I absolutely would love to see a cordial debate between you two on that, Matt. I am a conservative, but your video on the Electoral College almost had me convinced!
We are having the same issues here in the UK Mr Beat. Labour just won the election on 34% of the vote but got 64% of the Seats. Not the same issue as the Electoral college but when we Liberal Democrats were splitting the vote from the left and centre but we're calling for some form of proportional representation it got ignored but now that a right wing Party called Reform UK split the right vote people suddenly are interested in PR.
Personally I think whether we should make a change is a question of what the current system should be replaced with because each possible solution I've heard has its flaws. It's kind of like the Daylight Savings debate. Everyone hates changing the clocks twice a year, but no one can agree on whether to go to Daylight Savings or Standard Time all year, so we just leave it as is.
It’s kinda funny to me how the election in which Rutherford Hayes won seems more known about and discussed than Hayes’s own presidency following the election
Yours and Mr Beat's Friendship is one of my absolute FAVORITE things about The Internet as a whole honestly. Despite Your firm convictions and disagreements on certain issues, You both don't allow that to get in the way of a good friendship, and are a great example to be set that just because we may disagree, doesn't mean we have to become disagreeable. Props to the both of You, and May Yours And Your Families' lives be blessed with good health, and happiness!
What I hate about the election of 2000 is that no one ever talks about West Virginia. What was once a major blue state, and if Gore won West Virginia he would be president. Yet it went bush by 40,978 votes.
If Gore won his home state of Tennessee he would’ve been president. If he won New Hampshire he would’ve been president. The thing is, this election was really close, until you look at the states and truly realize how close it truly was.
@@mrairbusa380jr The key difference is West Virginia was a reliably Blue state. It only voted Republican 3 times in for Republican since 1932 before this election. Now it's a solid red state and it all started in this Election.
I’d love to see VTH do a reaction to the video ‘know your allies: Britain’. It’s an informational video made by the war department to educate their troops on who they’re fighting with and against and it’s a really interesting insight into how 40’s America viewed Britain and in some ways how little Britain has changed.
I was just watching the 10 questions livestream you guys did at the beginning of the year and was thinking to myself "we need another VTH + Mr. Beat crossover," when I saw this dropped. My favorite combo in all of History TH-cam
5 of the "failed" Presidential Candidates were Democrats who won the Popular Vote in their elections but lost the Electoral College Vote; Jackson lost to Adams Jr. in 1824, Tilden lost to Hayes in 1876, Cleveland lost to Harrison in 1888, Gore lost to Bush Jr. in 2000, & Clinton lost to Trump in 2016.
@@IconicFootball Party switch is a dramatic oversimplifiction as well as an anachronism ascribing modern conceptions of "progressive" and "conservative" to ideologies in the 19th century
@@williamwallaceoftheus8033 Agreed, the EC isn't going anywhere. And shouldn't. But "winner-take-all" delegate allocation at the state level is not constitutionally mandated. In fact, only 48 of 50 states do it this way; Maine and Nebraska allocate proportionally. THAT is what needs to be looked at closer. The ire against the EC is understandable but misplaced.
I watched your first two reactions to Mr Beat (Bottom 10 Presidents and Top 10 Presidents) from back when you didn't know him and now am watching some of these recorded since you've become friends, and it's very entertaining in a heartwarming way. Even your facial expressions are different as you listen to him talk, and of course your reactions are a lot warmer and less harsh. It's gone from "He has his biases and I have mine" to "Look, we both want the same things."
You should DEFINITELY react to Historia Civilis Roman Elections videos. It's gonna be interesting to see a person defending the electoral votes system, seeing the structural bias of another system famous for some weird sort of gerrymandering (less territorial, much more wealth and socially based)
If the election based on popular vote, the campaigns would be 100% different like you mentioned. For example, in 2016 Donald Trump spent a ton of time in the Rust belt especially Wisconsin and Ohio. He did that specifically because of the EC. If the election was based on popular vote, Trump probably would have spent a lot of time campaigning in places like California and New York. The same would be true for the Democratic candidate. Hillary Clinton for example may have spent a lot more time campaigning in Texas or the deep South than she otherwise would have.
Not really. I mean sure, it would change and you would see some of that but the popular vote isn’t going to shift that much. People still think there are sooo many undecideds when in reality 95-98% of voters have made up their minds before the candidates are the candidates. You would see it more with Dems as the increased registration with youth/first time voters increasing in southern states and they’re overwhelmingly liberal/dem really everywhere. Turnout alone, without the EC, the GOP would switch to suppression as the #1 tactic.
You are correct. California actually has more registered republicans than any other state. A national popular vote would mean that candidates have to have policies that appeal to the whole country and it also would mean that everyone's vote counted equally, instead of giving land 2 or more times the voting power of individuals.
20:40 If I recall correctly the news called Florida for gore because they forgot that one part of the Florida panhandle is in central time and the polls hadn’t closed there yet. Making it seem like gore was way ahead.
That and there were an awful lot of Jewish folks who voted for Buchanan with the horrid butterfly ballot. But imagining the wars on a “hanging chad” now though.
