The ‘Landslide’ That Wasn’t: Trump and Allies Pump Up His Narrow Victory

The New York Times ^ | Nov. 22, 2024Updated 9:13 a.m. ET | Peter Baker

[E. Pluribus Unum]

On the night he won a second term, President-elect Donald J. Trump rejoiced in the moment. “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” he boasted. In the two weeks since, his campaign has repeatedly heralded his “landslide,” even to market Trump merchandise like the “Official Trump Victory Glass.”

But by traditional numeric measures, Mr. Trump’s victory was neither unprecedented nor a landslide. In fact, he prevailed with one of the smallest margins of victory in the popular vote since the 19th century and generated little of the coattails of a true landslide.

The disconnect goes beyond predictable Trumpian braggadocio. The incoming president and his team are trying to cement the impression of a “resounding margin,” as one aide called it, to make Mr. Trump seem more popular than he is and strengthen his hand in forcing through his agenda in the months to come.

The collapse of Matt Gaetz’s prospective nomination for attorney general on Thursday demonstrated the challenges for Mr. Trump in forcing a Republican Congress to defer to his more provocative ideas. While Mr. Gaetz, a former Republican congressman from Florida, denied allegations of attending sex and drug parties and having sex with an underage girl, they proved too much even for Republicans eager to stay in Mr. Trump’s good graces.

With some votes still being counted, the tally used by The New York Times showed Mr. Trump winning the popular vote with 49.997 percent as of Thursday night, and he appears likely to fall below that once the final results are in, meaning he would not capture a majority. Another count used by CNN and other outlets shows him winning 49.9 percent. By either reckoning, his margin over Vice President Kamala Harris was about 1.6 percentage points, the...

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Meanwhile Trump and Musk are in Moscow trying to prevent WWIII.

That's why the have not been heard from for the past few days.

[Carry_Okie]

Vote fraud made it narrow.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

A lot of people did vote for Kamala Harris and that should remain a sobering reminder to conservatives as we work to restore and rebuild the movement to have lasting impact.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

No doubt about it, after what we just saw in the Pennsylvania Senate race.

[MikeyB806]

NYT therapy for leftists. Pretty bad when the best you can say is that he won everything, including the popular vote, but that he didn’t win it enough, or something, lol.

[Gay State Conservative]

No,I wouldn’t call it a landslide. But it most certainly was a *comfortable* victory...unlike The Big Guy’s “victory” in 2020 (42,000 total votes in 3 states).

[Paladin2]

Calif. votes/ballots don’t really matter.....

[kiryandil]

Peter Baker of The Duranty Times cranks up the gaslight.

[ClearCase_guy]

A win is a win.

Kamala will not be president. And the Democrats will not control Congress.

Which makes the NYT a bunch of Losers.

[theyreallthesame]

These clowns all fail to recognize out loud the fact that the Harris campign outspent Trump substantially with their own funds, through the Media with Corporate Funds and outrageous bias, and through Social Media by way of promoting, redirecting and silencing.

Ummmm, as my good friend Joe Biden said to my other good friend Obama, “That’s a big effing deal”. Sorry, NY Times, you still don’t hear the real message.

[ArtDodger]

“On the night he won a second term,...”
Stopped reading right there.
It was the night Trump won his 3rd term!

[4yearlurker]

Folks,get used to this kind of crap “reporting” for the next four years. Make no mistake. They have only just begun to cause trouble.

[FlingWingFlyer]

When does the far left NYSlimes turd rollers expect the professional RAT ballot counters to get the “final results” in? They should have submitted all of their fraudulent ballots by now.

[LibertyWoman]

If the numbers for kamaltoe increased it is because they are still counting (printing ballots) to make it so. Judicial Watch is requesting that the SCOTUS take up the challenge to stop Illinois from counting up to TWO WEEKS AFTER the election. THAT is why the numbers are changing. What other 'blue' states are doing that?

They can't stand the idea that Americans turned on them so they have to diminish the 'number' of Americans that turned on them.

[cgbg]

There is one simple fact that refutes the entire NYT article—and all of its assumptions and premises.

President Trump outperformed almost all Republican US Senate candidates.

That proves that anyone who thinks a “moderate” Republican could have outperformed President Trump is simply wrong.

[CatOwner]

A lot of people did vote for Kamala Harris ...

How many of them voted against Trump instead of for Harris?

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Well now the Republicans have to make sure not to blow it.

[Sarah Barracuda]

He won EVERY SINGLE SWING STATE and the popular vote for the first time since George W Bush..yeah that’s called a LANDSLIDE..if Harris had done the same thing the same schmuck would have called it a massive landslide of epic proportions

[blackdog]

“If you can’t win by more than the 10% of fraudulent votes, you don’t deserve the win”-Daley

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Too many still voted blue in its most progressive incantation and that should be a sobering reminder of how much remains at stake.