What do you consider to be a landslide?

[CJK]

I consider a popular vote landslide to be 10% or more and an electoral landslide to be 400+ EVs.

[Californian Tony]

Small landslide : a more than 15% margin in the popular vote.
Real landslide : more than 60% of popular votes.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Popular vote landslide: 10 percent margin
Electoral vote landslide: winner receives at least 400 electoral votes

[??????????]

55% or great in the PV
3/4 of the states or greater in the EC.

[Padfoot]

greater than 55% of the popular vote
winning at least 2/3 of the states
350 or more electoral votes

[President Marokai]

greater than 55% of the popular vote
winning at least 2/3 of the states
350 or more electoral votes

[ag]

55% or great in the PV
3/4 of the states or greater in the EC.

One can win over 3/4 of the states and loose the election. Just 11 states: CA, TX, NY, FL, IL, PA, OH, MI, NJ, NC, GA together have the electoral college majority: 271 EVs. Considering that Obama won in 9 out of these 11, that's the major part of his victory already (222 EVs).

[DS0816]

I consider a popular vote landslide to be 10% or more and an electoral landslide to be 400+ EVs.

The percentage points in margin of victory … agree.

As for the electoral votes … unclear. I don't believe there has been defined number of electoral votes upon which we all tend to recognize. Some say a landslide is winning 2-to-1. That would be, say, 360 electoral votes (round figure). But some have also said 375. 400 really sounds crushing.

[Nym90]

Solid victory: greater than 5 percent popular vote margin and over 300 EVs.

Landslide: greater than 10 percent popular vote margin and over 400 EVs.

[Jayhawker]

Getting over 55% of the vote.
Mapwise, probably at least 400 electoral votes.

[pogo stick]

greater than 55% of the popular vote
winning at least 2/3 of the states
350 or more electoral votes

[??????????]

55% or great in the PV
3/4 of the states or greater in the EC.

One can win over 3/4 of the states and loose the election. Just 11 states: CA, TX, NY, FL, IL, PA, OH, MI, NJ, NC, GA together have the electoral college majority: 271 EVs. Considering that Obama won in 9 out of these 11, that's the major part of his victory already (222 EVs).

Sorry, I said the wrong thing. I meant 3/4 of the states total. Not EVs.

[Nym90]

Yes but it would be possible to win 40 states and still lose the election; by your definition it is thus possible to win an electoral landslide without actually winning.

[You kip if you want to...]

Atleast 400 electoral votes and 55% of the popular vote.

[muon2]

It's useful to look at more than the last couple of elections, so I've graphed some data for the elections from 1900 to 2008. This first chart is the EV total of the winning candidate compared to their advantage over the other party's candidate in terms of the fraction of the vote cast.



Based on the graph, 400 EV is much more reasonable than 350 for a cutoff for a landslide. A cutoff at 400 EV would make half of all the elections since 1900 landslides. I think that may even be too generous, since saying half of the elections are landslides weakens the notion of a landslide.

Placing the landslide threshold at 450 EV would reduce that to 25% of the elections since 1900 and make the notion of a landslide more meaningful to me. A threshold of 450 would say that Reagan won with landslides in both elections, but GHW Bush did not in 1988.

The comparison between EV and fractional margin is fairly linear. The next chart shows the GOP EV total compared to the fraction of GOP votes minus the Dem fraction from 1932 to 2008.



The trend is quite linear for fractional margins within +/- 0.10 (10%). That same range also is a good fit to EC wins of less than 450. Note that for above 450 EV or under 90 EV the trend flattens out suggesting that a threshold in the behavior of the EC has been reached. This behavior tends to reinforce the choice of 450 EV or a 10% popular vote margin as an appropriate level to declare a landslide.

[Californian Tony]

It's useful to look at more than the last couple of elections, so I've graphed some data for the elections from 1900 to 2008. This first chart is the EV total of the winning candidate compared to their advantage over the other party's candidate in terms of the fraction of the vote cast.



Based on the graph, 400 EV is much more reasonable than 350 for a cutoff for a landslide. A cutoff at 400 EV would make half of all the elections since 1900 landslides. I think that may even be too generous, since saying half of the elections are landslides weakens the notion of a landslide.

Placing the landslide threshold at 450 EV would reduce that to 25% of the elections since 1900 and make the notion of a landslide more meaningful to me. A threshold of 450 would say that Reagan won with landslides in both elections, but GHW Bush did not in 1988.

