In his Nov. 6 victory speech, President-elect Donald Trump claimed that Americans had given him a “powerful and unprecedented mandate.”
It's a message his transition team has echoed over the past three weeks, referring to his “MAGA Mandate” and a “historic mandate for its agenda.”
But with Trump's lead in the popular vote having narrowed as more votes have been counted in California and other blue-leaning states, there is fierce disagreement over whether a majority of Americans actually support his plans. reform the government and implement radical changes.
the latest account from the Cook Political Report shows that Trump won 49.83% of the popular vote, with a 1.55% margin over Vice President Kamala Harris.
If ever there was a mandate, this is not it.
—Hans Noel, Georgetown University
The president-elect's share of the popular vote now ranks in the bottom half of American presidents, well below that of Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson, who won 61.1% of the popular vote in 1964, defeating Republican Senator Barry Goldwater by almost 23 percent. needles.
In the last 75 years, only three presidents (John F. Kennedy in 1960, Richard Nixon in 1968 and George W. Bush in 2000) had popular vote margins smaller than Trump's current lead.
“If ever there was a mandate, it's not this one,” said Hans Noel, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University.
Trump's overwhelming victory in the electoral college of 312 votes compared to Harris' 226 is clear. And unlike 2016, when he defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he won the popular vote and the necessary support in the electoral college.
The question is whether Trump can garner significant public support to push through his most contentious administration choices and the most radical elements of his political agenda, such as bringing in the military to enforce mass deportations.
Democrats say the results fail to demonstrate majority public support for Trump and that the numbers don't give him a mandate to deviate from precedent, such as appointing Cabinet members without Senate confirmation.
“There is no mandate here,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.). saying last week on CNN, noting that Trump had suggested using “recess appointments” to bypass Senate hearings and votes on his nominees. “What there certainly shouldn't be is a blank check to appoint a chaotic cabinet.”
Republican strategist Lanhee Chen, a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution who is running for California comptroller in 2022, rejects that approach from Democrats. He maintains that Trump's victory was “pretty resounding,” largely because it defied expectations.
In an election that nearly every political expert expected to be close and protracted, he reversed Democrats' gains in 2020, winning all seven battleground states and even making gains among voters in Democratic states like California. Republicans will also take control of the Senate and retain control of the House.
“Look, if the popular vote ends up 49.6% versus 50.1%, do I think that's a significant difference?” Chen said. “No, I don't.”
Scholars of American politics have long been skeptical of the idea of a presidential term.
The first president to articulate such a concept was Andrew Jackson, the nation's seventh president, who saw his 1832 reelection – in which he won 54.2% of the popular vote – as a mandate to destroy the Second Bank of the United States. and expand their political power. authority. Arguing that he had the people's mandate, Jackson deviated from the approach of previous presidents by refusing to cede policy to Congress.
In “The Myth of the Presidential Term,” Robert A. Dahl, a professor of political science at Yale University, argued that the presidential term was “harmful to American public life” because it “elevates the president to an exalted position in our system.” constitutional at the expense of Congress.”
Even if we accept the premise of a mandate, there is little consensus on when a candidate has achieved it.
“How do we know what voters were thinking when they cast their ballot?” Julia R. Azari, assistant professor of political science at Marquette University, wrote in a recent article rehearsal. “Some elections are mandates and others are not? If so, how do we know? What is the limit of the popular vote? Is it a majority or more? “Who decides?”
In “Transmitting the people's message: the changing politics of the presidential term” He argues that it is politicians in weak positions who typically invoke mandates. In this century, he wrote, presidents have cited mandates with increasing frequency as a result of the deteriorating status of the presidency and growing national polarization.
This is particularly true of Trump, who has long reveled in hyperbole.
In 2016, he boasted of a “massive landslide victory,” even though his electoral college victory of 304 to Clinton's 227 was not particularly dramatic by historical standards and he lost the popular vote by 2 points. percentages.
Four years later, he refused to accept that he lost the electoral college and the popular vote to Joe Biden, falsely claiming that he was a victim of voter fraud.
When Trump talks about his supposed tenure, he is not an outlier, but rather based on bipartisan history.
In the past four decades, no president has won the popular vote by double digits, but politicians such as George W. Bush and Barack Obama have increasingly tried to justify their agendas by invoking public support.
When Democrat Bill Clinton defeated Republican President George HW Bush and independent Ross Perot in 1992, his failure to win a majority of votes did not stop his running mate, Al Gore, from declaring that they had a “mandate for change.” . Five days after Clinton took office, she announced she was creating a task force to design a sweeping plan to provide universal health care.
“At least during my lifetime” Clinton told reporters, “There has never been so much consensus that something needs to be done.” The effort ultimately failed for lack of political support.
Fake news attempts to minimize President Trump's massive and historic victory to try to delegitimize his mandate.
— Karoline Leavitt, incoming White House press secretary
Four years ago, Biden also declared a “mandate for action.”
And while Biden won the electoral college by 306 to 232, his percentage of the popular vote was 51.3%, which is not a dominant performance.
As the mainstream media has reported on Trump's shrinking popular margin, Karoline Leavitt, Trump's next White House press secretary, has lashed out at the media.
“New fake news narrative alert!” Leavitt aware on X, adding a red warning light emoji. “Fake news attempts to minimize President Trump's massive and historic victory to try to delegitimize his mandate.”
Trump’s victory is not, by any objective measure, “massive or historic.” But Republicans say the media has held him to a different standard than they apply to Democratic presidents.
After Clinton won in 1992, after 12 years of Republican presidents, some Republicans note, Time magazine put his face on the cover with the headline “Mandate for Change.”
Clinton won only 43% of the popular vote, one of the lowest percentages in American history.
Presidents sometimes bolster their claims to have a mandate by cherry-picking poll results.
On Sunday, Trump's transition team highlighted new CBS News poll, stating that it showed “overwhelming support” for his “transition and agenda.”
But while the poll indicated that 59% of Americans approved of Trump's handling of the presidential transition, it did not show overwhelming or even majority support for many parts of his agenda.
For example, while Trump garnered strong support for his sweeping immigration plan, with 57% supporting a “national program to find and deport all immigrants who are in the United States illegally,” the poll showed much less support (40 %) to his plan to use the army to carry out deportations.
Whatever the popular vote, the Hoover Institution's Chen argues, Trump is in a strong position because he can count on Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress.
“From a legislative perspective, he will be able to largely do what he wants to do,” Chen said.
But several Republican senators have already emphasized the importance of requiring FBI background checks on Trump's most controversial nominees.
He also appears to lack public support to push through his elections without Senate approval. According to the CBS poll, more than three-quarters of respondents believe the Senate should vote on Trump's appointments.
Noel, the Georgetown professor, said that apart from Trump's rhetorical strategy, the president-elect may have to move beyond “I won, so everyone get out of my way” politics and work behind the scenes to find points in common with moderate Republicans and perhaps even some Democrats.
“In the past, people made strong claims about mandates, but then combined them with more cautious policymaking,” Noel said. “If Trump doesn't do that, if he acts like he believes his own story, then we're in a different, more Trumpian place.”
