Trump's "Mandate" Evaporates, He Got 49.87% Of Popular Vote
By: Ursula Faw (PolitiZoom)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Ursula Faw - November 21, 2024921
Yes, I hear it too. The screams off in the distance "stollen mandate!" Expect the tom tom drums of MAGAn outrage to be pounding out this theme in the days to come. The simple truth of the matter is that Donald Trump jumped the gun on Election Night, as always. And as expected he would do. This time, he got it right that he won, but he did not get it right that there was any "mandate" and there certainly was no landslide. Late votes are still being counted and when the accounts are reconciled Trump may not be sitting as pretty as he glowingly reported he was on November 5.
The electorate in this country is divided. That's not a new observation. The misinformation in this country has poisoned peoples' minds. The legacy media is terrified to stand up to Trump so they cater to him and always have. You saw Joe and Mika make the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago and no I don't know if they brought him pink and red Starbursts but it would not surprise me one iota. If Joe Scarborough put his testicles in a jar and handed it to Trump, it wouldn't surprise me. Trump might as well wear a ring and everybody start kissing it. I would appreciate that level of honesty and transparency, in fact. He's a mob boss, let's treat him like one. But he's not a mob boss with any kind of a mandate and zero "landslide." That's pure fiction.
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.
They're dancing in the streets. MAGA believes they're ruling supreme. No. Trump won by an unimpressive amount and he's still the unpopular contender he has always been. Different people have been trying to reason with him, to no avail. Karl Rove did an op/ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that said, "no president has infinite sway, no matter how remarkable his electoral victory. Second-term chief executives tend to have even less." And there was no remarkable electoral victory. 250,000 votes in just three states would have put this election in Kamala Harris's column and not in Trump's.
But you can't tell the TV mogul any of this. He's going to keep nominating catastrophic candidates and the hearings will make for interesting cable TV. That much we can depend on. Karl Rove also said,
Inadequate vetting, impatience, disregard for qualifications and a thirst for revenge have created chaos and controversy for Mr. Trump before he's even in office. The price for all this will be missed opportunities to shore up popular support for the incoming president. But at least it'll make great TV.
Rove thinks Trump could have played his hand differently, "shored up popular support," but I don't. Trump is a one-trick pony. And that trick is outrage. Gone are the days when Paul Ryan would mistily proclaim that Trump "becoming presidential" was an achievement that would manifest at any moment. It never happened. It never will. It never can.
So America will have four years of a complete shitshow and circus. Or maybe less. Donald doesn't look well. Which Big Mac will be the decisive one and Lady Karma teams up with cholesterol for a decisive bout?
The man's a wreck and America is torn into warring camps. This is the Civil War redux. The Civil War killed 2% of the population of that era and Trump's already killed 1.1 million Americans by flubbing COVID. We are at each other's throats. The comparisons will keep coming.
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I saw the Trump lackey Byron Donald on tv a couple days ago. He said Trump had an electoral college landslide, and said it was the biggest since Reagan in 1984.
Here are the elections since 1984 where the winner had MORE electoral votes than Trump does this year.
1988
1992
1996
2008
2012
Trump, and spoke persons spreading Trump lies , aren't a surprise, but what is, is how this fckn no man
date clown can think that an adult 30somethin or other Fla Rep Beavis im-poster on da Trump roster a farian when closer a look, at where there was found evic=dence, though not of the level required to bring charges, how is it, that the NO 'Man" date would Trump, turn down, as this is one blatantly fckd up person, and the gutless R party of PUSSIES has just gone too far enough to push, cause pull has predictaments where a probable sex traffickin non African admitted drug using and abusing, women asz well, is somehow not needed to be looked into, cause Hell, WTF is WRONG with the gutless Republican Party of hippocritical regressive possessive of none existent morals and ethics, cause it might be a death kiss wrapped in Aluminem to Foil the reception of radio waves instructing cult members to follow Don boy out into traffic to get run over by people. People like mothers and fathers whom don't think it's the best look for the Attorney General, the ,highest, enforcer of ALL the Laws in this land, that wishes to stand with two middle fingers in your face, after visiting an under aged teenagers place, snortin some shit, then hiitin some shit, cause swallor spit, that's someones future mother, your little sisters brother, a future grand mother fckr, or another you might wish to smoother, with protection,
cause how the believers of Qananon conspiracies can state how upset they were at children eating canabalector types like Hillary , or innocent old man hair sniffin band of accusations were all the sensation, but when a potential ACTUAL REAL violater of children , and worse yet, young girls, has a swarm of unanswered questions, serious questions, Hell, FCKN SERIOUS QUESTIONS that NEED to be answered, even if he's no longer a candidate for A G. I would like to see how many Republicans that were willing to put this accused partyin pedofile in the top perch of pokin around Trumps'list of enemies, and their teenage daughters, cause holy Jesse Dirty Watters, has the GOP totally lost it, due to Trump Bjullshit, cause to not care about knowing what this J bag may have done, sorta removes the fun out of leavin Matt at home with our daughters, babysitting job available
Guess what percentage of the vote Clinton got?
