Our Shrinking Presidential Mandate: The decline of the victory
On election night, President-elect Donald Trump said voters had handed him an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” More recently, he told Time magazine: “The beauty is that we won by so much. The mandate was massive.”
Did Trump’s victory in November, in fact, indicate enormous support of the American electorate? If popular vote margins indicate the will of the American people, then mandates have been shrinking over the past century or so.
Sometimes, The 'Winner' Doesn't Win
When we talk about close elections in terms of popular vote, please keep in mind:
Four times in U.S. history — 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016 — the candidate who lost the popular vote won in the Electoral College.
In 1824, Andrew Jackson won both the popular and the electoral vote but didn’t win the latter with a majority of Electoral Votes. Under the provisions of the 12th Amendment, the election was sent to the House of Representatives. There, John Quincy Adams, who finished second in both the popular vote and in the Electoral College, was voted president.
The very idea of a large popular vote win signifying a mandate for a president can be questioned, given how popular vote victory margins have shrunk over the past 125 years and especially over the past half-century.
Of the last 10 elections, two were won in the Electoral College by the candidate who lost the popular vote. Four others represent four of the 15 closest popular vote margins in U.S. history.
Donald Trump's Mandate
Just what does Donald Trump plan to do with the mandate he claims to have? Before the election, Trump shared his “Day One plans” with Fox News:
- A mass deportation of undocumented immigrations, using local law enforcement and the National Guard.
- Rolling back clean energy regulations to increase oil and gas drilling.
- Pardon members of the mob who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, following Trump’s loss to Joe Biden.
- End the war in Ukraine.
He’s also said he would impose stiff tariffs on goods purchased overseas, extend and expand tax cuts from his first administration and lower the corporate tax rate.
Photo from Library of Congress.