UNBIASED - Unbiased University: Presidential Elections and the Electoral College Explained

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

UNBIASED University is in session! While Jordan is on maternity leave, she’s breaking down the most critical aspects of the United States government — the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the three branches of the federal government, presidential elections, the evolution of political parties, and more. In this episode of UNBIASED University, we break down Presidential Elections and the Electoral College from start to finish. How did presidential elections come about, what do elections look like today compared to the early days, what happens on Election Day, and why does the United States use the Electoral College instead of a direct national popular vote? We walk through the constitutional framework for presidential elections, how electors are chosen, what happens if no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, and the rare but important scenarios that most Americans are unaware of. We also explore the historical reasoning behind the Electoral College, the major criticisms and defenses of the system, and how it continues to shape modern campaign strategy and voter turnout. Whether you have always found the Electoral College confusing or simply want a clearer understanding of how the president is chosen, this episode provides a straightforward, nonpartisan explanation of one of the most debated features of the American political system. SUBSCRIBE TO JORDAN'S ⁠SUBSTACK. ⁠Watch⁠ this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics and to the Unbiased University series. This episode is all about presidential elections in the United States. Did you know that a 2023 Pew Research Study found that only 40% of Americans know who chooses the president if the electoral college is tied? In older 2008 study found that only 43% of Americans knew that the Electoral College is a constitutionally mandated assembly that elects the president. The other 57% did not know what the Electoral College is. Did you also know that when you cast a ballot at the poll, you are actually casting a ballot for a slate of electors rather than the actual presidential candidate? it. There is a lot that the average American does not know. So today we are going to make sure

you know everything that you should. Now, I say this at the beginning of every episode, but in this Unbiased University series, my goal and the way I designed it is that it functions as a condensed law school education. Okay. I want you to imagine every time you're tuning into one of these episodes, you are sitting down in a law school class with me as your professor. We talk about Supreme Court cases that have, you know, shaped all of these concepts that we talk about. We, we talk about laws, we talk about all kinds of things so that by the end of this series, you will have obtained your imaginary degree from Unbiased University, which means that you will be fully prepared for the show when I come back from maternity leave and I get back to reporting on current events.

Because all of these concepts we're talking about in each of these episodes, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court, et cetera. They're all in the background of every. every single current event that we talk about. So it's really important that we all understand them on a deep level. Now, although I am on maternity leave, as a reminder, if you are interested in getting an unbiased rundown of current events, I am still cranking out episodes on substack when I can. So definitely go ahead and subscribe to my substack by clicking the link in the show notes for this episode. It's totally free. I just need your email address. And that's that. Now, if you enjoy this episode, if you learn a lot, please share it with your family and friends. I,

And as you guys know, very passionate about educating as many people as possible. And perhaps you have people in your life that are not aware of this show, are not aware of the benefit that this show provides. And I think we could all stand to, you know, be a bit more knowledgeable about these topics that shape our everyday conversations. So please, if you enjoy this episode, share it with your family, friends, loved ones, whoever it might be. And with that, let's talk about presidential elections.

just like a lot of the traditions here in the United States, the creation of the presidential election can be traced back to the Constitution. Article 2 of the Constitution specifically is what originally established the method of presidential elections, which included the Electoral College. The Electoral College was actually a compromise between the framers. Some framers wanted Congress to choose the president. others wanted a national popular vote. And their compromise was somewhat of a combination of the two, and we will take a deeper look at exactly how the electoral college works a little bit later on in this episode. But what we'll hit on now is that Article 2 gives each state the authority to determine how its electors are appointed.

And in the earliest presidential elections, several state legislatures actually selected electors themselves. without a public vote. Only six states chose to let some form of popular voting determine their electors. Over time, though, as we know, every state ended up moving towards allowing voters to choose the presidential electors themselves, and that is the system we use today. But the method of choosing electors is not the only aspect of the electoral college that changed with time. Under the original system, established by Article 2, presidential electors,

didn't cast separate votes for president and vice president. So what they did is each elector cast two votes for president. After those votes were counted, the candidate who received the most votes, so long as it was a majority of the votes, became president. And the candidate who finished in second automatically became vice president. And the reason that they did this was because at the time, the framers didn't really anticipate the development of these organized political parties that we have today. or the idea that presidential candidates would run on these joint tickets with running mates from the same party. But as political parties started to form, the original system started creating problems. For example, in the election of 1796, the winning presidential candidate and the runner-up came from opposing political parties.