That was interesting and fun to watch. In this day when everything seems unprecedented, it’s kinda comforting to know we’ve actually been through a lot of this before and the country survived.
I was born months before the 2000 election. That was the first historical event I lived through, not counting the Sydney Olympics. And when I was a teenager, I had an ice storm that knocked my power out for 1 whole week!
Hey I’m early! How’s everyone doing today? Fun fact about a random thing that happened on this day: In 1801: French Astronomer Jean Louis Pons makes his first comet discovery! Something relating to us history: In 1804: A duel occurs in which the Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.(This would later result in Hamilton’s death 1 day later)
I have to say you're the only person on TH-cam who does reaction videos that I like. I generally think they're a tacky and corny thing to do, but I enjoy yours.
I had to go look up Dan McLaughlin's list he made in 2021 (one that leaned more heavily on the Electoral College). His top 5 was 2000, 1884, 1876, 1916, and 1960. 1880 was all the way down at 13. And hypothetical scenarios aside, every candidate that has received 51% of the popular vote won the Electoral College as well.
I grew up in rural Illinois and my grandma always talked about how Dick Daley and the Chicago machine (which still largely runs the state to this day, see why so many of our public officials get in trouble) stole Illinois from Nixon in 1960. What’s funny is that she is a diehard Kennedy fan, voted for him, and still vehemently defends his legacy to this day. Love these kinds of videos!
The UK does not elect a leader whom they must stick with for four years. It's easier to remove a leader from office and even to repeat the election of Parliament. It's much worse when you have to stick with a guy that most people didn't even vote for so long. It's just unfair. At least have your parliament elect the president that they can remove from office at any time, so that it would be fair.
the 2000 election was crazy. This was the first election I paid any attention to. I was in 8th grade and the social studies teacher asked us to color in a US map as it was called in each state (red for Bush; blue for Gore). I stayed up so late that night waiting before giving up and just coloring Florida gray to turn it in the next day.
I used to think the 2016 election was a close election until this video. I always knew the 2000 election was very close even though I was too young to remember it. I guess there have been quite a few close elections in US history. As always great video Chris! And great video by Mr. Beat!
I live in Northeast Ohio too, and I have to say you are lucky if you only went without power for more than a day. It happened to me several times, but I was spared that ice storm in 2000 though.
Thanks for reviewing this video. I thought it was fun to see his top-5 picks! To this, however, I was hoping for a mention on the 1976 election - Ford vs. Carter. Yes, there’s a quick shot at the 2:17 mark … but, this was an election that was very close!!! - Neither Carter (297) nor Ford (240) cracked the 300 electoral vote threshold - the last time this didn’t happen. - Ford won more states - 27 for him, compared to 23 and D.C. for Carter. - Ford lost Ohio by 11,116 popular votes (25 electoral votes) and Mississippi by 14,463 votes (7 electoral votes). Mississippi was called for Carter the next morning. If Ford doesn’t blunder in a debate, I say he wins those two states and the ‘76 election.
I have to disagree with your claim that the electoral vote is "not that different" from a parliamentary system. Like you said, in a parliamentary system, the party with the most seats determines the prime minister; but every seat equals the exact same number of votes, meaning that every voter's vote has equal power. In the U.S, some voters' votes count disproportionately more than others', only because of where they live. That is extremely undemocratic.
Also I would say that the UK is one of the worst examples of the parlimentary system as it has a "first past the post" system similar to the US where the simple majority gets all the votes in the constituency/state. In many other countries they have a "Proportional representation" system where for example a party gets 30% of the votes in a state/constituencies that party gets 30% of the seats in that state/constituencies. This prevents a 2 party system as seen in the US and the UK. A "Proportional representation" system better represents the population.
@@mybox-Because both the Uk and US electoral system exist now to facilitate two party systems and the disenfranchisement of smaller parties (the latter for the UK)
I was only seven years old when the election of 2000 happened. I had zero exposure to it, at the time. Learning later on how contentious it was, was kind of surreal.
I would argue that there are two main defining differences between the electoral college and the parliamentary system: 1. The parliamentary system ensures that the Prime Minister is always in control of the government, arguably a more effective manner as it prevents situations that arise in the US where the executive and the legislative branches of government are directly in political opposition to each other (leading to government shutdowns and such) 2. The parliamentary system also allows for the existence of multiple parties as it does not become a race for a simple majority in seats, and rather coalitions can be made to ensure government can be formed. Note: I come at this from an Australian perspective of the parliamentary system - the main difference between us and the UK is we have an effective upper house as well as compulsory voting.
This was all really interesting and educational! Regarding the 2000 election and for all of the controversy surrounding Florida, if Gore had won his home state of Tennessee, there would have been no discussion about Florida. Tennessee was a state that Clinton carried in both 92 and 96.
