The Seven Biggest Presidential Blowouts in U.S. History

1. 1820: 231�1
(99.57 percent of the electoral vote)

The United States in 1820 was showing signs of the divisions that would result in the Civil War four decades later. Foremost of these was the Missouri Compromise. Missouri was one of four new states carved out of the Northwest Territory and the Louisiana Territory. The others were Alabama, Illinois, and Mississippi. (Also at this time, Maine was its own state, out of the shadow of Massachusetts.) Maine came into the Union as a "free state," and Missouri was admitted as a "slave state," furthering the division between North and South.

This wasn't evident in the presidential election campaign, however. The Federalist Party was in decline, and incumbent President James Monroe ran for re-election unopposed. He and others in the Democratic-Republican Party labeled Monroe's term the "Era of Good Feelings."

Monroe won the electoral votes of all 24 states and would have received all 232 votes if one elector from New Hampshire hadn't cast his vote for John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State. Thus, George Washington remains the only President elected unanimously.

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David White