How often does the taller presidential candidate win?

Answer 1

from Wikipedia:

For the 46 elections in which the heights of both candidates are known, the taller candidate won 27 times (approximately 59 percent of the time), the shorter candidate won 17 times (approximately 37 percent of the time), and the candidates were the same height two times (about 4 percent of the time). Of those who were not President or Vice president at the time of the election, the popular vote was won by six who were shorter and sixteen who were taller. We might assume, however, that James Madison, the shortest President, was shorter than his opponent, and this would increase the number to seven for the shorter candidate. It should be noted, however, that in three of the cases in which the shorter candidate won, the taller candidate actually received more popular votes but lost in the Electoral College; this happened in 1824, 1888, and 2000 (the other time that the electoral vote winner was not the popular vote winner was in 1876, for which we do not know the height of the loser). So, of the 46 cases for which we have data, the taller candidate has won the popular vote 30 times (65 percent), and the shorter candidate only about 14 times (30 percent of them). This does constitute a statistically significant (p < .05) difference from chance by chi-square test, although this is not the case when electoral victors are considered. If considering restricting to elections in the 20th and 21st centuries, only 8 out of 27 elections were won by the shorter candidate.

Answer 2

For most of the history of the United States, few voters got to see the candidates standing side by side. Therefore, early on shorter candidates often won.

But in the 20th century, when photos and video of the two candidates became ubiquitous:

19 times, the taller candidate won

7 times, the shorter candidate won

2 times, the candidates were the same height

So the taller candidate won twice, for every time the shorter one did. Excluding same-height, the taller candidate won three times out of four.

See the related link.

Answer 3

not all the time