Plurality Rules

Lately, the observation that Republicans have failed to win a majority of the popular vote in five of the last six Presidential elections has been getting a lot of attention. Like many political factoids, it's true enough but isn't necessarily reason for Democrats to get overly excited, because Democratic candidates have only gotten popular vote majorities in three of those six elections. The 1992 and 1996 elections were both won with pluralities of the vote, with Bill Clinton never getting more than about 49%, and I think we all remember the 2000 election. As a country, we're still pretty evenly divided, giving us all the more reason to engage the people with whom we disagree rather than dismissing them as enemies.