In October 1805, Pennsylvania Gov. Thomas McKean was up for reelection, and the editors of the Philadelphia Aurora wanted him stopped. So they ran a nearly full-page excoriation that declared McKean “an apostate from principle” who was “supported by a mongrel faction.” And then the paper leveled with its readers: “Today will be held the most important election you have ever been called upon to attend.”
Huzzah to the mongrels: McKean won. But in the process, the Aurora editors had unleashed an oratorical trick that is now endemic to modern politics. Its admonishment was an early version of the phrase “this is the most important election of our lifetime,” which has been deployed nearly word-for-word in elections large and small for more than 200 years. (It’s hard to definitively say who invented the phrase, but the Aurora was the earliest I could find.) Most recently, this language has been the gospel of both President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.
I dug through newspaper archives and found countless examples of this phrase describing both local and federal elections. In 1813, the Pittsfield Sun declared “the most important election that has taken place since the adoption of the federal constitution.” (It was for a slate of local candidates nobody today would know.) In 1864, the Vermont Chronicle exclaimed “the most important election in the history of this nation.” (Abraham Lincoln was running for reelection, so fair enough.) And the Greeneville Democrat-Sun, a newspaper in Tennessee, reported in 1923 that “the most important election in the history of the county will take place … when Greene County will be called on to vote $200,000 for the purpose of resurfacing the roads.” (Maybe a little overhyped?)
Our exact modern phrasing—“the most important election of our lifetime”—appears not long after. The earliest appearance I could find was 1936, from a rally to support Michigan Gov. Frank Fitzgerald’s reelection bid. The state’s secretary of state at the time, Orville E. Atwood, told the adoring crowd this: “The issue is whether American ideas are to continue or whether we are to adopt European regimentation and collectivism. This is the most important election in our lifetime.” (Fitzgerald lost. Michigan remained non-European.)