnam War. But none of these issues explain why his reelection in 1972 proved so pivotal.
More to the point: Nixon’s team, trying to ensure that the president won four more years in office, employed clandestine dark ops in what came to be known as the Watergate scandal. As Nixon began his second term, it had already been revealed that a political “dirty tricks” unit, in league with campaign staffers, had been illegally targeting political opponents, even attempting—five months before the election—to plant surveillance devices in the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee. Top Nixon aides then conspired to cover up their involvement in or knowledge of the schemes. Dozens of individuals would be indicted for, or plead guilty to, Watergate-related crimes. Before Congress could commence impeachment hearings, the president himself would resign in disgrace. The main lessons of the Watergate scandal were twofold. The Constitution’s safeguards—against executive overreach and obstruction of justice—had held firm. And as Chief Justice Warren Burger stated in his historic Supreme Court opinion, no man, not even the president, is “above the law.”
10. OBAMA VS. McCAIN (2008)
One-term senator Barack Obama beat Arizona senator John McCain, a decorated combat veteran and former POW. Obama’s win was not only decisive—365 electoral votes to 173—but unprecedented: For the first time, the highest office in the land would be occupied by a Black man. As Obama said in the opening line of his victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park, “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”
9. JOHNSON VS. GOLDWATER (1964)
The November after John Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, President Lyndon Johnson would win in a landslide. And he was determined to uphold his predecessor’s vow to address the clarion calls of the civil rights movement. Working in concert with the reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and others, Johnson succeeded in pushing for the passage of two landmark bills: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965—the latter, said the president, was “as huge as any victory won on any battlefield.” By eradicating racial barriers, one by one, the twin initiatives forever altered the electoral landscape on the local, state, and federal levels.
8. FDR VS. HOOVER (1932)
Franklin Roosevelt’s unrivaled four-term presidency began in the teeth of the Great Depression and ended as the Allies were on the verge of winning World War II. By assuming the reins from Herbert Hoover, a president mired in the nation’s fiscal free fall after the stock market crash of 1929, FDR would take command during a tumultuous stretch in which he helped rescue America from economic implosion, introduced the Social Security system, and, working with other world leaders, helped spare much of Europe and Asia from domination by the Nazis and the Axis Powers. That initial 1932 election would prove to have global repercussions that resonate to this day.
7. BUSH VS. GORE (2000)
Some still contend that the election was a silent coup, a swindle. Late into the evening of November 7, 2000, the race was too close to call—and all because of suspicions surrounding ballots in the state of Florida, where the governor happened to be Jeb Bush, the brother of GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush. After weeks of “hanging chads” and “butterfly ballots,” recounting and finger-pointing—many of those fingers aimed at Florida’s overwhelmed secretary of state, Katherine Harris—the whole matter degenerated into chaos. Despite vote counts that were clearly trending in Gore’s favor, myriad bureaucratic and court decisions regarding ballot tallies continued to fall Bush’s way—possibly because Florida pols and officials had their thumbs on the scale. Before long, both sides lawyered up, embarking on a monumental lawsuit, Bush v. Gore. Taken up by the Supreme Court, the case was decided by a razor-thin 5-4 margin, with—no surprise—Bush coming out on top. Many cried foul: The deck had seemed stacked from the start. And yet, from his podium at a joint session of Congress, Vice President Al Gore, the unlikeliest arbiter of all, oversaw the certification of Bush’s victory—two months after Election Day.
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