The biggest issue with the counting of absentee ballots is the fact that every state differs in the way they count the ballots from counting absentee ballots first, simultaneously, or after votes cast on Election Day. It might come off as as less ‘nefarious’ if the rules for counting ballots were consistent from state to state
European living in America here. First of all, I love both of your channels and the respect for one another. I am also a fan of the electoral college like you, Christ, but I think the systems in Europe are noticeably different. In the UK, for example, there is a district for each MP (Member of Parliament), and there is an individual election for each seat, which means the winner takes it. The electoral college is in this sense different because the winner of the state takes all electoral votes rather than doing it by districts. Still, I partly agree with it not being as different as people might think!
You know what funny I was watching Beat livestream the other day someone brought up you two doing a live stream over the EC and you mentioned doing one. Kinda of funy to me.
6:00 As an Englishman I want to add that it is general consensus among most voters here that WE HATE THAT. The last election was the most disproportionate of all time between votes cast for a party, and the percentage of seats they got in parliament. The first past the post system in this country is awful, because it favours the two biggest parties just like in the US, which in my eyes is not at all representative of the countries electorate when realistically only two parties win.
@@TheLibermaniayes we do. The Liberal Democrat’s are the most historically third party. But our politics is such that even smaller parties are influential, like the Greens, SNP, Reform etc. But they would have even more influence representative of the country if we had proportional representation
@@jacobseager4897 Thank you. So it's no proportional representation. That's why i (as non british who doesn't look that much in british poltics) never heard of them as being relevant. Please take the word relevant not as the right word (i don't know the english word i think of), but i guess you get what i mean.
There are many Americans who also hate the system of electoral college as well! It’s fascinating to see how everyone feels about their system of government, thank you so much for sharing!
I was 13 in 2000 and remember having to color in the electoral map for my US History class. Needless to say NONE of us were happy about staying up until 2 AM with no final call on Florida.
I would say there is one major difference between the electoral college and parliaments is that Parliaments are usually not picking the head of state (ie, France’s President and UK’s monarchy serve as head of state, not the prime minister, while the US president is the head of state)
Committee member Frederick Frelinghausen would become Arthur’s Secretary of State. His big accomplishment was negotiating a treaty with Hawaii that allowed for the installation of Pearl Harbor. Yes, THAT Pearl Harbor. Also, the director of that Aaron Burr commercial? Michael Bay.
I would say in the context of presidential elections, to say the popular vote means nothing is probably a little bit of an overstatement. It doesn't mean anything in terms of winning that particular election, but it absolutely has implications on them. Usually the worse the performance is in the popular vote, the less of a mandate they will actually have to govern. The party who does better in the popular vote will typically (not always) do better in senate and house races, which are arguably more important than the election itself.
I think the most accurate way to define how "close" an american election was, it would be to break down the popular votes in each state and see what the difference was in key states. Suppose a candidate won by few electoral votes, but he had at least a 20% lead in every state he won. In this case, it would've been a close electoral college victory, but the key states were won with such ease that victory was a foregone conclusion. Conversely, a candidate could win by over a hundred electoral votes, but by having a lead of less than 0.1% in the decisive states. That would've been called a landslide, but I would say it was much more contested election.
As someone who just visited New Orleans in March, I can promise you 2 things. If you’re staying completely downtown, do not drive anywhere. Walk, Uber, or take public transport. Filled with one way streets and no pedestrian etiquette, you will be stuck in traffic a lot. Though great food, culture, and music!
Not only are today's Presidential elections the fairest and most transparent in history, they're also the most representative! Up until roughly the election of Jimmy Carter, while we did have primary elections, most were non-binding. The selection of "viable" candidates is still an issue today, but at least now when you vote in a primary it's actually doing something!
it really was the mindset of the people thatt ended reconstruction. Charles Sumner kept trying to get more civil rights passed through the senate but they kept getting tabled, because too many people in the senate and house wanted to move on to other matters.
The problem with the electoral college is not simply that it can give a different result than the popular vote. It makes the vote of someone in Wyoming count for more than someone in New York
But he lived in New Jersey near NYC. I believe in Orange but I might have the city wrong. I’ve tried to tour this home but Covid. He also was in charge of Princeton for a while
Chris, thank you so much for calling out the modern-day nonsense about stolen elections and nefarious stuff going on. I'm so tired of politicians (mostly on one side) and media (again, on one side) sensationalizing this untrustworthy/dangerous election BS.
This kinda of the sad part about people not many people are legit taught history so they don't really know how bad it once was outside of what they where told.
I would unironically love to see a video where you explain your reasons to support the electoral college ! As a European, I have to say, it does seem kinda alien to me haha. So I would love to hear more about why it was put in place in the first place !