The comparison between EV and fractional margin is fairly linear. The next chart shows the GOP EV total compared to the fraction of GOP votes minus the Dem fraction.



The trend is quite linear for fractional margins within +/- 0.10 (10%). That same range also is a good fit to EC wins of less than 450. Note that for above 450 EV or under 90 EV the trend flattens out suggesting that a threshold in the behavior of the EC has been reached. This behavior tends to reinforce the choice of 450 EV or a 10% popular vote margin as an appropriate level to declare a landslide.

Agreed on the  EV question. However, I would say that a 10% margin is not a ladslide, but just a solid victory...

[muon2]

It's useful to look at more than the last couple of elections, so I've graphed some data for the elections from 1900 to 2008. This first chart is the EV total of the winning candidate compared to their advantage over the other party's candidate in terms of the fraction of the vote cast.



Based on the graph, 400 EV is much more reasonable than 350 for a cutoff for a landslide. A cutoff at 400 EV would make half of all the elections since 1900 landslides. I think that may even be too generous, since saying half of the elections are landslides weakens the notion of a landslide.

Placing the landslide threshold at 450 EV would reduce that to 25% of the elections since 1900 and make the notion of a landslide more meaningful to me. A threshold of 450 would say that Reagan won with landslides in both elections, but GHW Bush did not in 1988.

The comparison between EV and fractional margin is fairly linear. The next chart shows the GOP EV total compared to the fraction of GOP votes minus the Dem fraction.



The trend is quite linear for fractional margins within +/- 0.10 (10%). That same range also is a good fit to EC wins of less than 450. Note that for above 450 EV or under 90 EV the trend flattens out suggesting that a threshold in the behavior of the EC has been reached. This behavior tends to reinforce the choice of 450 EV or a 10% popular vote margin as an appropriate level to declare a landslide.

Agreed on the  EV question. However, I would say that a 10% margin is not a ladslide, but just a solid victory...

But the data in the second graph (which goes back to 1932) show that a 10% margin is nearly equivalent to a 450 EV total. The strict exceptions would be: 1980 -- 489 EV 9.7% margin; 1952 -- 442 EV 10.8% margin; 1940 -- 449 EV 10.0% margin. The percentages are extremly close to 10% in all three cases.

Before 1932 the effect of the South on Republican victories throws off any clear analysis along this line.

[Californian Tony]

Yeah, I just don't like it on a theorical point : I consider a landslide to be a really outstanding margin of victory ( 15 or more ). I don't consider Ike'52 or Reagan'80 to be real landslides, just comfortable victories.

[muon2]

Yeah, I just don't like it on a theorical point : I consider a landslide to be a really outstanding margin of victory ( 15 or more ). I don't consider Ike'52 or Reagan'80 to be real landslides, just comfortable victories.

Then you could achieve that by requiring both 450 EV and greater than 10%. That would exclude the elections of '52 and '80. It is hard to get a feel for whether 10 or 15 makes more sense. Since 1912 no winner has had between 10.8% ('52) and 15.4% ('56) and 1912 (14.4%) had less than 450 EV. With that gap we have no way of saying whether a 13% win would feel like a landslide by historical proportions. That's why I looked to a correlation in the data.

[Χahar]

And now Mr. Dr. Professor is bringing math into this and ruining our fun.

[GPORTER]

Getting over 500 electoral votes or 60% or more of the popular vote. Or sometimes both.

[ChrisJG777]

ChrisJG777's scale of US Presidential election landslidedness:

Popular Vote: 55-60% as lower limit, depending on percentage of votes received by best performing opponent.

Electoral Vote:
<=269 : You lose
270 : Minimum needed for victory
271-310 : Close victory
311-354 : Reasonable victory
355-399 : Basic Landslide Territory
400+ : Lopsided Victory
538 : Fraudulent

[Californian Tony]

538 : Fraudulent

Obviosly, since the only way for GOP to win DC and Vermont, and for dems to win Oklahoma and Utah is to trick.

[Proud Lieberal from Northeast]

Getting over 55% of the vote.
Mapwise, probably at least 400 electoral votes.

When we look on recent election results, getting over 50% is really hard

[FloridaRepublican]

At least 400 EVs and at least an 9-point or 10-point margin between the two candidates, such as Bush vs Dukakis in '88 or Reagan vs Carter in '80.  ('84 was a given).