Nervous about the 2020 election? Look to 1828
The 2020 presidential campaign is nearing its final days and it’s often been described as unprecedented. A global pandemic. A Supreme Court vacancy. A president who failed to win the popular vote and is seeking reelection against a candidate who ran for the presidency before and didn’t win. But each of these does have some precedent. The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic disrupted the 1918 midterm elections. Chief Justice Roger Taney died in October 1864 during Abraham Lincoln’s reelection and in the middle of the Civil War. And of course, we have the 1828 election.
This election is not often discussed or debated. It’s not as memorable as the 2000 election, as great a schism as the 1912 election, nor as consequential as the 1860 election. However, it does offer I believe the best example of precedent to the 2020 election and to me, shows a clear example of a Joe Biden victory over incumbent president Donald Trump.
The 1828 election saw President John Quincy Adams once again facing off against Andrew Jackson. Adams and Jackson previously ran against each other in the 1824 election. The 1824 race saw no candidate receiving the necessary electoral college votes to be declared the winner, and while Jackson won the popular vote by over 38,000 votes, Adams ended up being elected President after the House of Representatives voted in his favor by one vote. Jackson was so irate with this and called for an abolition of the electoral college stating in his subsequent 1829 State of the Union address, “I consider it one of the most urgent of my duties to bring to your attention the propriety of amending that part of our Constitution which relates to the election of President and Vice-President. Our system of government was by its framers deemed an experiment, and they therefore consistently provided a mode of remedying its defects.” Jackson sought a means to remedy the travesty that was the 1824 election.
Come 1828 and the major party at the time, the Democratic-Republican Party, had virtually collapsed as partisanship reached a pinnacle with Americans siding ardently with either Adams or Jackson. Adams scrambled to form the new National Republican Party (no relationship to the current Republican Party) while Jackson advocates called themselves Democrats and began the process of formalizing the Democratic Party (the origin of the current party). The political rematch saw intense mudslinging as Jackson introduced new campaign tactics and ran on a strongly anti-Adams platform and railing against corruption. Jackson said his campaign was a, “struggle between the virtue of the people and executive patronage.” Jackson outraised Adams handedly and capitalized on growing animosity amongst the general populous. A great summary of the candidates and emotions of the time can be found on Boundary Stones which reads, “Jackson was the former Governor of Tennessee, a former general in the War of 1812, and a man of the people. Adams was the Massachusetts-born son of a former president, who had switched parties multiple times in the past. To Adams’ supporters, Jackson was a dangerous man, unqualified and possibly unhinged. To Jackson’s supporters, Adams was a corrupt elitist who had stolen the previous election. Both sides viewed the other candidate as a threat to the republic.”
In the end, Jackson defeated Adams in both the electoral college (178–83) and in the popular vote (642,553–500,897). Now regardless of personal characteristic and political ideology of the candidates, the circumstances of the 1828 election closely mirror those we are experiencing in 2020. We have an unpopular incumbent who lost the popular vote seeking a second term. We have a challenger who had previous experience running for president and who has focused his campaign on attacking the incumbent and galvanizing a frustrated populous. We see increasing polarization with the parties leading up to the election itself. And, we have an incumbent seeking reelection for the fourth time.
Preceding Adams, Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe all served two terms. Adams lost his reelection bid. Right now, Trump is in the same position as Adams. Trump’s predecessors, Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, all won reelection. Never in the history of the United States have four presidents consecutively won reelection. Adams lost in 1828, breaking the previous reelection streak. If history is any indicator, Trump will lose in 2020.
