America’s Untold Stories: Election Special – Crazy Results from History

We can’t stand the current situation so we are going to explore a bit of history and take solace in the fact that American elections have been crazy for most of its history. Sardonic and sarcastic insights from Mark Groubert and Eric Hunley on what H. L. Mencken’ called The Carnival of Buncombe.

One major problem: Groubert is full of it in his entertaining but spurious recounting of some electoral history.

James K. Polk was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. In the 1844 general election, Democrat Polk defeated Henry Clay of the rival Whig Party.

In the presidential election of 1876, Democrat Samuel Tilden ran against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. At the end of election day, no clear winner emerged because the outcomes in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana were unclear. Both parties claimed victory in those states, but Republican-controlled “returning” boards would determine the official electoral votes. Eventually Hayes was declared the winner and as a concession to the Democrats, Reconstruction was ended in the military districts of the conquered former Southern states.

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