Does 306 = landslide?

[°Leprechaun]

Remember how 45 called his 2016 win a landslide?

[Nyvin]

No,  I'd consider both pretty close,  despite convincing Dem wins in the popular vote both times.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

No. 306 is a respectable victory but not even close to a landslide. In the age of mass polarization, we're not going to see a true presidential landslide again for a very long time.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Donald Trump thinks so and I’m inclined to agree these days.

Honestly, though, when we talk about landslides or mandates, we should be talking about PV numbers and just accept that the EC is a weird relic of our past that we are glad didn’t screw us again.

[pbrower2a]

Kennedy won 303 in 1960, and that is not considered a landslide.

It is more telling that Biden won about as large a percentage of the popular vote as did Ronald Reagan in 1980. Coincidence? 

[Figueira]

I think it depends more on how much you won the tipping-point state by, i.e. how much of a universal swing you would need to flip the election. The answer for Biden is not much, but he did win a pretty sizeable victory in the popular vote, which can't be forgotten.

[Benjamin Frank]

Kennedy won 303 in 1960, and that is not considered a landslide.

It is more telling that Biden won about as large a percentage of the popular vote as did Ronald Reagan in 1980. Coincidence? 

Well, Reagan probably would have won between 53-54% of the vote had John Anderson not won nearly 7%.

[Ljube]

No. And neither was Trump's victory a landslide.

[Illiniwek]

I think it is fair to claim that it was a bigger win than 2016, especially because it will be a right wing talking point that it was a close election. But I do think 306 EVs is a solid win that shouldn’t be considered close. It is not, however, a blowout.

[AGA]

The best measure of the size of a win is tipping point margin, and if the tipping point is WI, then this election was slightly closer than 2016.

[Progressive Pessimist]

By Trump standards, yes. In fact, Biden actually won the popular vote and flipped states that Obama couldn't even. So his win was actually more impressive than Trump's, and it is a map worth celebrating.

However, it has also become clearer than ever (as obvious as it always should have been) that Obama was a once in a lifetime candidate in a different time whose two election performances may never be replicated in the Electoral College and with the coalition he had, especially with voters of color.

All elections are probably going to be close like this one and 2016 was in these times of partisanship, and we all need to accept that.

[Badger]

No. Nor is Biden's likely PV win of around 4% particularly impressive either.

I don't think we've had and election we could realistically call a landslide since 96, and even that it's difficult considering Dole a flipped at least a couple States back to Republican.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

No - not in the margins in the tipping point states, not in the popular vote (<10%), and not in the EC (<200 EVs apart). Indeed, I wouldn't even call it a healthy EC victory unless NC goes Democratic.

[bagelman]

Reagan '84 and FDR '36 both laugh at loud at the audacity of this question.

[MABA 2020]

No not in the electoral college, maybe the PV will end up being a landslide if Biden's margin continues to grow but as of now no

[SN2903]

He didn't get 306. Trump won

[Virginiá]

No. 306 is a respectable victory but not even close to a landslide. In the age of mass polarization, we're not going to see a true presidential landslide again for a very long time.

I don't know, I mean, how long can this realistically go on? Eventually one side is going to get an upper hand. Even the polarization and closely contested elections of the late 1800s eventually gave way. That was 25 years of close presidential results. We're going on 25 years ourselves, if you start the clock in 2000.

Democrats have an undeniable generational edge and have slightly more popular support, even if less optimally distributed, but the GOP has been successful in picking up support among older voters and chipping off pieces of the dem coalition (temporarily or not) here and there, and it's just resulted in a constant stalemate - at least in the sense that neither party can cobble together a functional governing majority for longer than 2 years, if at all.

Point being that it would just be too strange and unlikely that each party could somehow always find just enough voters to keep things hyper-competitive. With a game playing out over multiple generations, I mean, something is bound to give eventually. It just seems like too long of a time frame for things to always manage to even out for each party.

[WD]

He didn't get 306. Trump won

Imagine being this delusional

[Person Man]

It’s the closest Democratic EV win in my lifetime and the highest PV% a challenger against an incumbent has gotten in 88 years. Reagan and Carter got less than 51%.