At the beginning, as a way to help maintain separation of powers, the goal of the Constitution of 1787 was to make it so that no major office came from exactly the same source. House members were popularly elected. Senate members were selected by state legislatures. Electors were also selected by state legislatures, but were not themselves legislators (and technically had full discretion). The exact number of them meant that it was a body equal to the size of both houses of Congress but was not actually Congress. Why the disproportion? It was a compromise needed to get the smaller states to agree to the new Constitution at all. In the first few elections, each elector voted for TWO people. The one who received the most would be President, and the one who received the second-most became Vice President. The flaws of that system became quickly apparent. In 1796, John Adams got stuck with his political archrival Thomas Jefferson as his Vice President. Learning from this mistake, Jefferson's allies realized the only way to be sure Adams wouldn't be Jefferson's Vice President in 1800 would be to all pick the same SECOND choice as well. But then, technically, Aaron Burr had tied Jefferson, so the election got thrown to the House. To prevent that from ever happening again, the 12th Amendment introduced the Presidential ticket as we know it today, which meant far less for the electors to really deliberate. Gradually, candidates for state legislatures made Senate candidates into bargaining chips to gain those officers. The 17th Amendment just cut out the middleman in that case. As for electors, it gradually became standard for the legislatures to just send a slate of people who wanted the person who got the popular vote in their state to win. But the smaller states will never give up their Electoral College advantage. Even so, no candidate that has received 51% of the popular vote has ever failed to win the Electoral College as well. Hope that helps.
What would you think of the idea of keeping the electoral vote but getting rid of the electors themselves? That way, each candidate actually gets the votes awarded to them by the voters without the threat of faithless electors.
My first Presidential election was 1988. I was eligible in the November general election but got no vote in any 1988 Primary. Only time I ever voted on a switch flipper machine. I never saw that again.
When talking about the election of 2000, one state that seems to always get overlooked is West Virginia. If you look at WV voting record it was a reliable Democrat state, it was even one of the six states that voted for Carter in the 1980 election. But then in 2000 it made a complete 180 and voted Republican and became a safe red state since then. And how many electoral votes did WV have? 5. Bush would not have won had he not flipped WV, but we always ignore it since Bush won it by a wide margin and we forget that it was a safe blue in the previous election.
22:00 Ohio has voted for the eventual winner in every election since the rise of the 2-party system in 1860 except for 1856, 1944, 1960, and 2020. All of those elections except for 1944 have been extremely contested in terms of their validity and fairness.
I have something in the works hopefully soon. Going to collaborate with a professor who specializes in the subject and heads the research department at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
Well I guess we have to debate the Electoral College 😇
Why?
I absolutely would love to see a cordial debate between you two on that, Matt. I am a conservative, but your video on the Electoral College almost had me convinced!
We are having the same issues here in the UK Mr Beat. Labour just won the election on 34% of the vote but got 64% of the Seats.
Not the same issue as the Electoral college but when we Liberal Democrats were splitting the vote from the left and centre but we're calling for some form of proportional representation it got ignored but now that a right wing Party called Reform UK split the right vote people suddenly are interested in PR.
Would be down for that. So far I haven’t heard any convincing argument that the Electoral College should be abolished.
Personally I think whether we should make a change is a question of what the current system should be replaced with because each possible solution I've heard has its flaws. It's kind of like the Daylight Savings debate. Everyone hates changing the clocks twice a year, but no one can agree on whether to go to Daylight Savings or Standard Time all year, so we just leave it as is.
It’s kinda funny to me how the election in which Rutherford Hayes won seems more known about and discussed than Hayes’s own presidency following the election
to be fair, the election might have been more impactful than anything Hayes did in his presidency
@@KingArthur39 Tell that to Paraguay. XD
@Paraguay the election might have been more impactful than anything Hayes did in his presidency
@@pepperjack2410 🤣🤣🤣 Who doesn't love dad jokes?
I guess 1824 and John Quincy Adams would work with that as well.
Yours and Mr Beat's Friendship is one of my absolute FAVORITE things about The Internet as a whole honestly.
Despite Your firm convictions and disagreements on certain issues, You both don't allow that to get in the way of a good friendship, and are a great example to be set that just because we may disagree, doesn't mean we have to become disagreeable.
Props to the both of You, and May Yours And Your Families' lives be blessed with good health, and happiness!
Man I forgot how busy Chris is he is traveling like crazy!
What I hate about the election of 2000 is that no one ever talks about West Virginia. What was once a major blue state, and if Gore won West Virginia he would be president. Yet it went bush by 40,978 votes.
If Gore won his home state of Tennessee he would’ve been president. If he won New Hampshire he would’ve been president. The thing is, this election was really close, until you look at the states and truly realize how close it truly was.
@@mrairbusa380jr The key difference is West Virginia was a reliably Blue state. It only voted Republican 3 times in for Republican since 1932 before this election. Now it's a solid red state and it all started in this Election.
@@TheGambler265 the shifts for all the states, democratic and republican is insane.
Thanks!
My favourite type of video - A presidental history by Mr Beat and reaction by Chris
Thanks again for the great content Chris, and @MrBeat!
Get ready for the humidity. It will be like nothing you have felt before.
I already feel it. Got 2 straight weeks of rain each day and that's already coming back to beat us.
I’d love to see VTH do a reaction to the video ‘know your allies: Britain’. It’s an informational video made by the war department to educate their troops on who they’re fighting with and against and it’s a really interesting insight into how 40’s America viewed Britain and in some ways how little Britain has changed.
Always love it when vth and mr beat crossover even if it’s just a reaction. Two amazing guys who know a lot about my favorite topics!
