Polling for United States presidential elections
[5] Roosevelt won in the largest landslide since the uncontested 1820 election, winning every state except Maine and Vermont, since his New Deal programs were popular with the American people (apart from the respondents to the Literary Digest poll).
Willkie unsuccessfully attacked Roosevelt for seeking a third term and accused him of trying to turn the United States into a dictatorship by refusing to leave office.
Roosevelt maintained a consistent (although sometimes narrow) lead in the polls, and won a solid victory due to American success in World War II and his continued popularity.
[11] After consistently leading in the polls by large margins, incumbent President Eisenhower was easily re-elected due to economic prosperity at home and the end of the Korean War abroad.
[14] Incumbent President Johnson maintained a large lead in the polls and won in a landslide due to popular sympathy after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a good economy, lack of severe foreign problems, and an effective campaign to portray Goldwater as a dangerous, out-of-touch extremist.
Incumbent President Nixon was re-elected in a landslide, winning every state except Massachusetts after maintaining a large poll lead due to the economic recovery from the 1969–1970 recession and his portrayal of McGovern as a foreign-policy lightweight and social radical ("amnesty, abortion, and acid").
He was hurt by his comment that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and ran out of time to close the polling gap with Carter, who won by a narrow margin.
Reagan ran an upbeat campaign focused on fixing the economy and restoring America's image, diminished by Watergate and the war in Vietnam.
His challenger was former Vice President Walter Mondale, who advocated a nuclear freeze, the Equal Rights Amendment and a balanced budget.
Mondale's unpopular proposal to raise taxes to reduce the deficit and association with the Carter administration's "malaise" largely doomed his campaign from the start.
The polls fluctuated during the spring and early summer, with incumbent President Bush and independent challenger Ross Perot trading the lead.
Incumbent President Clinton held a comfortable lead in the polls throughout the campaign due to the good economy, stable international situation, and tying Dole to Newt Gingrich (the unpopular speaker of the House), easily winning the general election.
[4] President Obama and his campaign aired early negative ads calling Republican challenger Mitt Romney an out-of-touch, plutocratic, wealthy job destroyer since his days as CEO at Bain Capital.
He was also hurt by the release of a speech he delivered at a campaign fundraiser in which suggested that 47 percent of Americans, who did not pay federal income taxes, would "vote for the President, no matter what" because they felt "entitled to health care, to food, to housing - you name it."
Trump won over many white, blue-collar workers in the Great Lakes and Rust Belt regions (former Democratic strongholds), enabling him to win the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by slightly over two percent.
Although the polls had underestimated Trump's strength nationally and in Ohio, Florida, and Iowa, Biden won back the blue Midwestern states and made inroads in the Sun Belt to win the election.
