In reverse order of terribleness: 

7.  Reagan defeats Mondale 1984. President Ronald Reagan seemed astoundingly lucky. He had survived a deep recession, which knocked out inflation, and then benefited from a booming economy. Walter Mondale, a fine senator, seemed miscast as a presidential candidate and hurt by having served as vice president in the seemingly mostly unsuccessful Carter administration. The result of this election was not surprising.

6.  Nixon defeats Humphrey 1968. Richard Nixon’s awfulness was manifest. Nonetheless, it was difficult to get too upset over this election because we were so unexcited about the guy who lost: Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who, while a committed liberal, proved unwilling to break with President Lyndon Johnson on the Vietnam War.

5. Reagan defeats Carter 1980. Former California Governor Ronald Reagan was as conservative as any recent Republican presidential nominee, including Barry Goldwater. And this election would indeed begin the era of reduced social services for the poor and reduced taxes on the rich. But as much as we were impressed with President Jimmy Carter as a human being, we realized that his presidency had not gone well: inflation was high and an attempt to rescue the hostages taken by Iran had, ingloriously, failed.

 4.  Nixon defeats McGovern 1972. The extent of President Richard Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate break-in or its cover-up was not known before this election. And his victory, while upsetting, hardly came as a surprise. But Senator George McGovern had represented our only remaining hope for stopping the useless war that was killing so many Americans our age and many, many more Vietnamese.

 3.  Bush defeats Kerry 2004. The idiocy of George W. Bush and Dick Chaney’s invasion of Iraq had become clear, we thought. And Senator John Kerry—a war hero—would, we also thought, have seemed impossible to paint as a lily-livered peacenik. But they did. And the architects of that unnecessary war—which created problems we are still dealing with today—somehow won reelection. It didn’t help that the exit polls, which we still trusted back then, had Kerry winning.

2.  Trump defeats Clinton 2016. Yeah, this election was pretty brutal. Businessman and TV star Donald J. Trump was vindictive, dishonest, sympathetic to dictators and not nearly as prepared for the presidency as Senator—and former First lady—Hillary Clinton. However, we did not know—yet—that Trump would prove capable of encouraging his followers to march upon the US Capitol.

1.  Trump defeats Harris 2024. This time we did know about former President Donald J. Trump’s willingness to unleash a violent mob and attempt to overturn a fair election. This time Trump’s former vice president and many of those who had worked with him in his first term were there to underline his numerous inadequacies and character flaws, including a leaning toward fascism. Vice President Kamala Harris, we thought, ran a fine campaign. The electorate had no excuse. This tragic election is going to take a long, long time to get over.