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The American Political Almanac
RECONSTRUCTION & THE GILDED AGETHE SYSTEM OF 1896THE NEW DEAL ORDERTHE LONG REALIGNMENTPOLARIZED ERA1868RRRRD1888RDRRR1908RDDRR1928RDDDD1948DRRDD1968RRDRR1988RDDRR2008DDRD2024R

The Nation Decides

Electoral votes, the popular vote, and how every state moved
Horatio Seymour
Democrat
Horatio Seymour
80
Electoral votes
47.3% · 2,729,129
President · Reconstruction & the Gilded Age

1868

Grant def. Seymour, 214–80
vote totals summed from county returns
✓ Won
Ulysses S. Grant
Republican
Ulysses S. Grant
214
Electoral votes
52.7% · 3,022,063
Electoral college — 148 to win (294 electors)80 D · 214 R
Popular vote47.3% · 52.7% · margin R+5.4

5,749,882 votes counted (summed from counties)

Electoral map — one tile per state · coloured by county-summed popular vote
R+40D+40third party won

Per-state electoral vote detail is staged from 1976; earlier years show the national college in the bar above, and states are coloured by their county-summed popular vote.

The Map Beneath the Map

Three thousand counties, and the demography of the divide

Every county that cast a ballot, shaded by its margin. Hover any county to read it; click to open its 156-year profile. Scrub the timeline above and the map redraws in place. Vote counts exist for all forty elections; the demographic lenses begin in 2000.

County margin

Drawing three thousand counties…

R+40D+40no returns

Who voted for whom? The survey record begins with the 1948 ANES — there is no comparable individual-level account of the 1868 electorate.

Notes on this election

  • First presidential election of Reconstruction. Texas, Mississippi, and Virginia had not been readmitted and did not vote.