370
That is the number of electoral votes Clinton won in 1992. 58 more than Trump now.
Clinton only received 43% of the popular vote; but Democrats still screamed mandate!
Because there were three candidates and Ross Perot got like 19% of the vote. But for him, Clinton would likely have received about 53% of the popular vote .
So? The popular vote doesn't mean shit.
You're absolutely right....doesn't mean shit in the broader scheme of things. All this nitpicking about percentages is just plain stupid
Being in control of the WH, Senate, and the House mean a lot. All he needed was 270 electoral votes, and there is nothing the Dem dummies can do to stop or derail the Trump Train from starting to undo Biden's willful malfeasance.
ELECTION MELTDOWNS GO METAL
Not what libs were saying when Trump beat Clinton in 2016 with fewer popular votes …. that said, the popular vote does matter. It decides who gets Electoral College votes at the state level.
Which ultimately decides who becomes President.
It is kind of funny (sad funny) that back in 2016 the left was loudly proclaiming that the popular vote did indeed matter and were vocal about the need to do away with the Electoral College. Yet now the popular vote doesn't mean shit.
I have contended here that Trump did not win a mandate. Nothing said in reply indicates that he did. Both his EV and popular percentage are mediocre by any reasonable standard.
I know. They are shameless to say the least …..
Bullshit. One wonders, who you think you are fooling ….
I said nothing about a mandate. Personally, I don't care for the term in the first place. When a party uses the phrase it normally means they are going to go to their extremes while completely forgetting that the people want a more centralist government that works for the people. I suspect the midterms will reverse some of the "power" in Washington as that's the normal pattern.
What I responded to was the hypocrisy of some who in the past have complained about presidential elections being decided by the EC vote when the popular vote went to the other candidate and talked loudly about the need to do away with the Electoral College and go with a straight line democratic vote. Yet in this election both the EC and popular vote was won by the same candidate but as the left favors another candidate they are quick to say the popular vote doesn't matter.
Hypocrisy is very prevalent since the election.
The "mandate" is the purported justification for dismantling the government.
Just a suggestion... but do you think this might just be a weeeeeee bit melodramatic?
BS Perot stole far more votes from Bush than Clinton.
Leftist media and pollsters like to keep the myth alive that Perot supporters would have voted for Clinton over Bush. When the vast majority of Perot supporters were hard core conservatives that never would vote for Clinton. My father and grand father being the leaders of those.
Bush's broken "Read my lips, no new taxes' BS cost him Conservative votes. They sure as hell weren't going to vote for Clinton- the perpetual sex offender; and Democrat sleaze bag criminal. Perot was the easy out; and espoused far more conservative ideals than Bush.
Try studying Perot's platform- does any of it sound Democratic?
Sounds like a Democrat through and through doesn't he?/S
Good to know.
Now go tell Hillary to STFU.
I really don’t care what you believe. It has been studied. I supplied a link. You supplied your ignorant opinion.
Steady drip of late ballots. Where have we heard that before?
Democrat special coming part deux.
Democrats still lost. Bigly. Get over it.
There have been 60 U.S. presidential elections. Trump's percentage of the popular vote this time ranks 42nd.
the only "man date" Trump has, is named Elon
What's your point?
Trump's mandate is imaginary.
Trumps mandate is concrete to all but the Trump triggered.
The election is over, he won. It all boils down to a matter of semantics now.
And sour grapes
Yep, SLS (Sore Loser Syndrome) is running rampant with some.
