Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody, rather than for somebody.

Adams’s remark is a wry observation about the psychology of democratic choice: electoral outcomes often hinge less on positive enthusiasm than on aversion. Voters, he suggests, are frequently motivated by fear, irritation, or distrust—casting a ballot as a rejection of an opponent rather than an endorsement of a champion. The line also implies a structural feature of two-party or polarized systems, where campaigns can succeed by making the alternative seem unacceptable. As social commentary, it fits Adams’s reputation for epigrammatic, skeptical humor about public life, puncturing the idealized notion that elections reliably measure affirmative popular will.