So you had a president who belonged to one party and then a vice president who belonged to another political party. and you can imagine how that went, right? Not great. Then there was the election of 1800. Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson, who were actually running together on the same party ticket, received the same exact number of electoral votes. This became known as the Burr dilemma. The tie-breaking vote went to the House of Representatives and ultimately Thomas Jefferson won the presidency. But this dilemma revealed a major flaw in the system, right? So, In response to that, we adopted the 12th Amendment. And the 12th Amendment did a few things, but one of the things that it did was require electors

to cast two separate votes, one specifically for the president and one specifically for the vice president. Now, at the time, this change meant something because it helped prevent ties between running mates from the same party. But nowadays, it doesn't really mean much, considering the vice president and the president are almost always from the same party. and they run on the same ticket. But despite that, even today, the president and vice president are still legally elected

through separate electoral votes. Now, another change the 12th Amendment made was to set new rules for when there's a tie in the presidency. When no presidential candidate received a majority of the votes, okay, the House of Representatives elects the president. Each state delegation in the House casts one vote. And then similarly, the Senate is responsible for choosing the vice president. president if no vice presidential candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes.

This doesn't really happen nowadays, but it was, it was significant when the 12th Amendment was ratified. Now, the 12th Amendment, which really helped shape the modern day election process, was ratified in 1804. But it wasn't until 41 years later in 1845 that Congress established the official national election day as the first Tuesday, after the first Monday. in November. Okay, and that's how it still is today. Before 1845, states were allowed to hold elections anytime they wanted so long as it took place within this 34-day window before the first Wednesday in

December. When Congress did finally establish this nationwide election day, the Congress felt Tuesday was the best day because there were various factors that went into this decision, but namely harvests, worship, weather, travel time. things like that. So at the time, a lot of Americans lived in more rural areas and had to travel pretty far to vote, right? And they were also traveling by horse, okay? They weren't traveling by cars. So it wasn't exactly a quick trip. Sundays were generally reserved for church. Monday could be used for travel. Tuesday gave voters the time to reach the polling places without interfering with the traditional market day back then, which was usually Wednesday. And then weather-wise,

November, the weather wasn't too bad yet. It wasn't, you know, in the thick of winter yet, but also harvest season had officially ended by November. So this day just made sense. Election day, it came about in 1845, like I said, and it's been that way ever since. Now, fast forward about 25 years to 1870, this is when, and let me just tell you, so right now what we're doing is we're going through the milestones in creating what we know as today's presidential election, right? So we started with 1845 with the establishment of Election Day. And now we're going to kind of go through various milestones that have shaped the election into what it is today.

So 1870 is when the 15th Amendment was ratified. And that is what prohibited denying the right to vote based on race. This was about five years after slavery was abolished. And again, it extended the right to vote to men of all races. But the amendment didn't actually solve the problem. that the framers were looking to solve because for decades after the 15th amendment, many African-Americans were still prevented from voting through state laws as well as poll taxes, literacy tests, and what were known as grandfather clauses. Grandfather clauses limited voting to only men whose

grandfathers had previously been eligible to vote. And that's something that obviously effectively excluded black Americans at the time. So it wasn't until the 24th Amendment. which was ratified in 1964 that poll taxes were banned in federal elections. And then one year later, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited discriminatory voting practices and allowed federal oversight in certain jurisdictions. So that's when things really started to change and become equal. The 15th Amendment didn't exactly do what it was intended. And then, of course, in between all of this, women were granted the right to vote in 1920

with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. amendment. Now we have to kind of go back a little bit. So I just touched on the major amendments that kind of shaped the modern day election and voting rights and all of that. We have to go back, though, because we have to talk about the Electoral Count Act. Now, this was a law that was meant to establish the formal procedures for how Congress counts electoral votes. And this law was passed in response to the disputed election of 1876. The election took place in 1876, but this law was passed in 1887, okay? But basically what happened in this 1876 election was that several states submitted competing slates of electors. So in states like Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina,

both Republican and Democratic parties accused each other of fraud, voter intimidation, and ballot issues. So each side was saying that its candidate had actually won the state in these handful of states. And because the state governments themselves were divided, sometimes there was, you know, one party controlling the governor's office and the other party controlling the legislature, each side ended up declaring its own victory and sent its own group of electors to Washington. So instead of Congress receiving one official set of electoral votes from a state, it received two competing slates of electors, each claiming to be the legitimate one, okay? So these competing slates of electors led to confusion over which electoral votes should be

recognized and counted. And because the Constitution really only gave limited detail on how electoral disputes were to be handled, Congress passed this Electoral Count Act. The Electoral Count Act clarified the process for handling disagreements like this and for officially counting electoral votes. Now, if the Electoral Count Act sounds familiar, it's because the Electoral Count Reform Act was just passed in 2022. So following the 2020 election and the controversy surrounding the certification of the election results, pretty similar situation, slates of electors, you know, accusing the Democrats of fraud and ballot issues and all these things, similar to what happened in the 1876 election happened in 2020.

