Dark Horse: US Elections Where Unknowns and Outsiders Won Nominations and the Presidency.

In this set of 4 lectures, we will examine 8 elections in US history where unknowns or outsiders disrupted the candidacies of party favorites and insiders. For 4 of these cases, the outsider went on to win the general election. In another 4, they did not – but still substantially altered the course of history, nonetheless. We will be exploring the unlikely candidacies of James Polk (1844), James Garfield (1880), George McGovern (1972) and Donald Trump (2016). We will also look at improbable candidacies of William Jennings Bryan (1896), John Davis (1924), Wendell Wilkie (1940), and Barry Goldwater (1964). Each case provides a unique set of lessons for political observers in the 21^st century.