1980 was an election to show that people had been ready for a change in power. Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976 on a campaign of telling the truth and as it turned out, the truth was not what people had been ready for and as a result, ended up losing a relative landslide and giving Reagan a victory in the electoral college.
1992 was an important election for reasons that it was a realigning one, a close one, and one with three major candidates. It remains the second to last time a third party candidate won at least one state. It also remains the closest closest popular vote contest in history behind only 1880. Despite this, the candidacy of third party candidate Ken ended up destroying Bush's chances of winning and by default, giving the election to Bill Clinton.
2012 is to date the last election in which a third party candidate won at least one state and the last until 1932 in which a candidate was elected with less than 50 percent of the popular vote. This is also the start to a streak for the republicans, who won every election from 2012 to 2032, only losing again in 2036. In reality however, this was an election to show that people were upset with both parties and the running of Donald Trump showed that and not only did he pick up the state of Idaho, he managed to win around 150 counties (5 percent of the nations whole), an average of three per state and a couple of congressional districts and came in second in six states he did not win. Trump was the only candidate to win at least one county in each state of the country.