Majority of the popular vote + 270 electoral votes, tbh.
Electoral landslides like Kennedy in 1960 and Nixon in 1968 obscured their razor-thin victories in the NPV, which kind of dampened their presidential mandate.
1960 and 1968 weren't electoral landslides by any stretch of the imagination. Kennedy and Nixon didn't even reach 60% of the electoral votes. If there were some while the popular vote wasn't, 1912, 1980 (maybe), 1992 and 1996 fit the description much better.
Perhaps
landslide was an exaggeration, but both won 300+ electoral votes, and that to me is a presidential mandate at the very least. My point was, their clear electoral majority belies just how evenly split the popular vote was in both elections (Kennedy+0.17 in 1960 and Nixon+0.7 in 1968).
In fact, maybe they couldn't get 60% of the electoral vote (Nixon would, btw, if Wallace's EVs are discounted and it is a two-way electoral vote between him and Humphrey), but neither of them managed even half the popular vote.
A majority of the NPV is, to me, the other indicator of a clear presidential mandate. When they don't manage a majority, it's usually because of a razor-thin popular vote margin, and fundamentally, it inherently means that a majority of American voters didn't want them as president.
Even as Kennedy/Nixon attained the first mandate, neither of them could get the second.