And in response to that, Congress passed the Electoral Account Reform Act, which updated and clarified the procedures in the original 1887 law. For example, the reform law made it harder for members of Congress to challenge certified electoral votes. It also more clearly defined the vice president's role in the counting process, basically defining it more as like a ceremonial role more than anything else. So that was the Electoral Count Act. It did a few other things, but I'm just trying to give you the general gist of, you know, this 2022 Electoral Count Reform Act updated this much, much earlier Electoral Count Act.

So now we can move on to 1901, which marked the year that the first, state held a presidential primary election. And that state was Florida. So before primary elections became common, party nominees would usually be chosen at these big national conventions where the delegates didn't necessarily represent the electorate. And the delegates that attended the conventions were sent by their respective states. But they were often chosen by state and party bosses who had a lot of power over the delegates. loyalty. So in an attempt to sort of reform the conventions and give the people more of a voice,

states started holding these primary elections. And Florida was the first state to do that. So that way, with primaries, the people were choosing the delegates that attended these conventions rather than the party and state bosses choosing the delegates. And over the next several years, more and more states started adopting primaries. Today, states use two main methods to help their parties choose their presidential nominees. There's primaries and then there's caucuses. So a primary functions much like a traditional election where voters cast secret ballots for their preferred candidates, right? A caucus on the other hand is usually a series of local meetings that are run by political parties where voters get together, they discuss the candidates and then they vote accordingly to party to party

rules. Primaries are more common, but some states do still use caucuses. And caucuses actually, date back to the 1800s, that they're much older than primaries, but they're a lot different nowadays. So when I say the first primary was in 1901, I mean, it resembled the primaries we see now. The idea of caucuses is actually older than primaries, like I said, going back to the 1800s, but the modern caucus system that people recognize today really didn't begin to take shape until the early 1970s, and that was with Iowa's 1972 caucuses, which became the first contest in the nomination calendar, in the election calendar. And we'll talk more about primaries and caucuses in a minute, but I'm, as of right now, just kind of walking through a timeline

of major moments in election history or shaping the modern day election. So the last major moment that we have to talk about was in 1933 when the 20th Amendment was ratified. If you can believe it, it was not until the ratification of the 20th amendment that the president's term ended on January 20th. Previously, outgoing presidents stayed in office until March 4th simply because of the amount of time it took to count the ballots, report the ballots, and then the logistical issues that came with the incoming president moving to the capital. Obviously, moving back then was not as easy as it is now. So there were a lot of logistics that went into it too. So the election would happen in November, but the president-elect wouldn't assume office until the following March.

But again, that changed with the ratification of the 20th Amendment. Okay, so that wraps with the history of presidential elections here in the United States. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the actual election process and the election cycle. When Westchap first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere. and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel.

While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. This episode is brought to you by FedEx.

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Before the break, we covered a bunch of history. And so now before we walk step by step through the modern election process, we do need to take a deeper look at the electoral college, because the electoral college is the mechanism that ultimately decides the presidency. and in order to fully understand how the modern day election system works and the cycle works, we have to first establish what the electoral college is. So as we discussed earlier, the electoral college was created as a compromise during the constitutional convention. Some framers wanted Congress to choose the president.

