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Presidential Election Trivia

By Paula Green



Four years have passed, and we find ourselves amid another Presidential Election. When Americans head to the polls on November 5, they’ll either vote for Republican candidate Donald Trump or Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. In addition, a few other third-party candidates will be on the ballot.  


                This year marks the sixtieth time Americans have chosen the President. The voting process began in 1789, and it can be complicated. On Election Day, voters go to the polls and cast their vote for their preferred candidate. The voters elect their President and Vice President indirectly. The Electoral College chooses the commander-in-chief and the vice president. A candidate must “win” at least 270 electors to become President. On the electoral map, red represents the Republicans and blue is for the Democrats.


                Five times, a candidate lost the popular vote but received enough electoral votes to win the presidency. The victors were John Quincy Adams (1824), Rutherford B. Hayes (1876), Benjamin Harrison (1888), George W. Bush (2000), and Donald Trump (2016). These presidents aren’t alone in unusual election stories. Harry Truman won in 1948 despite a newspaper (Chicago Daily Tribune) announcing Thomas Dewey as the winner.


  Election Day is known as “Super Tuesday.” In 1845, Congress decided that voting day would be the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, after the fall harvest and before winter conditions made travel too difficult.


Cartoonist Thomas Nash is credited with creating the Republican and Democratic symbols, the elephant and the donkey. In 1874, Nash satirized the political parties in a Harper's Weekly magazine cartoon. Soon, people everywhere began using those symbols to represent the parties.


Our fair city initiated a means of posting election results.  Pittsburgh was the location of the first commercial radio broadcast in the U.S. When KDKA hit the air on November 2, 1920, it shared the presidential election results between Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox.

  Since we’ve delved into Super Tuesday, we must now select the answers to this election query. Get set to don those thinking caps because it's time to get a little trivial.


  1. He was the only U.S. president who didn’t represent a political party. Two times, he was elected unanimously, receiving every electoral vote.


  2. Who was the only president to be elected from Pennsylvania? 


  3. In 1872, Victoria Woodhull was the first female ever to do what?


  4. Name the only president to be elected to two non-consecutive terms. He served as the 

       22nd and 24th president. 


  5. Which Constitutional Amendment ensured women the right to vote? The bill passed on August 26, 1919.


  6. Adlai E. Stevenson lost two elections (1952 & 1956) to the same man. Who was the victor?


  7. In 1971, the US lowered the voting age to 18; what was the age before?


  8. After losing 49 states in the 1984 presidential election and then a Minnesota Senate race in 2002, what man became the only person to lose a statewide election in every US state?


  9. In 1992 and 1996, this candidate of the Reform Party won 9% and 19% percent of the vote. 


10. A contingent election is when no candidate reaches the majority of the electoral votes. A special vote by which governing branch then decides the President?


11. This consumer advocate ran for President in 1996, 2000, and 2004 under the Green and Reform  party lines.


12. The 2000 U.S. presidential election (George W. Bush and Al Gore) was decided by a 

       controversial Supreme Court decision following a recount of votes in what state? 


13. At age 43, he was the youngest person elected President.


14. He was the only person who served as president and vice president without being elected to either office.


15. Who was the only man to be elected twice as US Vice President and twice as President of the United States?



Answers: 1. George Washington 2. James Buchanan 3. run for the US presidency 4. Grover Cleveland 5. 19th Amendment 6. Dwight D. Eisenhower 7. 21 8. Walter Mondale 9. Ross Perot 10. House of Representatives 11. Ralph Nader 12. Florida 13. John F. Kennedy 14. Gerald Ford 15. Richard Nixon




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