There has been a push to move more toward a popular vote system for electing the president rather than the existing electoral college. This proposal really came to life in the wake of the 2000 election where Al Gore got more votes but George W Bush had more electoral votes. A number of states have agreed to allocate electoral votes based on the popular vote rather than winner-take-all. This is a bad idea but the current system is a hard sell to the casual voter. However, what if such a system had been in place for the last 100 years or so. Here are the new results:
1912: Thanks to Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party, the Republican vote was split and no one won a majority of the popular vote, though Wilson had the plurality at 41.8% Dividing the electoral votes on that basis, no one wins. The House - run by the Democrats - select Woodrow Wilson as President. However, the Senate - run by Republicans - chose Nicholas Butler (Taft's running mate) - as the new Vice President.
1916: Running for re-election, Woodrow Wilson failed to win a majority of votes but again had a plurality of 49.2%. Fortunately, the House and Senate are both controlled by the Democrats and he is selected for his second term with a Democrat VP this time.
1948: Truman fails to win a majority of votes but does get a plurality of 49.6%. However, both the House and the Senate are controlled by Republicans so Dewey really does win!
1960: JFK has a narrow lead (49.7% vs. 49.6%) over Nixon in the popular vote but didn't win a majority. As such, the election goes to the Democrat-controlled House and Senate who select JFK and LBJ.
1968: Though Nixon emerged with a plurality of 43.4% of the vote, the Democratically-controlled House and Senate select Hubert Humphrey.
1992: Bill Clinton won a plurality of 43% and the Democrat Congress selects him and Al Gore as President and VP.
1996: Though Bill Clinton won a plurality of votes (49.2%), the Republican-controlled Congress select Bob Dole as President.
2000: Al Gore wins plurality of the votes (48.4%) but the Republican-controlled Congress selects George W. Bush as President.
In every other election, the winner also had more than 50% of the popular vote. It should be noted that in 4 cases (1916, 1960, 1992, 2000) the results are unchanged though the person who "won" would have been harmed by having been selected by Congress. Also, three out of four of these cases would have hurt the Democrats. In the other four cases, the results change. The Republicans would have benefited from 1916, 1948, and 1996. Democrats would have benefited in 1968. Of course, all of those flipped elections would have been deemed corrupt.
Looking at the history, it does seem strange that those most supportive of using the popular vote are the very people who would have done worse under it.
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