Even when they win, Republicans are losers—and have been for 20 years

As fickle as recent election cycles are, one undeniable trend has emerged: Democrats have won the national popular vote in seven out of the past eight presidential elections, while Republicans won it just once, in 2004.

Across those eight elections, though, Republican candidates claimed the presidency three times due to the Electoral College. And because of this system, Democrats’ huge margins of victory in high-population states, like California, don’t benefit them any more than if they’d won those states by a handful of votes. 

The 2004 election marked a high point for Republicans, with then-President George W. Bush winning the popular vote by 3 million and taking 286 votes in the Electoral College (out of the 270 necessary to win).