Donald Trump Has Not Won a Majority of the Votes Cast for President

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Nation

November 19, 2024


“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Donald Trump declared in the early morning hours of November 6, 2024, after all the polls had closed. Indeed, he claimed that he had won “a political victory that our country has never seen before, nothing like this.” Trump was excited by the numbers showing him with well over 50 percent of the popular vote and establishing a wide lead over his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Unfortunately, for the president-elect, the United States takes time to count 155 million votes—give or take a million—and the actual result will rob Trump of his bragging points. Trump can no longer claim that powerful mandate. By most reasonable measures, the beginning point for such a claim in a system with two major parties is an overwhelming majority vote in favor of your candidacy. Trump no longer has that.

Over the weekend, as California, Oregon, Washington, and other Western states moved closer to completing their counts, Trump’s percentage of the popular vote fell below 50 percent. And his margin of victory looks to be much smaller than initially anticipated. In fact, of all the 59 presidential elections since the nation’s founding, it appears that—after all of the 2024 votes are counted—only five popular vote winners in history will have prevailed by smaller percentage margins than Trump.

Trump’s popular-vote advantage has declined steadily since election night. As of Monday afternoon, Trump was at 49.94 percent, while Harris was at 48.26, according to the authoritative Cook Political Report’s tracking of results from official sources in states across the country. And we can expect that the Republican’s total will only continue to tick downward as heavily Democratic states on the West Coast finalize their vote tallies.

Read more: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/donald-trump-vote-margin-narrowed/

[nmmi]

1. So he won a plurality of the presidential vote, but not a majority

I like that talking point, and that the traitorous orange anus got less than half of the presidential vote.

I know that popular vote doesn't have any effect on who is president, in case someone wants to give me a civics lesson, and there's no indication in the article that Harris has any chance of closing the gap anyway. And the remaining ballots aren't going to change anything in the electoral votes either. But it's a nice talking point to have, when some fuckhead starts in about his overwhelming mandate.

But since he's a minority and a BIPOC (color orange), maybe we should be respectful? (sarc)

In case anyone has a paywall issue, this link is no paywall:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-has-not-won-a-majority-of-the-votes-cast-for-president/ar-AA1umNPa

(TheNation.com has a quota system of like 3 free articles a month)

[BumRushDaShow]

2. I have a sub to The Nation

and I know they do allow a couple "free" articles (some outlets do give subs some number of articles that can be gifted each month - I didn't get chance to check with this one).

[dlk]

3. Thanks to the Electoral College, we are stuck with minority rule for the foreseeable future

This is a contributing factor to low voter turnout.

[calimary]

4. All it is - is just one more thing he can lie to you about.

[Lasher]

5. Correct, he will lie about winning the popular vote.

It's in his nature. He can't do otherwise. And his followers will believe him, regardless of the truth that proves otherwise.

[AZ8theist]

6. Not just that....

He''ll claim it was the LARGEST VOTE TOTAL EVER!!
"No one has ever seen votes like this"....

The imbecile lies as easily as you or I breath...

[electric_blue68]

7. Ughhh, I can "hear that" in his "voice". Blargh.

[calimary]

8. I can't help wondering if he even makes it through all four years.

[nmmi]

9. Maybe Dr. Oz and RFK Jr can keep him healthy since they know so much more than real medical professionals (sarc) /nt

[TRHST82]

12. He and others also overhyped 2016.

[nmmi]

10. He retains majority status in one important way that warms my heart --

a majority voted for someone else

[LetMyPeopleVote]

11. No majority

Link to tweet

[LetMyPeopleVote]

13. Trump's popular vote margin of victory is down to 1.5%

Link to tweet