Gallery of Presidential Losers (U.S.A.)

They were almost Presidents.  Instead they became the forgotten few who lost to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Surprisingly, the runner-ups were overwhelmingly white.  Facial hair was common in the 1800's (John C. Breckinridge loved his mustache), but from 1952 onward every loser was clean-shaven.  There's also a noticeable regression from candid color portraits, to black and white, to posed photographs, to daguerreotypes, to paintings. 

John McCain - 2008

John Kerry - 2004

Al Gore - 2000

Bob Dole - 1996

George H. W. Bush - 1992

Michael Dukakis - 1988

Walter Mondale - 1984

Jimmy Carter - 1980

Gerald Ford - 1976

George McGovern - 1972

Hubert Humphrey - 1968

Barry Goldwater - 1964

Richard Nixon - 1960

Adlai Stevenson - 1952, 1956

Thomas E. Dewey - 1944, 1948

Wendell Willkie - 1940

Alf Landon - 1936

Herbert Hoover - 1932

Al Smith - 1928

John W. Davis - 1924

James M. Cox - 1920

Charles Evans Hughes - 1916

Theodore Roosevelt - 1912

Alton B. Parker - 1904

William Jennings Bryan - 1896, 1900, 1908

Benjamin Harrison - 1892

Grover Cleveland - 1888

James G. Blaine - 1884

Winfield Scott Hancock - 1880

Samuel J. Tilden - 1876

Horace Greeley - 1872

Horatio Seymour - 1868

George B. McClellan - 1864

John C. Breckinridge - 1860

John C. Fremont - 1856

Winfield Scott - 1852, 1880

Lewis Cass - 1848

Martin Van Buren - 1840, 1848

Henry Clay - 1824, 1832, 1844

William Henry Harrison - 1836

John Quincy Adams - 1828

Andrew Jackson - 1824

Rufus King - 1816

DeWitt Clinton - 1800, 1804, 1808

Charles Cotesworth - 1800, 1804, 1808

Aaron Burr - 1796, 1800

Thomas Jefferson - 1796

John Adams - 1789, 1792, 1800