Trump Has Lost His Popular-Vote Majority By Ed Kilgore, political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015 On Election Night, with characteristic modesty, Donald Trump claimed an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” He certainly won the contest legitimately, if more narrowly than many observers initially thought. His popular-vote margin over Kamala Harris has dropped from around 3 percent on the evening of November 5 (or about two-thirds of Joe Biden’s margin in 2020) to 1.62 percent today. That’s about a half-percent smaller than Hillary Clinton’s national popular-vote margin over Trump in 2016. To make some other comparisons: Barack Obama won the popular vote by 3.9 percent in 2012 and 7.2 percent in 2008, and George W. Bush won the popular vote by 2.4 percent in the very close 2004 election. Unlike Obama and Bush, moreover, Trump did not win a majority of the national popular vote. Though it looked like he was over 50 percent on Election Night, the steady drip of late ballots has eroded his percentage to (currently) 49.87 percent, with further slippage very likely before all the votes are in. Trump’s win in the Electoral College was more impressive, though his 316 electoral votes were less than Obama’s in either of his elections and just above Biden’s in 2020. In Pennsylvania, the “tipping point” state that clinched a second term for Trump, his margin over Harris was 1.8 percent, not exactly a landslide. So by any measure, the claim of an “unprecedented” mandate simply isn’t true. Trump won a very close election and will govern a country where a near majority of people have voted against him three times. Yes, his party won control of Congress as well. But in the House, the margin of Republican control (with three contests still undecided) is so small that Trump’s appointment of three representatives to Cabinet positions could make any controversial votes extremely difficult for House Speaker Mike Johnson until special elections are held, and very difficult even then. Given that perilous hold on power, Trump might want to reconsider his current strategy of ruling Washington like a devastated and occupied enemy city with a Cabinet largely composed of men and women who appear to hate the departments and agencies they are supposed to oversee, plus a governing plan that may rely on testing the tolerance of the federal judiciary for totally unparalleled assertions of supreme presidential powers. And Trump’s MAGA base should also cool its jets a bit. There’s certainly a degree of triumphalism in the air that really isn’t justified by the election returns. Consider this take from RealClearPolitics columnist Frank Miele, who suggests Trump follow the U.S. Civil War model for subduing enemies: This time around, Trump knows he only has four years to fulfill his plans. So he’s moving with lightning speed to do exactly what Abraham Lincoln accomplished in his four years in the White House: unite the country by demonstrating strength, wisdom, and patriotism. Lincoln’s Confederate enemies, to be clear, seceded from the Union and launched a violent attack on U.S. military facilities that led to a conflict that killed over 2 percent of the nation’s population, followed by the military occupation of rebel areas. If Trump and his supporters believe that’s the kind of mandate the 47th president has somehow been given by a minority of Americans, we are all in a lot of trouble.
Yes. When every state has its own standards. I know Cali gives a week for timely post marked ballots and another 2 weeks or so to fix any errors in ballots. They are essentially meaningless votes. The vast majority of localities have already certified their vote totals. Washington is the dead last to cut off receiving votes (November 25th for Overseas Military Ballots timely mailed). The last state to certify results is Oregon on December 11th (which is required by federal law). There are 13 states that are still awaiting local certification. Only 11 states have certified results. Deleware is by far the fastest, finishing just 2 days after the election. Even Florida, who counts very quickly takes 2 weeks to finalize.
Innocent until proven guilty, except for when it goes against the narrative. Both sides of the political spectrum do it, but it does drive me crazy. Look back at how many times that chart got posted showing how big of an outlier 2020 was for votes, despite being on different timelines. It turns out the biggest difference by far is California, which looks like it is going to have 2M fewer Presidential votes than in 2020. Every battleground ended up being pretty consistent. Kamala even got more votes than Biden in Nevada, Georgia, NC, & Wisconsin. The only battleground she performed worse than Trump did in 2020 was Arizona, which makes sense given how much Latino voters flipped in Trump's favor. The reason Trump ultimately swept the other battleground states was he also dominated first-time voters, helping him outperform 2020 in all of those states. As to the actual basic topic, it does make the idea of a Mandate somewhat laughable. The closest thing I've seen to a mandate was 2008, and we saw how hard the pushback was. 100% that Americans do want change. But going back to Trump isn't change. I actually am on board for what DOGE could do, but they don't seem entirely serious. And when wealth distribution is probably the most frustrating thing for ordinary people, multiple Billionaires just seem to be the opposite of what you want to fix it.
In the end why does this matter. She may have won a battle but she lost the war. You can smoke all of the copium you want, but the orange man is your President for the next 4 years or he kicks over dead from all of the carcinogens he is putting all over his face to look like king of the Oompa Loompa's
Doesn't matter in the real world. It was a gut punch for me that he would win the popular vote. So the correction is nice. The 70+ million votes he did get still bothers me though. He shouldn't be getting any.
God damn you Jill Stein Robert Kennedy Chase Oliver Other candidates ! Their fault we have sweet daddy T Honestly if Kamala could have won over RFK's endorsement....
She didn't even "win" the battle. She still lost the popular vote. Trump still won the popular vote. People are trying to make hay out of the fact he didn't break the 50% threshold as if for some reason that's super important. It's pure copium.
Under 50% of the total number of voters. The candidates I listed a few posts up are why He won the popular vote not the majority
He won the electoral vote by a landslide. He won all seven swing states. He has more votes as well so don't give me some wiki site BS.