Do you remember the ultimate sore loser syndrome guy? For 4 years he continued to deny he lost.
Yes, as a matter of fact I do. But that was four years ago and this is now and Trump is the current winner no matter how much you may wish that wasn't so.
So you agree that Trump was the ultimate sore loser. Good to hear.
Hilary Clinton ring a bell?
How about Al Gore?
How about John Kerry?
I can go on. Democrats are legendary election deniers.
Don’t expect them to acknowledge reality. It’ psychologically impossible for the triggered.
Every single one of them conceded the election. Trump still hasn't.
I seldom do.
Cue the baseless fraud accusations from Trump….
None of it matters, the election was obviously rigged.
Oh, of course they were....the grand collusion.
So, instead of being a Republic, if America were a Democracy, Harris would have won. Too bad. Maybe it's time to get smart.
How so? She still lost the popular vote..........
‘How so? She still lost the popular vote..........’
We have been hearing from leftists for months that Republicans have not won the popular vote since 1988, and even one of them here harped over and over that Harris was going to in by 15 million votes (how did that work out)
NOW you want to say it doesn’t matter?
Hilarious
Are you sure? Then I was misinformed. I thought that with all votes counted she won it by a whisker.
Any win is still a win no matter what.
Remember, there were more than two candidates.
I forgot about that. I stand corrected.
It's a fascinating situation, actually.
Democrats sued to keep RFK Jr. off the ballot. Then, when he withdrew, they sued to keep him on the ballots where he had been allowed on.
The whole "Republicans are a threat to democracy" idea gets a bit absurd when Democrats are using litigation to keep people from voting for the candidate of their choice and then nominating a person who got zero votes in the primaries.
Donald Trump tried to steal the 2020 election. he has since said it was a mistake for him to leave office when he did . He has repeatedly said he might not accept election results unless he won. He has threatened to have media that have opposed him investigated and have their licenses taken away. He called for Joe Biden to be arrested in the last few weeks before the 2020 election.
If you think people are imagining Trump to have authoritarian proclivities, then you are the one imagining.
Referendum on that is over.
You lost. The majority doesn't believe the BS anymore.
Find some new material.
and you would be so wrong
True
When Biden won in 2020, I heard that he whipped Trump almost every day.
The testimony to Trump's win and mandate is that the one who once did all the bragging is now gone.
What is the historical basis for calling this election result a mandate ?
We dont care about your "feelings" .
Trumps electoral vote total is mediocre ( 5 of the 8 previous winning totals , post Reagan, were higher than Trumps this year) and his popular vote percentage is in the bottom third of all US presidential elections.
The Trump way is just to keep repeating misinformation non stop until the public is beat into indifference or submission.
History is written by the winners, so it's whatever Trumpists want it to be.
To a minor extent all winners proclaim a "mandate" , it is part of the game. Never has someone with such an unimpressive win claimed the duty to destroy the governmental institutions based on a "mandate" from the voters. This would be like if after Obama had won he said he had a "mandate" to give monetary reparations to racial minorities. Trump's actual "mandate", to the tiny extent it exists, is to lower inflation and consumer prices and bring common sense order to the border situation. All this stuff about re-imagining government functions is pure MAGA far right bs that a majority of Americans would never vote for, and the vehicle for Trump "retribution".
Absolutely not. There is an attempt by the winners to write history, but ultimately history is more objective than that.
All branches of government are now under Republican control. You can repeat the left's new mantra, but it will now be a fact of life for at least the next two years.
We dont care about your "feelings" .
Oh dear. What do you care about?
Trumps electoral vote total is mediocre ( 5 of the 8 previous winning totals , post Reagan, were higher than Trumps this year) and his popular vote percentage is in the bottom third of all US presidential elections.
Say what you want, just remember, you'll have very little radical input in the next two years.
Maybe it's time to replace that avatar with one that includes Pan Bondi.
As often happens, your comment has nothing to do with anything.
That is probably true, because Trump and MAGA are liars and the media is accepting.
Translation: We have assumed control! We don't need no stinking mandate! Fuck the 70% of voting age Americans who did not vote for Trump. They had their chance!
Translation: See Above
Translation: See Above
‘Fuck the 70% of voting age Americans who did not vote for Trump. They had their chance’
Now you’re getting it.
