Change My Mind: The 2024 Election was a Decisive Mandate for Trump

[Samof94]

Where do midterms fall in this??? They tend to have larger swings in the NPV(regarding the House)

[LBJer]

Trump winning the popular vote was thought of as unlikely before the election by most, let alone him winning it by 1.5%.

You make it sound like 1.5% is a big margin.  In fact, among all presidential elections from 1900 on, it's the fourth smallest.  1960 had the tightest popular vote in percentage terms, followed by 2000, then 1968, then 2024.

[LBJer]

Trump's victory was narrow historically, yes. But it has to be considered in the context of the recent past, in which polarization has been extremely high and a Republican popular vote victory hasn't happened in 20 years. At the end of the day, Trump swung the 2020 NPV 6% in his favor, improved among nearly every location and demographic groups, had a number of insane electoral feats nobody thought was possible, held Harris to the worst Democratic performance since 1988, and was the 2nd Republican in the last 32 years to win the popular vote. In the context of this modern day, this was a decisive mandate for Trump.

"Historically" is really the only fair way to judge the election.  The statistics you cite seem cherry picked to make Trump's victory look far more impressive than it is.  This isn't the first period of political polarization the U.S. has experienced.  From 1876 to 1888 there was a series of close presidential elections.  Yet historians have never applied a special standard of what constitutes a "mandate" or "landslide" to any of those elections on the grounds that since the country was so polarized during that period a special yardstick must apply in judging them.  And I see no reason to do so for 2024 or any other recent election.  

Furthermore, you bring up 1988 in a selective way--solely as a  means of criticizing Harris' performance.  Yet you somehow don't see fit to actually compare the election results of that year to those of this year.  Well, I'll do so.  Bush Sr. beat Dukakis by more than 7.7 points in the popular vote, compared to about 1.5 for Trump over Harris.  In the electoral college, the election was a landslide--Bush won almost 80 percent of the electoral college votes, 426 to Dukakis' 112 (Dukakis actually received 111 electoral votes because of a faithless elector).  This year, Trump won 312 electoral votes to 226 for Harris.  This is nowhere near 80 percent--in fact, it's a margin of less than 1.5 to 1.  And note that Bush's margin of electoral votes over Dukakis--314 (or 315 with the faithless elector)--was larger than the entire number of electoral votes Trump won.

If the 2024 election was a "decisive mandate" for Trump, what exactly was the 1988 election for George H.W. Bush?

[Tekken_Guy]

2024 was basically Trump’s 2004 whereas 2016 was his 2000.

[MaynardFriedman]

Donald Trump didn't win a mandate. A critical sliver of swing voters backed him and Senate D candidates, which tells you what you need to know about how much they trust him and Republicans.

[Pericles]

Donald Trump didn't win a mandate. A critical sliver of swing voters backed him and Senate D candidates, which tells you what you need to know about how much they trust him and Republicans.

Usually a mandate is associated with a down-ballot wave too, because that confirms that the public agree with the winner's policies in a big way.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

2024 was basically Trump’s 2004 whereas 2016 was his 2000.

I would say its more like Trump's 2012. There is no real equivalent for his 2016 win it was such a unique result.

[EastOfEden]

Decisive is a strong word, but unfortunately, it is a mandate. I didn't think my opinion of the average voter could drop any lower, but here we are.

[Doomer]

2024 was basically Trump’s 2004 whereas 2016 was his 2000.

I would say its more like Trump's 2012. There is no real equivalent for his 2016 win it was such a unique result.

2016 is hard to compare with. Whereas Bush barely squeaked out an EV victory hinging on one state, Trump won the EV by a decent margin where one state wouldn't have changed the result.

[Casino Democrat]

Folks, let me settle this one:

Polls being hilariously pants sh*ttingly wrong and pundits having no idea what the actual vibe was on the ground doesn't suddenly make a 1.5something popular vote victory margin and bare congressional majorities (including a House majority you could count on one hand) a "mandate" for anything.

Hell, if there weren't so many gerrymanders they probably would have lost it, lol https://www.salon.com/2024/12/01/how-held-the-house-its-the-gerrymander-stupid/

It's also true that like half of the red avatars, if Kamala had the very same thing happen, would also call it a mandate and definitely wouldn't be conceding that "it was a bare victory".  Despite their continued, lets call it what it is, justification for Harris sh*tty campaign that couldn't even beat a guy who is a convicted felon.

So yes, I do concede the point that Democrats are massive hypocrites. . . . . . . . but that still doesn't make Trump's victory a "mandate."

[Casino Democrat]

Donald Trump didn't win a mandate. A critical sliver of swing voters backed him and Senate D candidates, which tells you what you need to know about how much they trust him and Republicans.

YES.

Take Nevada for instance.  Over 64% of this state voted for a state constitutional protection of abortion rights.  All three Democratic House Incumbents and Jackie Rosen all won re-election, largely because unlike the national ticket the state candidates talked about local economic issues like the price of housing and what they're doing to fight it.  This was all despite Trump winning over 50% here.

Ironically it seems the focus on abortion did pay off here, but it wasn't enough to carry the national ticket across the finish line when cost pressures were the incentives for most voters.

But of course according to a lot of people here, "folks don't care about the economy."  Well you know what they say, "it's the economy, stupid."

[E-Dawg]

There are very fair arguments here for making the bar for a mandate higher, so fair enough as long as you concede that 2012 & 2020 aren't mandates either by that standard. But I'm not sure if find the bare congressional majorities argument convincing, as by that standard Eisenhower 1956, Nixon 1972, Reagan 1984 & Clinton 1996 wouldn't be mandates since the winners didn't even get the house those times.

[ponderosa peen 🌲]

What on Earth does "mandate" even mean in these arguments? This is and has been an entire vibes debate ever since election day.

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

No, it was not a mandate for Trump. He narrowly won the popular vote, and his support did not flow through down ballot. Neither did he get landslide (or anything like one) in the Electoral College. He won 31% of eligible voters.

Insofar as their was a strong message out of the 2024 election, it was a solid rejection of Democrats' failure to offer any working solutions to America's problems in over half a century. If he's able to take that ball and successfully offer change for the better, then yes, Mr. Trump could have a mandate. But given his history of fraud, abuse, and crime, it seems near certain that he will instead, like President Obama, offer only the illusion of hope or positive change while he personally benefits.