I was just watching the 10 questions livestream you guys did at the beginning of the year and was thinking to myself "we need another VTH + Mr. Beat crossover," when I saw this dropped. My favorite combo in all of History TH-cam
Thank you for a fantastic presentation by both of you.
5 of the "failed" Presidential Candidates were Democrats who won the Popular Vote in their elections but lost the Electoral College Vote; Jackson lost to Adams Jr. in 1824, Tilden lost to Hayes in 1876, Cleveland lost to Harrison in 1888, Gore lost to Bush Jr. in 2000, & Clinton lost to Trump in 2016.
True, but some of those were before the party switch.
@@IconicFootballthat never happened
@@IconicFootball Party switch is a dramatic oversimplifiction as well as an anachronism ascribing modern conceptions of "progressive" and "conservative" to ideologies in the 19th century
@@langdonledwig3734party switch absolutely happened. It wasn’t overnight, but it absolutely was very real.
@@Gabriel2oh6 it absolutely didn’t happen
Please do an Electoral College debate with Mr. Beat this year!!!!
It’s pointless because the EC is not going anywhere
@@williamwallaceoftheus8033 it is still nice to see both of their differing arguments and perspectives on it.
I would also like to see this
@@williamwallaceoftheus8033 Agreed, the EC isn't going anywhere. And shouldn't. But "winner-take-all" delegate allocation at the state level is not constitutionally mandated. In fact, only 48 of 50 states do it this way; Maine and Nebraska allocate proportionally. THAT is what needs to be looked at closer. The ire against the EC is understandable but misplaced.
@@cragnamorra THANK YOU!! I've said this for years.
I watched your first two reactions to Mr Beat (Bottom 10 Presidents and Top 10 Presidents) from back when you didn't know him and now am watching some of these recorded since you've become friends, and it's very entertaining in a heartwarming way. Even your facial expressions are different as you listen to him talk, and of course your reactions are a lot warmer and less harsh. It's gone from "He has his biases and I have mine" to "Look, we both want the same things."
I think we should view a presidential election as 50 separate or elections rather than one election as a whole.
Dang good job on Mr Beat for the color grading and production. That camera and coloring made the shirt look incredible lol
You should DEFINITELY react to Historia Civilis Roman Elections videos.
It's gonna be interesting to see a person defending the electoral votes system, seeing the structural bias of another system famous for some weird sort of gerrymandering (less territorial, much more wealth and socially based)
Love your channel! I would love to see you and Mr. Beat debate the electoral college.
27:04 Hey, I don't know if anyone else commented on this yet, but it was Levi P. Morton who was vice president, not Oliver Morton
19:01 And the first election Mr. Beat was alive for was 1984, in 1984 could not have been more different than 2000 in terms of results. 😂
If the election based on popular vote, the campaigns would be 100% different like you mentioned. For example, in 2016 Donald Trump spent a ton of time in the Rust belt especially Wisconsin and Ohio. He did that specifically because of the EC. If the election was based on popular vote, Trump probably would have spent a lot of time campaigning in places like California and New York. The same would be true for the Democratic candidate. Hillary Clinton for example may have spent a lot more time campaigning in Texas or the deep South than she otherwise would have.
Yeah it would. Sadly we have political machines that prevent candidates from winning certain places so it would be harder to win
Not really. I mean sure, it would change and you would see some of that but the popular vote isn’t going to shift that much. People still think there are sooo many undecideds when in reality 95-98% of voters have made up their minds before the candidates are the candidates. You would see it more with Dems as the increased registration with youth/first time voters increasing in southern states and they’re overwhelmingly liberal/dem really everywhere. Turnout alone, without the EC, the GOP would switch to suppression as the #1 tactic.
You are correct. California actually has more registered republicans than any other state. A national popular vote would mean that candidates have to have policies that appeal to the whole country and it also would mean that everyone's vote counted equally, instead of giving land 2 or more times the voting power of individuals.
20:40 If I recall correctly the news called Florida for gore because they forgot that one part of the Florida panhandle is in central time and the polls hadn’t closed there yet. Making it seem like gore was way ahead.
Indeed. I remember that. I figured that might keep the major news channels from calling states before the polls closed. But...
That and there were an awful lot of Jewish folks who voted for Buchanan with the horrid butterfly ballot. But imagining the wars on a “hanging chad” now though.
That was interesting and fun to watch. In this day when everything seems unprecedented, it’s kinda comforting to know we’ve actually been through a lot of this before and the country survived.
I was born months before the 2000 election. That was the first historical event I lived through, not counting the Sydney Olympics. And when I was a teenager, I had an ice storm that knocked my power out for 1 whole week!
Can we get a Extra Credits Joan of Arc reaction?
That'd be really cool
Hey I’m early! How’s everyone doing today? Fun fact about a random thing that happened on this day:
In 1801: French Astronomer Jean Louis Pons makes his first comet discovery!
