No Democrat has won a majority of the nationwide popular vote since 1976. No Democrat has won more than 50.1% of the nationwide popular vote since 1964. 4 different Republicans have won a majority of the popular vote since 1964, 3 having done it since 1976; Ronald Reagan won a majority of the popular vote twice.
Obviously, the presence of a significant 3rd party candidate in '92 and '96 was wheat kept Clinton from getting 50%. He remained quite popular throughout his presidency, save from the period from early '94 to when the GOP leadership forced the go'vt shutdown in '95. Clearly, the gold standard for popularity remains Reagan during most of his presidency.
He took a lot of votes from everybody (what did he get in 1992, 18%?), just more from Bush Sr. Perot was more of a conservative, so he appealed to Bush's crowd, but as a 3rd party candidate, he also appealed to the disenfranchised, which was a rather large group throughout the 90's.
Well yeah, that's why I said "interesting little fact" instead of "mathematical proof that Democrats suck!" I *head explodes* Sincerely, Al Gore
this isn't interesting at all. What is more interesting is when a president wins the election despite losing the popular vote. Reeps keep repeating this latest fact, as if it somehow makes up for losing the POP vote 4 years ago. All it means is that there wasn't a strong 3rd party candidate this go around and the population as a whole really came out to the polls in force.