Trump Has Lost His Popular-Vote Majority
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.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/election-results-show-trump-has-lost-popular-vote-majority.html
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