Others wanted the president to be chosen by a direct national popular vote. And the system that they ultimately adopted blended elements of both of these approaches by allowing voters to indirectly choose the president through electors who then formally cast the deciding votes. Now, Article 2 mandates that each state is allocated a certain number of electors equal to the number of delegates in both houses of Congress combined. So as an example, California has 52 representatives in the House and two senators in the Senate, which means California has 54 total electors. Florida has 28 representatives in the House, two senators in the Senate. So Florida has 30 total electors. And it's that way for each state. So the bigger states tend to

have more electors because they have more representation in the House. All states have, regardless of their size, have two senators. So that doesn't really change things. But the way it, you know, take shape is that the bigger states have more electors. Now, after all of a sudden done, the total number of electors in the United States today is five. 538. But keep in mind, that number can change with each census, depending on how many congressional districts are drawn in each state. Because if the congressional districts are drawn differently every 10 years after each census, and let's say Florida goes from having 30 congressional or house representatives, and then the district lines are drawn in a way in which they have 32 now, then the total number

of electors for the state of Florida could change from, you know, 32 to the state. 34. So it can change with each census, but right now the total number of electors in the United States for all 50 states is 538. And if you listened to the Unbiased University episode about the Constitution, you know this, but an interesting fact is that it wasn't until 1961, which is fairly recent, that Washington, D.C. was given electors because before 1961, residents of D.C. did not have a vote in presidential elections. The 23rd Amendment to the the Constitution is what gave DC electors. So the number of electors given to DC is the same as the number of electors that are allocated to the least populous state. And that's of course because

DC doesn't have representation in Congress. So the number of electors for DC can't go based on congressional representation like it does for the states. Instead, DC just gets the same number of electors as the least populated state, which as of now is equal to three. So because the electoral college consists of 538 electors, to win the presidency, a candidate has to receive a majority, which means at least 270 electoral votes. Now, in most states, the candidate who wins the statewide popular vote receives all of the state's electoral votes. This is known as a winner take all system. It's used by 48 states and D.C. The two exceptions are Maine and Nebraska. Maine and Nebraska divide their electoral votes partly based on their congressional districts.

So under their system, the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote within each congressional district gets one electoral vote tied to that district. Then the candidate who wins the overall statewide popular vote gets two additional electoral votes. So this means it is possible for electoral votes in Maine and Nebraska to actually be split between candidates. But like I said, most states use the winner take-all system. Because of the winner-take-all system, presidential candidates or presidential campaigns, I should say, tend to focus heavily on swing states because in swing states, either candidate has a realistic chance of winning the statewide vote. States that consistently vote for one party typically receive less campaign attention

because their electoral outcome is a bit more predictable, right? Now, the other important feature of the Electoral College is that voters are technically voting for slates of electors, not directly for presidential candidates, okay? So when we go to the polls, we are indirectly voting for the president by voting for that candidate's slate of electors. Now, these electors are typically chosen by the political parties, and they pledge to support their party's nominee when they meet in December to formally cast their votes. in most cases, electors vote as they pledge to vote. But on rare occasions, some electors have voted

differently than expected. And those electors are sometimes called faithless electors. Because it's happened in the past, a lot of states now have laws that require electors to vote in accordance with the state's popular vote. But there are such thing as faithless electors. Almost always the popular vote carries the electoral vote. In fact, out of the 59 elections that we've had in the United States, only five did not match up. Those were the 1824 election, 1876, 1888, 2000, 2016. And in those elections, the winner of the electoral vote lost the popular vote outright. But this is a central issue surrounding the electoral college, right? This is like what the debate is all about. Supporters argue that the electoral college protects the role of the states

and forces candidates to compete across the country. But critics argue that it can lead to a president winning without the most votes nationwide and then gives extra power to a small number of swing states at the same time. However, regardless of where one falls in that debate, the key takeaway is that the electoral college is still the constitutional mechanism that officially determines the presidency. So now that we understand how the electoral college works, I want to walk through the modern-day presidential election cycle step by step, beginning with how candidates enter the race. When we zoom out and look at the big picture of the presidential election cycle,

the whole thing takes about two years. It starts in the spring of the year before the election year. That's when candidates announced their intentions to run. This is also the time when the candidates register with the federal election commission, but there is no deadline for this. Candidates can register at any time. A few months later is what. when the Republican and Democratic primary debates start.

These are primary debates. So these are the debates between all of the Republican candidates running and all of the Democratic candidates running. Separate debates for each party. These typically last from August until January. Then starting in January of the election year and going through June, the states and parties hold their primaries and caucuses. Then, typically between July and early September of the election year,

the parties will hold their conventions where each party selects their respective nominees. Following those conventions in September and October is when the two presidential nominees debate one another. And then of course, early November is when the election happens. In December is when electors cast their votes in the electoral college. In early January is when Congress counts and certifies the electoral votes. And then on January 20th is when the president is officially inaugurated. unless the 20th falls on a Sunday, then the inauguration is on the 21st.

