10 big political upsets
The polls and the pundits are already telling Americans what to expect this Election Day, but what happens when they're wrong? Here are 10 of the most surprising political upsets in U.S. history.
The polls and the pundits are already telling Americans what to expect this Election Day, but what happens when they're wrong? Here are 10 of the most surprising political upsets in recent history, according to Newsweek.
The polls and the pundits are already telling Americans what to expect this Election Day, but what happens when they're wrong? Here are 10 of the most surprising political upsets in recent history, according to Newsweek.
The 1948 presidential election is probably the most famous political upset ever. Harry S. Truman (pictured) surprised everyone -- including the Chicago Tribune, which had already printed an edition saying he lost -- by beating Thomas E. Dewey. Truman and Dewey are pictured shaking hands after the election.
Woodrow Wilson's presidential win in 1916 was just as surprising. The legend was, according to Newsweek, that challenger Charles Evans Hughes fell asleep on election night thinking he won. However, he got a call from The Associated Press the next morning saying that Wilson (pictured) had pulled off the upset.
More recently, in 1994, former President George W. Bush pulled off a big upset to become Texas governor. He beat Ann Richards, who had been considered an up-and-coming leader of the Democratic Party.
After losing the presidential election to John F. Kennedy in 1960, Richard Nixon hoped to make a comeback as governor of California in 1962. He had been favored in the polls, but Democratic incumbent Pat Brown still managed to win by 5 percent. Nixon claimed he was going to retire from politics after the loss, but he would finally make his comeback with his successful presidential bid in 1968.
Initially, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (now secretary of state) was an early frontrunner for the Democrats in 2008. But at the Iowa caucuses, young voters helped Barack Obama to a surprising win over Clinton.
At those same Iowa caucuses, an upset happened on the other side of the aisle, as well. Evangelical Christians helped power Mike Huckabee past Mitt Romney, who had outspent him 15 to 1. "The first thing we learned is that people are more important than the purse," Newsweek quoted Huckabee as saying on caucus night.
Former peanut farmer Jimmy Carter was thought to have little chance of beating incumbent Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election. But the nation's anti-Watergate sentiment and his Washington outsider status helped sweep him into office.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton got Barack Obama back for his 2008 Iowa upset by staging a comeback at the New Hampshire primary that same year. Eventually she suspended her campaign and endorsed Obama.
James Buckley (pictured), brother of famous conservative William F. Buckley Jr., pulled off an upset to take Charles Goodell's U.S. Senate seat in 1970. James Buckley was the only member of the Conservative Party to be elected to the Senate.
A more recent major upset came when Republican Scott Brown won the Senate seat held by Democrat Ted Kennedy for decades in a special election of January 2010.
