Bush 04 had a reasonably solid, if narrow, win.
It's kind of amazing that Trump, with 46% of the vote, massively exceeded the electoral total that Bush did with 51% of the vote.
Right, that's why I said "initially." Absent one election where their party had an incumbent president, Republicans have not won even a plurality of votes since 1992. That is a pretty bad track record and so as I was saying before, hardly gives Republicans any room to claim any sort of mandate. Fundamentally, things are still not getting any better for them. It was always known that racking up margins among white voters would keep them somewhat competitive in 2016, but that strategy becomes less and less effective going forward, especially considering that the composition of the white electorate is itself changing in favor of Democrats.
That being said, I also think that while rules are rules, Democrats/liberals still have standing to be hostile/angry towards our electoral process. In presidential races, we keep winning more votes than the Republican, and yet still lose. In House races overall, we can't even get a majority of seats unless we win basically a landslide in the House popular vote. If this situation was reversed, I wholeheartedly think there would be plenty of hostility and calls for change from conservatives as well.