Something relating to us history:
In 1804: A duel occurs in which the Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.(This would later result in Hamilton’s death 1 day later)
I have to say you're the only person on TH-cam who does reaction videos that I like. I generally think they're a tacky and corny thing to do, but I enjoy yours.
I had to go look up Dan McLaughlin's list he made in 2021 (one that leaned more heavily on the Electoral College). His top 5 was 2000, 1884, 1876, 1916, and 1960. 1880 was all the way down at 13.
And hypothetical scenarios aside, every candidate that has received 51% of the popular vote won the Electoral College as well.
My two favorite U.S. history youtubers 🙏🏼
I grew up in rural Illinois and my grandma always talked about how Dick Daley and the Chicago machine (which still largely runs the state to this day, see why so many of our public officials get in trouble) stole Illinois from Nixon in 1960. What’s funny is that she is a diehard Kennedy fan, voted for him, and still vehemently defends his legacy to this day.
Love these kinds of videos!
Would love to see more collabs with mr beat in the future
that commercial was directed by Michael Bay
no idea if he ended up doing anything afterwards
So interesting learning how the sausage gets made. Lots of things I never would have thought about in this video.
The UK does not elect a leader whom they must stick with for four years. It's easier to remove a leader from office and even to repeat the election of Parliament. It's much worse when you have to stick with a guy that most people didn't even vote for so long. It's just unfair. At least have your parliament elect the president that they can remove from office at any time, so that it would be fair.
Hey Chris, can you do Micheal Knowles’ president tier list? I think you might be more shocked with his than with Shapiro’s or Idubbz’s.
There is a reason I call him Michael Know Less
the 2000 election was crazy. This was the first election I paid any attention to. I was in 8th grade and the social studies teacher asked us to color in a US map as it was called in each state (red for Bush; blue for Gore). I stayed up so late that night waiting before giving up and just coloring Florida gray to turn it in the next day.
Nice video cris🎉
2:47, Mr. Beats face lol 😂
Talking about how the 2000’s election was a wild one to place your first vote for is cool. My first was 2020, which was also quite the doozy.
I used to think the 2016 election was a close election until this video. I always knew the 2000 election was very close even though I was too young to remember it. I guess there have been quite a few close elections in US history. As always great video Chris! And great video by Mr. Beat!
Best bromance on the internet
I live in Northeast Ohio too, and I have to say you are lucky if you only went without power for more than a day. It happened to me several times, but I was spared that ice storm in 2000 though.
Would love to see a video of you and Mr Beat discussing the pros and cons of the electoral college!
Thanks for reviewing this video. I thought it was fun to see his top-5 picks!
To this, however, I was hoping for a mention on the 1976 election - Ford vs. Carter. Yes, there’s a quick shot at the 2:17 mark … but, this was an election that was very close!!!
- Neither Carter (297) nor Ford (240) cracked the 300 electoral vote threshold - the last time this didn’t happen.
- Ford won more states - 27 for him, compared to 23 and D.C. for Carter.
- Ford lost Ohio by 11,116 popular votes (25 electoral votes) and Mississippi by 14,463 votes (7 electoral votes). Mississippi was called for Carter the next morning. If Ford doesn’t blunder in a debate, I say he wins those two states and the ‘76 election.
I have to disagree with your claim that the electoral vote is "not that different" from a parliamentary system. Like you said, in a parliamentary system, the party with the most seats determines the prime minister; but every seat equals the exact same number of votes, meaning that every voter's vote has equal power. In the U.S, some voters' votes count disproportionately more than others', only because of where they live. That is extremely undemocratic.
If you live in Wyoming your vote weighs 3.6 times that of a Californian. Such absurdity doesn't exist in parliamentary systems.
@@Moribunny If you're a Republican in California or a Democrat in Wyoming, your vote doesn't count at all.
Also I would say that the UK is one of the worst examples of the parlimentary system as it has a "first past the post" system similar to the US where the simple majority gets all the votes in the constituency/state. In many other countries they have a "Proportional representation" system where for example a party gets 30% of the votes in a state/constituencies that party gets 30% of the seats in that state/constituencies. This prevents a 2 party system as seen in the US and the UK. A "Proportional representation" system better represents the population.
How weird that our government that has never been a democracy doesn’t function like one.
@@mybox-Because both the Uk and US electoral system exist now to facilitate two party systems and the disenfranchisement of smaller parties (the latter for the UK)
I was only seven years old when the election of 2000 happened. I had zero exposure to it, at the time. Learning later on how contentious it was, was kind of surreal.
I would argue that there are two main defining differences between the electoral college and the parliamentary system:
1. The parliamentary system ensures that the Prime Minister is always in control of the government, arguably a more effective manner as it prevents situations that arise in the US where the executive and the legislative branches of government are directly in political opposition to each other (leading to government shutdowns and such)
2. The parliamentary system also allows for the existence of multiple parties as it does not become a race for a simple majority in seats, and rather coalitions can be made to ensure government can be formed.
Note: I come at this from an Australian perspective of the parliamentary system - the main difference between us and the UK is we have an effective upper house as well as compulsory voting.
I live in New Orleans. Hope you enjoy your time here.
