Greatest electoral upset

[Kaine for Senate '18]

1948, obviously.

[defe07]

1948, obviously.

I'm willing to agree with you because 1948 was a funny election. Everyone went to bed thinking, with the results that were coming in, that Dewey would be Pres but woke up with Truman. I don't know if any other election had something similar.

[Sasquatch]

1948.

Another one I would bring up would be 1980. From what I've read days going into election day it was a 2-3% spread and then landslide 72 hours later.

[DWPerry]

1948, obviously.

I'm willing to agree with you because 1948 was a funny election. Everyone went to bed thinking, with the results that were coming in, that Dewey would be Pres but woke up with Truman. I don't know if any other election had something similar.

2000 we had some people going to bed thinking Gore had won, others went to bed thinking Bush had won, and when everyone woke up, no one knew.

[The Mikado]

1916.

"Hughes and Fairbanks win."

[auburntiger]

Similar to 1980, was Clinton expected to win THAT big electorally in 1992?

[Erc]

The real surprises that night (like MT) were more of a function of Perot's success than anything else, if I'm not mistaken.

Reagan's win in 1980 (i.e. its magnitude) was a big surprise.  When I was at the museum for television & radio in NYC, I watched a talking heads program taped one or two days before the election (but after the last debate, and after some bump from the debate was noticeable).  Of the four panelists, two predicted a Carter victory, one predicted a narrow Reagan victory, and only one gave an inkling that he suspected a big Reagan win.

[DWPerry]

I didn't mean to imply that 2000 was an upset, I only mentioned it because

I don't know if any other election had something similar.

[MasterJedi]

1948

[Mr.Phips]

Similar to 1980, was Clinton expected to win THAT big electorally in 1992?

Clinton was actually expected to win bigger.  Polls ahead him up by like 46%-36% going into the election and leading in Arizona, North Carolina, and Texas and he ended up winning only 43%-37% and not winning any of those states. 

[© tweed]

1936

[Mr. Morden]

Can you really compare modern races to races before there was polling?  Before polling, wouldn't there inevitably have been an awful lot more uncertainty about what was going to happen on election day?

[J. J.]

1980 would have to be on the list; no one predicted a victory that big, except for Pat Caddell, 24 hours before. 

[reformer]

1964- I mean. . . the Republicans win all the sates they NEVER win. . . of course, people were expecting it, but still, talk about a change.

[The Hack Hater]

1948, no contest. The Democrats were divided enough at the time that it seemed their chances of winning had been taken out with the trash.

[Torie]

I go with 1916 just to be contrarian. The Dems were not supposed to win after McKinley absent unusual circumstances. In some ways, 1980 was a huge upset come to think of it, certainly as to margin, but really as to result given what folks thought say a year earlier. Think about it.

[jeron]

1888, the election was stolen.

[The Hack Hater]

1888, the election was stolen.

But even excepting New York, the contest would have been close anyway.

[classical liberal]

2008:  The Dems have it in the bag, but then self-destruct and serve the WH up to John McCain on a silver platter; a huge upset considering the mood coming into the election season.