The United States has seen its fair share of disputed results throughout history after the votes have been cast on Election Day. In some cases, it was Congress that had to decide the final outcome who would become the next president of the USA with the loser less than satisfied, but they still accepted the result.

However, while the term “loser loser” has been thrown around from time to time, there was only one presidential candidate who refused to concede defeat at the polls even after the dust had settled.

Sore Losers: The Candidates Who Didn’t Accept Defeat in the US Presidential Election

Donald Trump has the sole distinction of meeting the true definition of “wanting losers” as he never accepted his defeat in the 2020 election and continues to this day to complain about his 2020 loss. Even before he was voted in, he declared that there would be fraud and that the election would be stolen. However, that was his playbook in the 2016 election as well as this year’s election.

This is despite the fact that such cases are exceptionally rare in US elections. And when it does, it is so statistically insignificant that it cannot affect the outcome of the election.

In modern times, recent presidential elections have been decided by increasingly narrow margins, sometimes less than one percent in just a few battleground states. This was the case in Georgia in 2020, where a recount was conducted to ensure that the right candidate won the state’s 16 electoral votes. However, Neither the hand count audit nor the automatic recount changed the outcome of Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

Trump’s campaign also called for a recount in two Wisconsin counties, Dane and Milwaukee, which both vote heavily Democratic. Once over, Biden had a net gain of 87 votes.

Neither candidate, Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016, who won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College vote, refused to accept the election result. although both were called losers by supporters of their electoral rivals, George W Bush and Donald Trump respectively.

Al Gore conceded defeat on election night when it looked like Bush had won Florida. However, he withdrew his concession the next morning when the vote count in the Sunshine State was so close that an automatic recount was triggered.

This process was halted by a decision of the Supreme Court on December 12 of that year. Gore said he disagreed with the decision but recognized the election.

Hillary Clinton, for her part, conceded her loss to Trump the morning after the election. However, campaign surrogates condemned those calling for recounts in some states saying he was trying to “delegitimize” his 2016 victory.

The same people would be spearheading efforts to launch The Big Lie in 2020. which helped fuel conspiracy theories and led to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.