We might have another really close one this year.
This was all really interesting and educational! Regarding the 2000 election and for all of the controversy surrounding Florida, if Gore had won his home state of Tennessee, there would have been no discussion about Florida. Tennessee was a state that Clinton carried in both 92 and 96.
New Orleans is a beautiful city. I live just north in Baton Rouge. Stay safe and be prepared for the heat. It’s sooo hot and humid.
The biggest issue with the counting of absentee ballots is the fact that every state differs in the way they count the ballots from counting absentee ballots first, simultaneously, or after votes cast on Election Day. It might come off as as less ‘nefarious’ if the rules for counting ballots were consistent from state to state
European living in America here. First of all, I love both of your channels and the respect for one another. I am also a fan of the electoral college like you, Christ, but I think the systems in Europe are noticeably different. In the UK, for example, there is a district for each MP (Member of Parliament), and there is an individual election for each seat, which means the winner takes it. The electoral college is in this sense different because the winner of the state takes all electoral votes rather than doing it by districts. Still, I partly agree with it not being as different as people might think!
You know what funny I was watching Beat livestream the other day someone brought up you two doing a live stream over the EC and you mentioned doing one. Kinda of funy to me.
6:00 As an Englishman I want to add that it is general consensus among most voters here that WE HATE THAT. The last election was the most disproportionate of all time between votes cast for a party, and the percentage of seats they got in parliament. The first past the post system in this country is awful, because it favours the two biggest parties just like in the US, which in my eyes is not at all representative of the countries electorate when realistically only two parties win.
Serious question, do you guys have more (serious) parties than just the two big ones?
@@TheLibermania Yes
@@TheLibermaniayes we do. The Liberal Democrat’s are the most historically third party. But our politics is such that even smaller parties are influential, like the Greens, SNP, Reform etc. But they would have even more influence representative of the country if we had proportional representation
@@jacobseager4897 Thank you.
So it's no proportional representation. That's why i (as non british who doesn't look that much in british poltics) never heard of them as being relevant.
Please take the word relevant not as the right word (i don't know the english word i think of), but i guess you get what i mean.
There are many Americans who also hate the system of electoral college as well! It’s fascinating to see how everyone feels about their system of government, thank you so much for sharing!
I was 13 in 2000 and remember having to color in the electoral map for my US History class. Needless to say NONE of us were happy about staying up until 2 AM with no final call on Florida.
7:50
You forgot 2016
I would say there is one major difference between the electoral college and parliaments is that Parliaments are usually not picking the head of state (ie, France’s President and UK’s monarchy serve as head of state, not the prime minister, while the US president is the head of state)
I really liked the football analogy. Loved ❤ the video
Committee member Frederick Frelinghausen would become Arthur’s Secretary of State. His big accomplishment was negotiating a treaty with Hawaii that allowed for the installation of Pearl Harbor. Yes, THAT Pearl Harbor.
Also, the director of that Aaron Burr commercial? Michael Bay.
Cleveland was born in New Jersey, but he was raised in New York from childhood.
VTH reacting to Mr. Beat again? I knew it was going to be a good day.
2:44 I'd love to see you and Mr. Beat do a video together where you guys discuss the Electoral College
I would say in the context of presidential elections, to say the popular vote means nothing is probably a little bit of an overstatement. It doesn't mean anything in terms of winning that particular election, but it absolutely has implications on them. Usually the worse the performance is in the popular vote, the less of a mandate they will actually have to govern. The party who does better in the popular vote will typically (not always) do better in senate and house races, which are arguably more important than the election itself.
I recommend checking out Brandon Herrera’s election for district 23 in Texas it’s a smaller election for the house but still incredibly close.
An election that close just for Paraguay to be the only place that remembers Hayes.
I think the most accurate way to define how "close" an american election was, it would be to break down the popular votes in each state and see what the difference was in key states. Suppose a candidate won by few electoral votes, but he had at least a 20% lead in every state he won. In this case, it would've been a close electoral college victory, but the key states were won with such ease that victory was a foregone conclusion. Conversely, a candidate could win by over a hundred electoral votes, but by having a lead of less than 0.1% in the decisive states. That would've been called a landslide, but I would say it was much more contested election.
As someone who just visited New Orleans in March, I can promise you 2 things. If you’re staying completely downtown, do not drive anywhere. Walk, Uber, or take public transport. Filled with one way streets and no pedestrian etiquette, you will be stuck in traffic a lot. Though great food, culture, and music!
Not only are today's Presidential elections the fairest and most transparent in history, they're also the most representative! Up until roughly the election of Jimmy Carter, while we did have primary elections, most were non-binding. The selection of "viable" candidates is still an issue today, but at least now when you vote in a primary it's actually doing something!
David Davis mansion here in Bloomington Illinois 🎉
it really was the mindset of the people thatt ended reconstruction. Charles Sumner kept trying to get more civil rights passed through the senate but they kept getting tabled, because too many people in the senate and house wanted to move on to other matters.
You should do a reaction to Potential history's battle of Gettysburg video that came out a month ago.
