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For Presidents' Day, a thread on presidential fun facts that you probably haven't seen elsewhere.
Every presidential election in the past 40 years -- and 19 of the last 21, going back to 1936 -- has been won by the party that lost the presidential election 40 years earlier. 1/
Every presidential election in the past 40 years -- and 19 of the last 21, going back to 1936 -- has been won by the party that lost the presidential election 40 years earlier. 1/
Not since 1908 have we elected a president who had resisted the temptation to name a son after himself. For a while we stopped electing presidents with sons altogether -- before Trump, the last time was 1988. 2/
The last time the winning ticket featured two drinkers was 1996. In four of the past five presidential elections, the GOP nominee was a teetotaler. 3/
Trump is the first president since Reagan who didn’t begin his federal political career by losing a race for Congress. 4/
The three presidents who preceded Trump were all named after their father, as were two of their opponents (Gore and McCain). 5/
In the last 8 presidential elections, all the Democratic nominees, but only 2 of the Republican nominees, attended law school. (Gore counts even though he dropped out of law school. The GOP law guys both lost: Dole and Romney.) 6/
Since 1900, five Republican nominees were running for office for the first time; all Democratic nominees had previously run and won. Four of the five GOP neophytes won (Taft, Hoover, Eisenhower, Trump); the only loser was Wilkie. 7/
In some ways, the 1976 presidential election was the opposite of 2016. In 29 states, the party that lost in 1976 won in 2016. Ford won 27 states in 1976 but lost the election. In 2016, Trump lost 13 of Ford’s 27, but won. 8/
Trump won 21 of the 24 states most likely to be hit by tornadoes. 9/ 
No president since John Tyler has lived such a geographically narrow life as Trump. Except for two years in college in Philadelphia, he spent his entire life in New York City. 10/
Of the eight presidents who died in office, seven were elected in a year ending in zero (Harrison, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, FDR, Kennedy), and the other one (Taylor) died in a year ending in zero. 11/
Next year we might elect the first president who is female, Latino, Asian-American, Jewish, LGBT, or vegan -- or the first to name his dog after a predecessor. Happy Presidents' Day 12/12 clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/pol…
P.S. @ProfBrianKalt points out that I screwed up this one. The Dem law school streak is actually 9, not 8 -- and it includes VP candidates as well! By comparison, only 3 of the GOP VP candidates attended law school.
