Kinda depends on how you are measuring it.
It sounds like you are just going by elected presidents, but quite a few were multiple-term presidents, and those presidents had multiple elections with different opponents.
And sometimes, a losing opponent would go on to win a later election.
Also, no one ran against George Washington, twice.
Out of 59 elections (if you include Washington), I think there have been 49 white guys and one white lady who have lost a US Presidential election at least once (and may or may not have gone on to be President in a later election).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin
I am exactly as fun at parties as you would imagine.
It’s also technically a lot more if you remember that we do in fact have several marginalized parties running in every general election.
And multiple candidates per party who lose during the primary stage.
I like Kamala. You have a real shot at taking Trump out with her. The stakes could not be higher. Maybe for the world. He is a truly dangerous person.
I wonder if I can get the next statement out without venom coming back at me, but I’ll say it anyway:
I think you guys should try hard to steer the rhetoric away from anything polarizing (race or gender), and do everything you can to create inclusion (from anyone). I’m seeing a lot of things like that, and I don’t think it plays out into more support. And there’s nothing more important now than maximizing support.
I feel similarly, but my whole life Democrats keep thinking “maybe if I compromise with the right wing and move right, I’ll get more votes” and saying aw dang better luck next time when the right wing’s dwindling base votes red down the whole ticket, while party insiders actively sideline Democrats who win big on left wing messaging. So when I hear Harris striking a tone of inclusion and unity, I’m glad because I feel it’s laudable, but I’m also not thrilled because I’ve heard this song before.
She’s the first candidate in a while where I feel she might genuinely be good as a president, not just “not bad”.
The problem isn’t appealing to centrist moderates. The problem is getting leftists excited to vote. Polarising is good.
“polarising” is how you lose elections.
Funny, I thought it’s how the Republicans won 2016
Says who?
Only if you only count two parties.
Dude…I’m 40. I probably don’t have the energy for ONE party tonight. Let alone TWO!!!
UGGGGHHHHHH…
slaps own face really hard, chugs 750ml of whiskey, and splashes some water on my face
OK…LETS DOOOO THISSSSSS!!! RAAAAWWWWRRRRRRR!!!
Middle aged rave up in here! Woooooot
Okay, I’m spent, going to bed now
I’m already there.
Someone said to me that even if the majority would now vote for a third party, they wouldn’t get anything done because the Senate Ave Congress are still all dems and reps.
I don’t know enough about how US elections work though
It’s just an excuse.
They will be hard to deal with, but for the first time ever, they need to learn compromise.
It also opens up for legitimate third part candidates in next Senate election.
I have also never lost an Olympics, or lost a Formula 1 race, or lost a fight against Mike Tyson, or lost the Super Bowl.
This is your year dude, good luck in Paris!
Trump has also never won the general election for POTUS against a man but is undefeated against women so far, so let’s hope that changes. For America, and the rest of the world, he better not win.
Beating women does seem to be on-Brand for him…
he’d* better not win
Trump has also never won the general election for POTUS
Sooo we can expect the system of white landowning men to win again this time, much as it pains me to say
I don’t think that’s fair to say, I’m white and a landowner and I can’t stand the guy.
Ignoring how meaningless the statement is in the first place, obligatory XKCD.
Interestingly, if Kamala wins, that last streak will still hold true.
I know she didn’t make it all the way to the general election, but I’d like to take a moment to remind everyone about Shirley Chisholm.
https://www.history.com/news/shirley-chisholm-career-milestones
I get the feeling in OPs post, but for those unfamiliar, there are more people on the ballot other than the 2 main picks. This even varies by state, as they can have different criteria for defining who makes it to the ballot.
So perhaps a black woman has at some point ran for president (as in, made it to the ballot at least)?
I’m not sure it’s happened in a general though. Maybe a super small party but I’m not aware of a Green or Libertarian candidate that was Black
Cynthia McKinney?
45 and 1 white woman
facepalm thanks, fixed the titled
Edit: I’m still wrong. But this was a shower thought. There’s a reason this community isn’t called “well thought out comments”
Statistically it probably wasn’t 45 men by today’s definition.
…I think I know what you’re getting at, but if I’m right, that’s pretty racist.
From wikipedia:
Charlene Alexander Mitchell (June 8, 1930 – December 14, 2022) was an American international socialist, feminist, labor and civil rights activist. In 1968, she became the first Black woman candidate for President of the United States.[1][2]
Oh hey just remembered there was an incident like that in 1880 or so. White woman kicked off the ballot but still ran depending on definition
Way more people than that have lost in the general election (hundreds, if not thousands), including Cynthia McKinney in 2008 as the most successful black female loser, but plenty of other black women have lost the general election.
What really bugs me is that both sides are just attacking the other rather than talking about why they are the right choice. US elections are always about smear campaigns
From what I see most elections always are.
It’s not what I’m used to in the Netherlands. There are personal attacks sometimes, but mostly by guys who don’t have the best reputation in the first place.
This is most of my memory of Canadian elections too. I wish even mentioning other parties wasn’t allowed in campagin material, like how in some parts of government politicians can only refer to each other by title and not by name.
Ok, but then who informs the public about the other party actually doing something bad
Debates and actually adressing the problems.
You can’t say “Party X just wants your money”, try “Our party will help you keep your money”, or even “Unlike some parties today, we will put your taxes to good use”.
It’s a lot harder to make a compelling attack without a concrete focus. “Some parties are corrupt” is so trivially true that’s it embarassing, but “Party X is corrupt” is a rallying cry.
It won’t prevent lies by any means, but since specific claims can only be nade about your own party it gives an advantage to talking about your own party instead of every ad being incredibly negative claims one step off of a flame war. Hopefully that leads to building a strong case and then defending that case during debates, but at least the ads will have less direct negativity.
It would be more positive, but potentially less accurate. A party that does a lot of very specific and bad stuff but has some vaguely good policies to point towards would beat a neutral party, even if they shouldn’t.
Maybe if you only see the political ads of a single party. It would still be better because you would know of even a single stance of one party.
Last election, I can’t remember a single actual stance taken by any party based on political ads. They were all attack ads. Without discussion you couldn’t separate the resonable accusations from the trash anyway.
Basing your politocal opinions purely on ads is a terrible stance anyway, and the party best at fearmongering will win there. There aren’t any restrictions on ads that can fix people forming opinions only on ads anyway, we’d need to encourage public political debates and discourse instead.
There was a time, a few decades ago, when there was a real demand to get away from the negativity of most campaigns. Everyone says they wanted it, polls clearly showed it, etc.
But then there was another study which analyzed the effectiveness of campaigns (i.e. if they won) vs how negative they went.
Negativity was clearly proven to be the winning tactic.
Sample size too small, please try again in 1000 years.
Bold of you to think the yanks will have a good enough sample size in 1000 years
It’s equally valid to say that a black woman has lost the election every time.
Edit: Vacuous truth
Not really, since in most (all?) U.S. presidential elections to date there has not been a black woman on the ballot. I think there’s an important semantic difference between losing and not winning. The equal but opposite statement to the OP would be that a black woman has never won the election, which is true.
Read the wiki article. If a black woman has never been on the ballot then every possible statement you make beginning with “for all black women who have ever been on the ballot…” is true.
Yes, because now you’ve added the critical qualifier “who have ever been on the ballot”. Without that, it doesn’t hold.
No black woman has ever won the election or lost the election, because the set of black women who have ever been on the ballot before is empty.
Well, maybe we can make a little progress this year.
Maybe if Michelle gets the nomination. Kamala isn’t black.