The popular vote should be the deciding factor period!
But what if the people choose wrong
Sorry but no
Why?
No because politicians could basically start buying votes in bigger states and cities.
@@supereero9 What does that even mean?
I think one way that might help, is if the results are not released until all votes are counted.
love ya chris
Football electoral college analogy is fantastic.
The problem with the electoral college is not simply that it can give a different result than the popular vote. It makes the vote of someone in Wyoming count for more than someone in New York
I love Gary! Have a great trip.
I wonder what the % of voters was for all the elections
What's the commercial at 33:00?
Enjoyed this video!
What are your thoughts on rank based voting?
Like Mr. Beat, 2000 was the first presidential election I could vote in. Won't ever forget it, lol.
12:45 Grover Cleveland was from Buffalo
But he lived in New Jersey near NYC. I believe in Orange but I might have the city wrong. I’ve tried to tour this home but Covid. He also was in charge of Princeton for a while
Britisher here. You are right. Our electoral system sucks as well.
Chris, thank you so much for calling out the modern-day nonsense about stolen elections and nefarious stuff going on. I'm so tired of politicians (mostly on one side) and media (again, on one side) sensationalizing this untrustworthy/dangerous election BS.
This kinda of the sad part about people not many people are legit taught history so they don't really know how bad it once was outside of what they where told.
I would unironically love to see a video where you explain your reasons to support the electoral college ! As a European, I have to say, it does seem kinda alien to me haha. So I would love to hear more about why it was put in place in the first place !
At the beginning, as a way to help maintain separation of powers, the goal of the Constitution of 1787 was to make it so that no major office came from exactly the same source. House members were popularly elected. Senate members were selected by state legislatures. Electors were also selected by state legislatures, but were not themselves legislators (and technically had full discretion). The exact number of them meant that it was a body equal to the size of both houses of Congress but was not actually Congress. Why the disproportion? It was a compromise needed to get the smaller states to agree to the new Constitution at all.
In the first few elections, each elector voted for TWO people. The one who received the most would be President, and the one who received the second-most became Vice President. The flaws of that system became quickly apparent. In 1796, John Adams got stuck with his political archrival Thomas Jefferson as his Vice President. Learning from this mistake, Jefferson's allies realized the only way to be sure Adams wouldn't be Jefferson's Vice President in 1800 would be to all pick the same SECOND choice as well. But then, technically, Aaron Burr had tied Jefferson, so the election got thrown to the House. To prevent that from ever happening again, the 12th Amendment introduced the Presidential ticket as we know it today, which meant far less for the electors to really deliberate.
Gradually, candidates for state legislatures made Senate candidates into bargaining chips to gain those officers. The 17th Amendment just cut out the middleman in that case. As for electors, it gradually became standard for the legislatures to just send a slate of people who wanted the person who got the popular vote in their state to win. But the smaller states will never give up their Electoral College advantage. Even so, no candidate that has received 51% of the popular vote has ever failed to win the Electoral College as well.
Hope that helps.
@@ShadowOfCicero That's really interesting, thanks !
What would you think of the idea of keeping the electoral vote but getting rid of the electors themselves? That way, each candidate actually gets the votes awarded to them by the voters without the threat of faithless electors.
In my opinion it should be popular vote not electoral college
Condorcet paradox .. educate yourself
So that the cities on the coast can decide everything? 🤡
You would be incorrect.
@@alexfilma16it's lie , watch Mr. Beat video on electoral college
@@Southern-t9t random shit paradox , educate urself
My first Presidential election was 1988. I was eligible in the November general election but got no vote in any 1988 Primary. Only time I ever voted on a switch flipper machine. I never saw that again.
Chris, you got to react to 55 Folks - "The Most Decisive 37 Weeks in American History". Its very good and I think you will like it.
I'd say losing the election, becoming a Senator, and you know... living.... would've been a better deal for Garfeild.
When talking about the election of 2000, one state that seems to always get overlooked is West Virginia. If you look at WV voting record it was a reliable Democrat state, it was even one of the six states that voted for Carter in the 1980 election. But then in 2000 it made a complete 180 and voted Republican and became a safe red state since then. And how many electoral votes did WV have? 5. Bush would not have won had he not flipped WV, but we always ignore it since Bush won it by a wide margin and we forget that it was a safe blue in the previous election.
22:00 Ohio has voted for the eventual winner in every election since the rise of the 2-party system in 1860 except for 1856, 1944, 1960, and 2020. All of those elections except for 1944 have been extremely contested in terms of their validity and fairness.
New Orleans is a beautiful place, great food too.
You should try to hang out with Andy from Atun-Shei. He lives in New Orleans.
My mom used to tell me how my extended family were running moonshine to buy Kennedy (among others) votes down in Logan/Mingo/Cabbell counties in WV.
Chris, could you do a video about why reconstruction didn’t work?
I have something in the works hopefully soon. Going to collaborate with a professor who specializes in the subject and heads the research department at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
New Orleans, maybe hang out with Atun-Shei? Would be a interesting and fun video.