Kerry vs. Reagan

Recently, my brother despaired at the fact that he'll have lived 20 of his years during the reign of either a Reagan or a Bush. Well, Al Franken said something during his appearance on the Late Show with Dave Letterman just now that might cheer him up.

Dave was asking Al for his reaction to the election. Al kind of groaned playfully. Dave said, "They're saying Bush received the most popular votes in history."

Al responded, "That's true. But you know who received the second most popular votes in history? John Kerry."

A dgcopter independent investigation verified this claim. Prior to this election, the record holder for most popular votes was Ronald Reagan in 1984, with 54,455,000 (Link to Federal register's historical data -- scroll down to 1984). Bush received 59,459,765 votes. Kerry received 55,949,407. (Link to CNN's election results). Now, admittedly, coming in second place in an election doesn't mean much, but this much is true:

Kerry got more votes than Reagan.