Let’s take a breath. Our country has seen close elections before | Opinion

While composing the weekend before Election Day, my hope was to find reassurance that, whoever wins, it's not the end of representative democracy, which Benjamin Franklin called, "a republic, if you can keep it."

Some feel 2024 is the nastiest presidential campaign ever. Long before TV and its fifteen second sound bites, this distinction would fit 1884's election of Democrat Grover Cleveland over Republican James Blaine. Bipartisan "mudslinging" and personal vilification marked the Democrats' first return to the White House since their southern base seceded in the early 1860s. Cleveland lost to Republican Benjamin Harrison in 1888, but won again four years later, marking the only time a president served nonconsecutive terms.

An earlier example from the 1820s featured fierce opposition to Andrew Jackson with equally intense support. In 1824, Jackson led three rivals with 99 electoral college votes but no majority. John Quincy Adams followed with 84. As the 12th Amendment required, the U.S. House chose the winner, selecting Adams. Accusing "corruption," Jackson roared back to victory in 1828 as head of his new Democratic Party, which he duly rewarded with patronage and other "spoils" of victory. Notorious for Indian Removal policies, "Old Hickory" was a polarizing, demagogic leader rivaling anyone today.

The closest presidential election ever? In 1876, ten years after the Civil War, Republican Rutherford Hayes edged Democrat Samuel Tilden 185 to 184. Three southern states claimed 19 disputed electors for Tilden, but delivered Hayes enough to win. Amid accusations of fraud, violence and chicanery on both sides (déjà vu?), it took four months to sort out.

Was a deal cut? Did Hayes become president by agreeing to withdraw federal troops from the defeated southern states, ending Reconstruction? Did Republicans merely steal back what had been stolen from them? The "Solid South" was solid Democratic 110 years thereafter until Republicans' "Operation Switch" (1986) created a more competitive, two-party South.

Amazingly, a span of eighty years from Warren Harding to Bill Clinton (1920-1996), provided frequent landslide victories for each party. Republicans won ten times and Democrats ten times, usually with margins of 300-400 electors or more. Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan reached margins exceeding 500. Only once (John Kennedy over Richard Nixon, 1960) was the margin less than 100, which stirred accusations of cheating.

Voters suddenly hit the brakes in 2000, with a contested five-elector squeaker for George W. Bush over Al Gore. Since the advent of social media's echo chamber, only Barack Obama has won with slightly more than 100 electoral margin. Twenty consecutive elections with comfortable margins for all but one, followed by seven consecutive close outcomes, could be telling us something.

Now, if Vice President Kamala Harris receives 226 electoral votes from 19 reliable blue states and Washington DC, and former President Trump gets 219 electors from 24 conservative states, it all comes down to seven swing states with 93 electors up for grabs. If Trump wins all four sunshine battlegrounds (AZ, GA, NC and NV) with 49 electors, he gets 268. If Harris takes 44 electors from all three blue wall battlegrounds (MI, WI, and PA), she wins 270-to-268.

What if Trump somehow manages to eke out just one District vote from Maine (one of two states that split their electoral vote) for a 269-to-269 tie? For the second time in history, the U.S. House would choose the president, casting one consensus vote per state. Unless Harris takes the blue Omaha district.

Our Constitution's separation of powers, with built-in checks and balances, will likely be tested. The worst that can happen is if either party wins unified control of the White House, U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Temptation to outlaw the Senate filibuster would be irresistible. This could produce wild pendulum swings of unchecked power. Next month, we might take a closer look at that.

For now, let's all just take a deep breath. We've been here before.

Jim Martin, a Republican, was N.C. governor from 1985-93. He is a regular contributor to our pages.