As the 2024 general election season heats up, President Joe Biden and Donald Trump find themselves in a tight rematch that could come down to just a few thousand votes in several battleground states.
But with the election being decided on the margins, the question is whether presidential candidates from both major parties will get the necessary 270 Electoral College votes to win the election outright this fall.
All Trump needs in his rematch with the president is to turn a few swing states back to red, but even then there is one scenario in which the election results in neither candidate winning the required majority in the Electoral College. So what then?
It’s happened before – about 200 years ago, in the 1824 presidential election.
In that election, the contest split four ways between candidates Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Henry Clay, meaning that no candidate received the necessary majority of electoral votes to win outright.
President John Quincy Adams was the sixth president of the United States. He served from March 1825 to March 1829. He did not win a majority in the electoral college
It was the first and only time that the presidential election had to be decided by the House of Representatives since the ratification of the Twelfth Amendment.
It was also the only time that a presidential candidate with the most electoral votes did not win the presidency.
The country then had far fewer states; the Electoral College was also much smaller.
Jackson had 99 electoral votes and John Quincy Adams had the second most votes with 84, but Adams later became the sixth president of the United States.
That’s because the decision went to the House of Representatives during the so-called contingent elections – where states decided who would become the next president.
“The House of Representatives has oversight,” said Casey Burgat, legislative affairs program director at George Washington University.
“Instead of each individual member having a vote, each state votes in blocs,” he explained. ‘Basically there is one vote per state and the majority wins there.’
President Andrew Jackson received the popular vote and more electoral votes in the 1824 presidential election over John Quincy Adams, but none of the four candidates received a majority, so the election went to the House of Representatives under the 12th Amendment.
The House elected President John Quincy Adams, despite him not receiving the largest number of electoral votes in the 1824 election
A summary sheet of the 1824 election showing that no candidate won a majority of the electoral votes, sending the election to the House of Representatives. The document shows that Jackson received 99 electoral votes, Adams received 84 votes, Crawford received 41 votes and Clay received 37 votes.
A cartoon from the 1824 election showing a foot race to the White House with candidates John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Andrew Jackson
Jackson argued that after winning the most votes in the Electoral College and the popular vote, he should become president.
But Adams actively met with members of Congress, including House Speaker Clay, who had finished fourth in the presidential race and won his home state of Kentucky.
Ultimately, Adams was elected president on the House’s first vote by winning thirteen states out of Jackson’s seven. Crawford received four states.
The Kentucky state legislature even instructed its delegation to vote for Jackson, but they chose Adams instead, and after the inauguration, Clay was tapped by President Adams as Secretary of State.
Although several presidents in recent history have won the presidency without the popular vote, including Trump in 2016, they have still managed to secure a majority of electoral votes, meaning that the process by which the House of Representatives decides has been going on for 200 years is no longer used.
But there is a possibility that no candidate will receive a majority of electoral votes this fall. The magic number is that it takes 270 electoral votes to win.
In 2020, Biden received 306 electoral votes, while Trump received 232. Polls show Trump could flip some of the six battleground states this fall.
If the ex-president flips Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, but the rest of the map remains the same, he will still fall short and Biden will win with exactly 270 electoral votes.
But if Trump has four states, he will completely take over the electoral majority. But however else the battlegrounds shake out in 2024, it will be close.
President Biden won 306 electoral votes in 2020, while Trump received 232. The race will likely come down to the same six swing states in 2024. Each candidate needs 270 electoral votes to become president
Independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. speaks at a rally in Texas on May 13
There are questions about the impact that third-party candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. will have on the electoral map and whether he will attract Biden’s support, allowing Trump to capture more states this fall or deny Biden the necessary electoral votes this fall.
The likely close vote in the Electoral College even had some Republicans pushing last month for Nebraska to change its election process to a winner-takes-all election process. The state is one of two states that distribute electoral votes proportionately.
If it were to change, it would deprive Biden of the opportunity to get one of the red state’s electoral votes after winning the state’s Second Congressional District and its electoral vote in the last election.
Trump and the state’s Republican governor even backed the effort before it was shot down in the state legislature, raising the possibility that the electoral vote could be split 269 to 269 and thus go to the House of Representatives.
If the 2024 election is decided by the House of Representatives, the conventional wisdom is that Trump could win the presidency.
Republicans control 26 state delegations in the House of Representatives, while Democrats control 22. Another two are evenly distributed.
Former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally on the beach in Wildwood, NJ on May 11
President Joe Biden greets a supporter during a campaign event in Wisconsin on May 8
But given that it has been two hundred years since contingent elections took place, many questions can be asked.
“The date is probably the biggest unknown there is,” Burgat said. ‘There is no fixed date. We know this has to happen before the inauguration date, but the House of Representatives gets to decide when these contingent elections take place.”
He said he suspects the vote will be roll-call, but in modern times it is unclear whether delegations will be able to use electronic voting.
Burgat also noted that, conventional wisdom aside, the reality is that each state has its own rules, so some state delegations may be tied to the candidate who won the state’s Electoral College votes.
He wondered, “Even though Republicans have the majority of that delegation, if the Democrat wins that state electoral college, are they binding them in a contingent election to go as their vote in the electoral college does?”
Either way, it would be decided on a state-by-state basis, and things only get more complicated from there.