Where Does Harris Vs Trump Rank in America’s ‘Most Crucial Election’ Sweepstakes?

Throughout the year, political Cassandras prophesied that November 5 could mark doomsday for American democracy. And with good reason. Given that one candidate wrongly calls the 2020 election fraudulent — and has cast doubt on the necessity of some of the Constitution’s ironclad guarantees — the outcome could be dire, even catastrophic.

Many believe this is the most crucial election of their lives. But just How Is this crucial compared to all 59 previous White House races? By my own personal count it’s at number three.

Here are my top 14, in reverse order, along with my reasoning behind each selection. Some of these varieties have only proven to be ‘crucial’ in retrospect. Other elections — like Tuesday’s — seemed monumental in the moment.

14. JFK VS. NIXON (1960)

Vice President Richard Nixon represented the establishment. Senator John Kennedy, though a privileged son, was the face of the future: a war hero, the second Catholic to be named his party’s nominee, and at the age of 43, the youngest man ever. elected president. Many believed that his tanned, photogenic presence in the first-ever televised presidential debatein contrast to Nixon’s face (which looked haggard, partly because of his own). reported refusal to wear makeup under the bright TV lights – and a recent hospital stay) helped turn the electoral tide in JFK’s favor. Whatever the case, that first broadcast would lay the media-soaked foundation for every televised debate – and national election – since.

When the ballots were tabulated, the race was so close that many felt Nixon should have contested the results. (Chicago Mayor Richard Daley would even be accused of helping to secure a series of dubiously obtained votes.) Nixon, however, did not want to plunge the country into political chaos and decided to resign.

13. HAYES VS. TILDEN (1876)

The confrontation had everything we’ve come to expect in nightmarish election scenarios: intimidation at polling places, outright fraud, systemic threats to potential voters from Black communities, parallel sets of mismatched electoral votes sent for ratification. – and two nominees who insisted they won the thing. The proceedings dragged on until March 1877, before Rutherford B. Hayes was finally declared the victor, by a single vote of the Electoral College, in a ruling by an electoral commission established by Congress. Writer Jim Windolf, in the book Vanity Fair’s presidential profiles, would call it “the most controversial and hotly contested presidential election in American history (with the possible exception of George W Bush in return for Al Gore).” Granted, that statement was made in 2010, eleven years before the 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

12. REAGAN VS. CARTER (1980)

Set aside the many achievements of President Ronald Reagan, who, along with his Russian counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev, had a not insignificant hand in the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Bloc and the USSR. Even more important on the home front was the way the actor-turned-governor of California signaled a sea change in the Republican Party. As a former Democrat, Reagan had inherited the mantle of right-wing conservatism, which according to historian Todd Brewster notes, “was considered by many to have been vanquished in 1964 with the defeat of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.” Bolstered by Reagan’s leadership, the Republican Party would begin its slow but increasingly steadfast alliance with the so-called Christian Right and various conservative organizations, eventually joining the Tea Party and, during the Trump years, the MAGA movement. Reagan’s accession to the White House set all this in motion.

11. NIXON VS. McGOVERN (1972)

Richard Nixon’s advances in the Middle East, Russia, and China were among the most transformative shifts in foreign policy in U.S. history. He won his second term as a defender of the status quo values ​​of what he called the Silent Majority. In the short term, he would become the nemesis of the young, demonstrative New American Left, a country fueled by cultural change, engaged in political action, and enraged by American involvement in the Vietnam War. But none of these issues explain why his re-election in 1972 proved so crucial.

More to the point, Nixon’s team, trying to ensure the president would stay in power for four more years, used clandestine shady operations in what became known as the Watergate scandal. By the time Nixon began his second term, it had already been revealed that a political “dirty tricks” unit, working with campaign staffers, had illegally targeted political opponents and even attempted—five months before the election—to plant surveillance equipment in prisons. places. Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee. Top Nixon aides then conspired to cover up their involvement or knowledge of the plans. Dozens of individuals would be charged with, or pleaded guilty to, Watergate-related crimes. Before Congress could begin impeachment hearings, the president himself would resign in disgrace. The main lessons of the Watergate scandal were twofold. The Constitution’s guarantees—against executive power and obstruction of justice—had endured. And as Chief Justice Warren Burger stated in his landmark Supreme Court opinion, no one, not even the President, is “above the law.”

10. OBAMA VS. McCAIN (2008)

One-term senator Barack Obama defeat Senator John McCain of Arizona, a decorated combat veteran and former prisoner of war. Obama’s victory was not only decisive (365 electoral votes against 173), but also unprecedented: for the first time, the highest office in the country would be occupied by a black man. As Obama said in the opening lines of his speech victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park: “If there is anyone who still doubts that America is a place where anything is possible; who still wonders whether the dream of our founders is still alive in our time; who still questions the strength of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”

9. JOHNSON VS. GOLDWATER (1964)

In November after the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, President Lyndon Johnson would win in a landslide. And he was determined to fulfill his predecessor’s promise to answer the loud cry of the civil rights movement. In collaboration with 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 great as any victory on any battlefield.” Eradicating racial barriers one by one, the two initiatives forever changed the electoral landscape at the local, state, and federal levels.

8. FDR VS. HOOVER (1932)

Franklin Roosevelt’s unprecedented four-term presidency began during the Great Depression and ended as the Allies were on the verge of winning World War II. Taking the reins from Herbert Hoover left a president stuck in the country’s post-stock market fiscal freefall crash of 1929FDR would take command during a tumultuous stretch in which he helped save America from economic implosion, introduced the Social Security system and, working with other world leaders, helped save much of Europe and Asia from Nazi and Axis domination . Those first elections of 1932 would prove to have global consequences that resonate to this day.

7. BUSH VS. GOOD (2000)

Some still argue that the election was a silent coup, a fraud. Late in the evening of November 7, 2000, the race was too close to call – all because of suspicions surrounding the ballots in the state of Florida, where the governor happened to be present. Jeb Bush, the brother of GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush. After weeks of “hanging chads” and “butterfly ballots,” of recounts and finger-pointing – many of those fingers pointed at Florida’s overwhelmed Secretary of State, Katherine Harris– the whole thing descended into chaos. Even as the vote counts moved clearly in Gore’s favor, numerous bureaucratic and judicial decisions regarding the ballots continued to fall in Bush’s favor—possibly because Florida police and officials kept their thumbs on the scale. It didn’t take long before both sides hired a lawyer and began a monumental lawsuit. Bush vs. Gore. The case was heard by the Supreme Court and was decided by a razor-thin margin of 5 to 4, with – no surprise – Bush emerging victorious. Many called foul: the deck seemed stacked from the start. And yet, from his podium during a joint session of Congress, Vice President Al Gore the unlikeliest referee of all, oversaw the certification of Bush’s victory– two months after election day.