>To the best of my knowlege, it has happened twice.
>
>The first time was when Andrew Jackson had a majority (I think) of the popular vote and a plurality of the electoral vote. Third party candidates won enough electoral votes to put the election in the House of Representatives, which voted solidly for John Q. Adams. The results were quite divisive at the time, but the Republic survived.
>
>The second time was when Tilden outpolled Hayes in the popular vote. There were <> some irregularities in recognizing the various electors and, in return for agreening to end the occupation of the former Confederacy and therefore ending Reconstruction, Hayes electors were recognized and he became President.

>To the best of my knowlege, no president since has been elected without obtaining at least a pluralilty of the popular vote.

The third and most obvious split was 1888, when Clevelend won the popular vote by a fairly large majority, but was trounced in the electoral college. That one really demonstrated how flawed the correlation was.

I would add that IMO the only reason splits have not occurred more frequently is that most elections have been quite lopsided, as one party or the other has frequently veered too far from the ideological center (Goldwater, McGovern, Dukakis, a few modern examples), or there have been over-riding concerns like war & economic issues (Reagan, Clinton, FDR, etc) that have forced lopsided results. In the current times, none of these issues factor in much.

As soon as the popular vote margin becomes reasonably close, the chance for a split decision becomes quite high, virtually 50/50. As I said previously, there is virtually no correlation between electoral & popular votes when the popular margin is close.

The times are ripe for splits, and if you look at the electoral and popular vote totals from Nov 7, you can see just how easy it is for miniscule voting shifts to cause many split situations, either way for each candidate, or even electoral ties...not a good situation, and erodes public faith in our political system, to have a "loser win."

The Anonymous Bureaucrat,
and frankly, quite content not to be
a member of either major US political party.