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The 2024 US election takes place on 5 November, with former President Donald Trump of the Republican party facing Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

The election campaign has been full of twists and turns, including Harris replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee at the last minute. But this isn't the first time that a US election has felt a little strange.

����ý Bitesize takes a look at some of the more unusual presidential races of the past.

The very first one

Heading back to the start of US election history brings the story of the only unanimously elected American president.

America was a newly independent country, having severed its ties with Great Britain on 4 July 1776 – the day now recognised in the United States as Independence Day.

Approaching its first election in 1788, the US was made up of just 13 states. Only 10 were eligible to vote in the election as North Carolina and Rhode Island hadn’t yet ratified the new United States constitution and New York did not appoint electors in time.

Of those 10 states, only six actually allowed people to vote – white male adults only – while the other four saved the decision for state legislators.

There was no real campaign as such – mainly as everyone was united around the eventual winner, George Washington.

Urged to come out of semi-retirement after leading the US to victory over the British in the battle for independence, Washington was the overwhelming choice across the political spectrum.

The election used the electoral college system - whereby each state is allocated a different number for votes based on its size and population, a modified version of which is still used today. There were 72 electors, although only 69 actually cast their votes.

Each elector was entitled to two electoral college votes (in order to elect a president and a vice-president) and all 69 gave a vote to Washington, the maximum possible for a candidate and a comprehensive show of support.

After being persuaded to run for a second term, Washington repeated the trick in 1792, again receiving the backing of all 132 electors across the then 15 states.

A dead candidate

The 1872 election saw a series of remarkable firsts in US political history.

Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to run for president, representing the Equal Rights’ Party – and her running mate and choice for vice president was Frederick Douglass, the first African American to be considered for the role.

But while Woodhull and Douglass made history, they didn’t receive many votes. In Woodhull’s case, she wasn’t even allowed to vote herself - the 19th amendment to the US constitution giving women the right to vote in all American states wasn’t ratified until 1920.

The main candidates were the sitting president, Ulysses S. Grant of the Republican party, and his opponent, Horace Greeley.

Greeley was a New York newspaper publisher who was backed by two major parties, the Liberal Republicans and the Democrats.

The election saw Grant victorious in a landslide, winning the popular vote (the total number of votes cast) and 286 electoral college votes compared to Greeley’s 66.

Less than a month after the election, but before the electoral college confirmed its votes, Greeley passed away – becoming the only presidential candidate to die during an election.

Upon his death, Greeley was no longer eligible to receive the 66 college votes, which were then reallocated to other candidates.

Prisoner at the polls

The 1920 US election saw a comprehensive victory for the Republican candidate Warren G. Harding.

Harding beat Democrat James M. Cox by 404 electoral votes to 127 and won just over 60% of the popular vote in the election. That gave Harding a winning margin of 26.2%, the largest-ever in a contested US election.

As the first election in America in which women had the right to vote in all 48 states of the country, the popular vote rose from 18.5 million four years earlier, to 26.8 million.

The election also saw socialist Eugene Debs win just under a million votes across the country – the highest ever for a socialist candidate.

Debs finished third overall, but failed to win any college votes. But what makes his role remarkable in election history is that he ran his entire campaign from prison.

Two years before the election, Debs had given an anti-war speech in protest against military drafts for World War One.

He was arrested and charged with sedition for violating an espionage law that forbid criticism of the government and was imprisoned – but did promise to pardon himself if successful in the election.

'Dewey defeats Truman'

At the 1948 election, sitting president Harry S. Truman sought re-election, having ascended to the presidency following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt three years earlier.

But the Democrat was widely predicted to lose the election, with his opponent, Republican governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey, comfortably ahead in the opinion polls.

With Truman’s chances of re-election looking bleak, the newspaper The Chicago Tribune called the election in Dewey’s favour and printed early editions, while votes were still being counted, in favour of the challenger.

The headline on the copies read ‘Dewey defeats Truman’ – but it quickly became apparent that Truman was set for an unlikely victory. The Tribune adjusted the headline for subsequent editions.

That would have been that – but two days later, Truman, who had been heavily criticised by The Tribune throughout the campaign, celebrated his victory by holding aloft one of the early editions, incorrect headline and all.

Too close to call

One of the closest elections in American history took place in 2000 – with Republican George W. Bush taking on Al Gore of the Democratic Party in the polls.

With just a few states to declare their tallies, Bush had won 246 electoral college votes to Gore’s 250 – and it was all set to come down to Florida and their 25 votes.

Initially, the television news networks declared Gore as the winner in Florida based on exit polls but reassessed the outcome once the votes started to be counted. As the night progressed, Gore rang Bush to concede the election and congratulate him on his victory – only to retract his concession once it became too close to call.

Following recounts after the election, Bush’s lead at one point was thought to be as little as 300 votes. That prompted legal action from both candidates: to try to seek further recounts, in the case of Gore, or to prevent them and declare a winner, as per Bush.

Following more than a month of wrangling back and forth, Bush was declared the winner in Florida and Gore conceded – the Democrat’s 266 electoral college votes were the highest ever for a losing candidate.

Experts still dispute to this day whether Gore or Bush would have won the state of Florida with a full, manual recount – but Bush’s victory led him to the first of two terms as US president.