Flip-Flopped Elections

One of the things I discovered while playing around with the LA Times interactive electoral map as a visual aid for gaming future elections is that the election of 1880 would have flipped results if electoral votes had been apportioned then as they are now. (Warning: only political history junkies will be interested in the following.)

In 1880, James Garfield, the Republican candidate, carried all but one of the Union states plus Oregon and a couple of prarie states, for 214 electoral votes. Winfield Hancock, the Democrat, carried the Confederacy and border states, plus New Jersey, Nevada, and California, for 155 electoral votes. (A lot of present-day rocky mountain/western states were not yet states.) The final popular vote margin, however, was less than 10,000 in Garfield's favor.

If you assign electoral votes based on today's apportionment, Hancock wins 265-209. That's largely because he carried California, Texas, and Florida, which in 1880 were worth 6, 8, and 4 EV respectively (55, 34, and 27 today). And yes, I am aware that this is not a legitimate ceteris paribus case.