So that's the election cycle at a glance, but I do want to zoom in a bit as well. So first off, who can even run? Article 2 of the Constitution sets forth three requirements. You have to be a natural born citizen of the United States. You have to be at least 35 years old, but you can start running at 34 so long as you're 35 by the time you're inaugurated. And you have to have been a resident of the United States for at least 14 years. those have been the requirements since the ratification of the Constitution.

Those are still the only requirements. So as long as you check those three boxes, you are good. Doesn't matter if you're a felon. Doesn't matter if you're anything else. As long as you check those three boxes, you are good. And what's funny is that some states ban felons from voting, but yet that same person could still run for president. So that's just an interesting fact.

Now, when it comes to the actual election rules, those rules are determined by the states. each state is responsible for carrying out their own elections to an extent. Article 2 leaves election matters in the state's hands, but just to give you an example of when it's not in the state's hands, we can look to a recent 2024 Supreme Court decision in a case called Trump v. Anderson. So in that case, the justice is held that it is not up to the state to disqualify a federal candidate from their ballot. States can disqualify state candidates, but they're not.

they cannot disqualify federal candidates. So that was an election rule that a state tried to implement, but the Supreme Court said, no, no, no, no, we have to have some consistency here. With that said, most other things are at the state's discretion. For example, states have the ability to set specific requirements for voter eligibility and voter registration. And this goes back to what I was just saying. States can ban felons from voting, but they wouldn't be able to make that a requirement for running

for president. Similarly, states are in charge of setting their own rules for primaries, which brings me to my next point, primaries and caucuses. What are the differences between the two? Well, for one, primaries are put on by the state. Caucuses are put on by the political parties. Some states have primaries, others have caucuses. Nevada is the only state that has both. And just for this sake of touching on all the bases, the caucuses and primaries are how, we, the people, choose presidential nominees. In other words, the number of delegates that are awarded to each nominee depends on who wins the party primary or caucus in each state. Those delegates then attend the party convention and select a party nominee. And each state has its own rules

regarding how its delegates are chosen. But the delegates typically consist of party members, leaders, supporters of a particular candidate, but it is up to the states. The states get to choose how those delegates are chosen. The delegates ultimately go to the conventions and select the presidential nominee. But getting back to some of the differences between primaries and caucuses, as I said before, caucuses are a little more traditional than primaries in the sense that with caucuses, it's a group of people that get together in each district or precinct and they talk about the candidates.

In some caucuses, attendees actually have the opportunity to give speeches. they could try to sway undecided voters one way or the other. Coguses are much more conversational and public and public. Some caucuses will cast votes through secret ballots, but other caucuses do it publicly, just voting out loud. With primaries, it's more of your modern day voting system where you vote with a secret ballot. You don't have these public meetings where you have conversations about the candidates. You just go and you vote.

depending on the state and party rules, primaries and caucuses can be open, closed, or a hybrid of the two. So with open primaries, open primaries or caucuses, voters don't have to be registered with a political party to take part. However, with closed primaries and caucuses,

only voters that are registered with that party can participate. So a Republican can't vote in a Democratic primary or caucus. and vice versa, a Democrat couldn't vote in a Republican primary or caucus. And this also means that independents cannot vote in closed primaries or caucuses at all because they are not registered with either party. And then you have semi-open or semi-closed. These are just hybrids of the two. So again, this is another election rule that the state makes.

It's just all dependent on where you live, what state you live in. Okay, now let's talk about what happens when we actually go to the polls. So as we talked about earlier, when we cast a ballot, we technically vote for a slate of electors who have pledged to support that candidate in the electoral college. So when you choose a candidate's name on a ballot, you are actually choosing that candidate's party appointed electors. After everyone in a state cast their ballot for their preferred slate of electors, the state then counts all of the votes. After the state confirms which electors won that state, those, that slate of electors will then meet in their respective states

in December and formally cast the official electoral votes for the president and vice president that they have pledged to vote for. Those votes are then sent to Congress and they're officially counted and certified in early January. And as we said earlier, a candidate has to receive a majority of the 538 total electoral votes to win the presidency, which is at least 270 votes, right? So as an example, Florida has 30 electors, California has 54, Nevada has six, Michigan has 15, so on and so forth. If a candidate were to win Florida, California, Nevada, and Michigan, not sure in what situation a candidate would win both Florida and California nowadays, but let's just roll with it for purposes of the hypothetical. If the candidate were to win all of those

