From a duel to prison campaign: The 5 most bizarre moments in US election history

In 1800, the election outcome set the stage for one of America’s most infamous moments: a duel. Fast forward to 1920, a socialist candidate, Eugene Debs, ran his entire campaign from prison, gathering just under a million votes and finishing third overall.

These are far from the only strange moments in US election history. The 2024 campaign has been no different, with Kamala Harris stepping in to replace President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee in a last-minute twist.

Electoral politics in the US has always been a gritty affair, going as far back as 1800, when the founding fathers engaged in bitter rivalries. Throughout history, elections have been marked by nasty accusations, unusual circumstances, and even the death of candidates.

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Let’s take a look at some of them:

A duel

The 1800 election between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams was so chaotic that it led to a constitutional amendment. Before the 12th Amendment, members of the Electoral College each cast two votes for president, with the one receiving the most votes becoming president and the runner-up becoming vice president, regardless of party alignment.

The flaws in this system became glaring in 1796, but the election of 1800 pushed it to the breaking point. Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican “running mate” Aaron Burr both tied at 73 votes, surpassing Adams’ 65. This threw the outcome to the House of Representatives, where things became even stranger.

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Alexander Hamilton, the country’s first treasury secretary and founder of the Federalist Party, was not fond of any of the candidates, including Adams, Jefferson, or Burr. Yet, he worked to convince Federalists to vote for Jefferson, whom he saw as the lesser of three evils. In a letter, he warned that “Mr. Burr loves nothing but himself – thinks of nothing but his own aggrandizement.”

After a week and 35 rounds of voting, the House finally declared Jefferson president and Burr vice president on February 7, 1801. But the bizarre drama did not end there.

The rivalry between Burr and Hamilton continued for years, ultimately leading to their infamous duel, where Burr, still serving as vice president, shot Hamilton in 1804.

Where it all began

Let’s take a step back to where it all began. On July 4, 1776, the United States declared its independence from Great Britain, a date now celebrated as Independence Day. By the time of its first presidential election in 1788, the US consisted of just 13 states, though only 10 were eligible to vote. Of those, only six allowed white male adults to vote, while the remaining four left the decision to state legislators.

George Washington, having led the US to victory in its fight for independence, was requested to quit semi-retirement and run for office. He became the overwhelming favourite, with support from across the political spectrum.

The election was conducted using the Electoral College system, where each state received a certain number of votes based on its population, a version of which is still in use today. Out of 72 electors, 69 cast their votes, with each elector holding two votes - one for president and one for vice president.

In a unanimous decision, all 69 electors cast their votes for Washington, the maximum possible. In 1792, Washington was persuaded to serve a second term, repeating the trick and receiving unanimous support from all 132 electors across the 15 states.

A dead candidate

The 1872 election was known not just for being the year suffragette Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to run for president, with abolitionist Frederick Douglass as her running mate, but because one of the main candidates never saw the final Electoral College vote.

Horace Greeley, a newspaper founder, was not expected to pose a serious challenge to incumbent President Ulysses S Grant. However, dissatisfaction with Grant’s administration led to some Republicans breaking away to form the Liberal Republican Party, which threw its support behind Greeley, who also ran as a Democrat.

Despite suspending his campaign to take care of his ailing wife, who passed away just before the election, Greeley managed to secure 44 per cent of the popular vote, almost three million ballots.

Later on November 29, 1872, Greeley himself died, before the Electoral College could cast its votes, making him the only presidential candidate in US history to die during an election. Of his 66 electoral votes, 63 were redistributed among various Democrats, including Thomas Hendricks, who would later become vice president.

Notably, Grant attended his rival’s funeral.

Election campaign from the prison

The 1920 election may have seemed like a straightforward battle between two newspaper publishers - Republican Warren G Harding and Democrat James Cox - but it is what happened in third place that made it truly strange.

Harding delivered a historic defeat, winning over 60 per cent of the popular vote and securing 37 of the 48 states, leaving Cox with a huge loss.

The real intrigue, however, lay with the Socialist Party of America’s Eugene Debs. Having previously run for president in 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1912, Debs was not a stranger to the campaign trail. In 1912, he had gained about six per cent of the popular vote with over 900,000 ballots but failed to win any Electoral College votes.

What set Debs’ 1920 campaign apart was the fact that he ran it entirely from prison, where he was serving time for anti-war activism under the Espionage Act. Despite his incarceration, Debs again received more than 900,000 votes but still fell short of Harding’s 16 million votes.

‘Dewey defeats Truman’

In the 1948 election, President Harry S Truman faced an uphill re-election battle. Having assumed office after Franklin D Roosevelt’s death three years earlier, Truman was widely expected to lose to his Republican challenger, New York Governor Thomas E Dewey. Opinion polls showed Dewey with a comfortable lead, and Truman’s chances of victory seemed slim.

So certain was his defeat that The Chicago Tribune famously jumped the gun, publishing early editions with the headline “Dewey Defeats Truman” while votes were still being counted. Notably, a printers’ strike forced the paper to go to press earlier than usual, and its publisher, J Loy Maloney, relying on the pollsters’ predictions, signed off on what would become one of the most famous headlines in history - “Dewey defeats Truman.”

However, as the results came in, it became clear that Truman was headed for an unexpected victory. The Tribune quickly adjusted its headline in later editions, but the damage had been done. Two days after his win, Truman, who had faced relentless criticism from The Tribune throughout the campaign, held up one of the mistaken editions for photographers and celebrated his victory.

With inputs from agencies