MAGA Republicans can brag all we want! We won and that has consequences. We've never let fake news get in the way of our mandate before and we won't let it now.
The Election Meltdown is Insane
This is what the media and many dems have devolved into. They really believe the hate they are spewing and somehow believe it is OK because they have "right" on their side.
Personally I hate it when either party claims a mandate. It seems to give license to go to the extreme of the party's wants. Then they end up going too far and the country says woah and they lose one or more of the branches. It seems neither party learns that the majority of Americans want the middle or slightly to one side.
"Personally I hate it when either party claims a mandate."
I most definitely agree.
Isn't it interesting how the definition of "misinformation" never seems to include anything from the left side of the aisle, no matter how daft it is?
lol …. What they fail to realize is, thinking people see right through that bullshit.
Everybody except them sees through that bullshit.
Do you think 312 electoral votes ( less than GHW Bush, Bill Clinton twice, and Barack Obama twice) , and 49.7 % of the popular vote is a "mandate"? History suggests otherwise.
An Electoral College win, taking back the Senate, holding onto to House?
Yeah, only a dimwit couldn’t make the mandate connection.
Trump barely won, the GOP edge in the House is smaller than it was before the election, and they took back the Senate because the seats up for election in 2024 were disproportionately Democrat. (· Of the seats up for election in 2024, Democrats held 19, Republicans held 11).
Of course not.
Neither is 51% of the popular vote.
We haven't had an actual mandate since 1984.
Try to spin it all you want. Dems got their ass kicked in all three branches of government after a five year full court press on resisting anything Trump.
Tough pill for some to swallow I’m sure but they better learn or it WILL get shoved down their throats.
You have your feelings and spin and I have the facts. It is essential to trumpism that they claim a mandate because the dismantlement of government cannot be justified unless there was an OVERWHELMING demand for it. Nothing in the election results indicates such an overwhelming demand.
The corrupt Biden progressive government IS going to be dismantled,, piece by piece, mandate or not.
People who are willing victims of far right disinformation should not be deciding the fate of the United States government. To call that totally wrong would be an understatement.
Who cares? He won. His party won Congress. That matters, alot.
1,000,000 "mandates" won't buy you a cup of coffee. Argue all you want over what constitutes a mandate. It's a binary world. He won. Democrats lost. End of story.
No one is disputing that he won. He and his lackeys and sycophants claim that has received a go ahead to fundamentally transform American government. Are you going to argue that someone that didnt even receive a majority of the vote, and has a very mediocre electoral vote total, has been given a go ahead, by the voters, to fundamentally remake American government?
The majority may want him to lower prices and improve the border situation, that is the extent of his "mandate". It is a fringe minority that wants to remake American institutions.
“The majority may want him to lower prices and improve the border situation, that is the extent of his "mandate".”
yeah, i can’t see anybody else wanting to cut massive waste from government. Mandate or not, he’s still up by about 2.5 million votes on cackles.
He absolutely received a Mandate to do the actions he campaigned and won on. He does not have a mandate to nuke Greenland. He does have a mandate to rework American government along the lines he said he would.
thats all a mandate is. “Vote for me and I’ll do these things”. If you win you can claim an electoral mandate to do those things. But again, the term mandate is meaningless and doesn’t matter one bit to anyone when it comes to time pass legislation or anything else.
An electorate can be misled, and in fact they were. But if he had won 65% of the popular vote perhaps one could make somewhat of an argument that he should make sweeping changes to the government. But he won less than a majority, and whether he won the election or not he has no calling to make sweeping changes.
I thought America needed to be fundamentally transformed?..
Yes, that's what a majority of Americans voter for. They weren't misled. The size of the majority is irrelevant.
Why do liberals so often claim that anyone who disagrees with them has been "misled"?
How is it so difficult for them to acknowledge people can just see things differently?
You are in denial John. Big time.
All you got is ridicule.
Sal Alinsky would be proud …..
And they can be triggered. Like many progressives are these days with Trump on their mind 24/7.
Sad …..
The real danger to liberty and democracy.
You are the most fact free person on this website.
Because Trump is a known fabulist and serial pathological liar and he has millions of adoring fans and cultists, thats why.
More uniformed ridicule. Better call Saul.
Maybe you're not fact free, maybe you're just constantly utterly unmotivated to share the facts you know with anyone.
