Was Clinton hurt by no shows?

Quote: Pacomartin

52nd election: Ross Perot wins zero states, but takes 19% of popular vote. Considered a spoiler that gave election to Bill Clinton with only 43% of the vote.

Had he not flip-flopped about running, he'd definitely have done better (hint: if you drop out of the race, don't come back in).

While Clinton got only a plurality of the vote, he did get more votes than Bush the elder.

Quote: AZDuffman

Mexico seems to have developed more as Chicago did, top-down machine.

Mexico had an extreme level of violence followed by many assassinations from 1910-1930.

USA always had fairly smooth transitions of power from party to party.

Quote: Nareed

While Clinton got only a plurality of the vote, he did get more votes than Bush the elder.

Interestingly enough, the use of the word "plurality" to refer to elections where a candidate got the most votes, but less than 50% was only common in American English after the 1824 presidential election.

Nominees (all from Democratic-Republican party) 131 needed for majority
99 EC votes Andrew Jackson Democratic-Republican 151,271
84 EC votes John Q. Adams 113,122
41 EC votes William H. Crawford 40,856
37 EC votes Henry Clay 47,531

It became popular to say that Andrew Jackson won a plurality, but not a majority. In 1570 plurality meant "greater number, more than half".

Despite winning the most electoral college votes, the most states,and the largest popular vote, Andrew Jackson lost the election in the House "contingent election" or the runoff. Henry Clay as 4th place finisher was not eligible for the run-off and was popularly believed to have formed a "corrupt bargain" for the Secretary of State position.

Contingent elections result
13 John Q. Adams
7 Andrew Jackson
4 William H. Crawford

Jackson won the following 7 states in both the popular and the contingent House election
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Alabama
Mississippi
Tennessee
Indiana

Crawford won the following 4 states in the contingent House election
Virginia - Crawford also won popular election
Georgia - Crawford also won popular election
Delaware (Crawford had beaten JQ Adams by 2 to 1 in electoral college | no popular vote)
North Carolina (controversial since Jackson had won the popular election)

John Quincy Adams won the 6 New England states in both the popular and the contingent House election
Vermont
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island

But JQA also won 7 more states in the contingent election giving him the election
Kentucky,Missouri, and Ohio which Henry Clay had won outright in the popular election.
The last of the states were New York, Louisiana,Illinois, Maryland

The following three states Andrew Jackson had beaten John Quincy Adams in electoral college, but the House went with JQA.
Maryland 7 AJ, 3 JQA, and 1 Crawford
Louisiana 5 AJ, 3 JQA
Illinois 2 AJ, 1 JQA

New York was justifiably won in the popular election by JQA.
=============================================
Summary of Issues

While JQA indisputably won 7 states in both the popular and the contingency election the remaining 6 (3 won by Henry Clay and 3 won by Andrew Jackson in electoral college votes) also voted for John Quincy Adams
In addition North Carolina was won by Andrew Jackson in popular election, but in the contingency election voted for Crawford

Quote: Pacomartin

USA always had fairly smooth transitions of power from party to party.

And nothing illustrates this better than the 1860 election, right?

Something about glass houses and stones...