states I just mentioned, they would get 115 electoral votes from those four states. Then they just need some other combination of states to get them to the 270 threshold. In the rare situation where neither candidate has the majority of electoral votes, the vote goes to the House. As per the 12th Amendment, there would be a contingent election in the House where each state would get one vote. The Senate would be responsible for choosing the vice president. And each senator would get one vote. This has only happened three times in history, though. In 1800 and 1824, the House chose the president and in 1836, the Senate, the Senate. chose the vice president. And another fun fact is that if the house doesn't break the tie by

inauguration day, the vice president elect would act as president. And if neither is chosen by election day, as per the 12th amendment, Congress would determine who acts as president in the meantime. And then one final note about the election before we get into fun facts, even though this is kind of a fun fact in and of itself. But so election night, you know, we're all watching the TV. There's usually a projected winner by the end of the night, but it's not until early January that the electoral college votes are actually certified and the presidency is determined. So during this time between election day and inauguration day, the projected winner of the election is referred to as the president-elect. The exception is when a sitting president wins re-election, then he would, of course,

retain his title as president. But it's not until the president-elect is inaugurated that he officially gets the title of the president. So sometimes after the election, we'll refer to someone as president when they haven't yet, you know, taken office yet. The proper term for that person during this time period is president-elect. Okay. And now it's time for some fun facts. I have 14 for you. Number one, the 2020 election had the highest voter turnout since 1902, with roughly 66% of the voter age population participating. Historically, elections before 1908 had a much higher voter turnout than we see today. And of course, we're speaking in percentages.

So in 2020, 66% of the voter age population participated. The most recent election, the 2024 election, was around 57%. Number two, George Washington was the only president ever elected unanimously. In the subsequent election in 1801, James Mon. James Monroe received every electoral vote except for one. A New Hampshire delegate wanted George Washington to remain the only president ever elected unanimously, so he voted against Monroe. Number three, a woman named Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for president all the way back in 1872. Now, she was part of a, she was a candidate of the Equal Rights Party, which was not a big party back then.

and she ran against Horace Greely and Ulysses S. Grant who ultimately won the presidency that year. Number four, Martin Van Buren was the first natural-born American to become president in 1837. Each of the seven presidents before him were born in Britain. And you might be wondering, what do you mean? I thought the Constitution requires presidents to be natural-born citizens. It does, but the framers were smart enough to include a little caveat. So what the Constitution actually says is that you have to be a natural-born citizen. or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.

So even though the first seven presidents weren't natural born, they created this little carve-out knowing that most everyone who would be first to serve wasn't born in the United States. Number five, even though President Trump is now counted as the 47th president, only 45 different individuals have served as president. And that's because two presidents served non-consecutive terms, Grover Cleveland, who's counted as both the 22nd and 24th president, and then President Trump, who's counted as both the 45th and 47th president. Six, the longest serving president was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was elected to office for four terms,

and this was, of course, before the ratification of the 22nd Amendment, which set the limit of two terms. Number seven, John F. Kennedy was both the youngest elected president at 43 years old and the first Catholic president. Number eight, the only president and vice president to never be elected to either office was Gerald Ford. He became vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned, and then he became president when Nixon resigned. So he was never actually elected to either office. Number nine, James Buchanan is the only single man to ever be elected president. Everyone else has been married. Number 10, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, though both married when elected, were the or are,

were and are the only presidents who were divorced in the past. Number 11, eight presidents have died in office, four of which were assassinated. William Harrison died of pneumonia. Zachary Taylor died of gastroenteritis. Warren Harding died of a heart attack. And Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage. And then, of course, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy were all assassinated.

Number 12, President Bill Clinton was actually born. born William Jefferson Blythe. That was his legal name when he was born, but he took his stepdad's last name when his mom remarried and formally changed his name to William Jefferson Clinton when he was 15 years old. Number 13, President George Washington spent his entire campaign budget, 50 pounds, on 160 gallons of liquor, which was served at 391 voters. And this is of course a much more acceptable thing to do back then than it is today. But yeah, spent his entire campaign budget on on liquor to give to voters. And then finally, the 14th fun fact, the last fun fact I have for you is that for roughly the first 100 years of voting in America, election day looked

a lot different. So starting in 1789, eating, drinking, and parading were common on election day. And not only that, but votes were cast publicly. It wasn't until the 1890s. that the secret ballot became commonly used in America. And that is what I have for you. I really hope you enjoyed yet another class at Unbius University. Thank you so much for being here. Don't forget to share this episode with your family and friends if you've learned a lot. And I hope to see you in the next class.