Dont you ever get tired of that being your only output here?
Lol, more ridicule… just can’t help it can you?
You’ve been proven wrong and out debated at every turn on this seed. The denial of that here is palpable.
By who? I post facts and you flap your lips.
By many here.
You are in denial of reality. Sad but true. As is the need to ridicule.
At least you are a man of few words. Most of them cliches.
Lol, give it a rest. Saul is already very proud of you.
Weak sauce John, very weak.
I see the latter as true.
Also true of Bernie Sanders. You're not whining about his followers being "misled".
It's been pointed out to you before that the first thing cult leaders do is have their members cut off ties with family.
This is exactly what the left is telling their lemmings to do if their family voted for Trump.
The truth is the REAL cultists are democrats.
Shave their heads, stop talking to family, stop having sex..
It can't be more a textbook cult
Exactly this,
The leftist lemmings are told what their world views are and they follow along without hesitation.
I don't see how they can't realize they are the cultists.
Do "liberals" in fact claim this? I don't think that "they" do.
Oh yeah. Have you not read the comments?
‘Isn't it interesting how the definition of "misinformation" never seems to include anything from the left side of the aisle, no matter how daft it is?’
I just refer to it as ‘stupid bullshit’. Seems to fit in every situation.
Mandate schmandate! He still won fair and square and will be the incoming POTUS.
Do you think Trump has a mandate to dismantle the government ?
I have no reason to believe that he will or attempt to do so as you see it.
Remember what a past president said. 'Elections have consequences.'
Nope, as my friends on the left love to preach, democracy will be done when Trump takes office.
So enjoy it while you can ……
There is no mandate and Fox, Newsmax, and every other right wing outlet will avoid telling the truth.
Republicans have become a certified cult with no free dissent against their "Daddy" leader.
Republicans are quite open about being against free speech admitting the administration will go after outlets, reporters and citizens who speak out, look at the recent bill they put forth to pave the way. They will go after the "libs" first but make no mistake, when the hurt comes by way of economic pain even devoted followers who voted for this will be unable to speak out or criticize the results.
So, what exactly constitutes a mandate?...
+1 vote if you’re a Democrat, no amount if you are a Republican.
Good article and valid point on the voting percentage breakdowns but there are some other points to consider as well
1. Trump also performed well by historical standards for someone running against the White House-occupying party. Going back to 1932, only six other candidates from the out-of-power party have taken as large a share of the vote as Trump’s nearly 50%. The others notching a higher percentage are Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, Jimmy Carter in 1976, Ronald Reagan in 1980, Barack Obama in 2008 and Biden in 2020.
2. Trump’s margin of victory in the Electoral College was nowhere near the landslide wins of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, Richard M. Nixon in 1972 or Reagan in 1984. But it was bigger than four of the seven elections this century, including Biden’s four years earlier.
3. Trump won both the Electoral College and the popular vote; in fact, Trump this year became only the second Republican to win the popular vote since 1988.
4. Trump won all of this year’s seven battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris fared worse in these states than Joe Biden did four years earlier.
PolitiFact | How big was Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory? 8 charts explain
1. Trumps popular vote percentage is the 42nd best out of 60 US elections. That is "bottom third". How do we get "mandate" from that?
2. Trump's electoral vote total is completely mediocre. Going back to 1984 (10 presidential elections) the only years with less EV than Trump this year were 2000,2004, and 2020 , oh and 2016 when Trump himself was the winner. If people just want to declare any old thing a mandate I guess no one can stop them, but its really not supportable.
3. So what?
4. All seven battleground states were within the polling margin of error. How the heck is that a mandate ?
How is winning the EC, winning the popular vote and control of all three branches of government not?
Trump won a close election, the GOP lost a net of a couple seats in the House, and the 2024 Senate elections (19 Dem seats at stake, 11 Repub) heavily favored the Republicans.
I think I already said this.
See 15.1.1
Apply liberally, lather, rinse and repeat as necessary.
The upper third would be 1-20. The lower third would be 41-60.
John
Read the comment before you respond - I did not say there was a mandate _ Isaid that I liked the article and it made a valid point
But the points I made are just as valid in describing the election
Everyone else does not have to be wrong in order for to be right about something.
Again I liked the article and the point is valid
42nd best would be better than 41st best