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...

[cgbg]

See post 15.

Then run the numbers for yourself.

Facts are facts.

[God luvs America]

Is DJT really in Moscow?

[DeplorablePaul]

Yes. They finally got around to counting the fake votes in CA.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

This is great! Let the media convince the Democrats that it wasn’t much of a loss, that they shouldn’t change a thing, and that they should double down in 2026 and 2028 rather than reform around moderates.

[Kudsman]

Is the author trying to comfort the crazies? You can look at the numbers now. NY and NJ put the lie to this liar.

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

Dear NY Times.

SCOREBOARD!

GG NO RE

Sincerely, The People

[38special]

The Senate RINOs are already creating problems

[Sgt_Schultze]

Righting that ship is a near impossibility. The eneMedia/entertainment has successfully contaminated the electorate by embedding the fascist/hitler/authoritarian auto-response into those on the insane side of the political fence. They are irretrievably gone intellectually. If you have recently read any TwitterX replies, they reflexively invoke these stupid tropes and seemingly believe the stupidness.

[dragnet2]

Why do people on this site constantly cover every word of the rejected?

Why pay so much attention to the rejected losers?

[simpson96]

Peter Baker...it doesn’t matter now, does it? :)

[AbolishCSEU]

Exactly. They weren’t anticipating the pubbies voting early. The LEFT never stops marching.

[Bayard]

Correct,

If they take two weeks to “count the votes” they are cheating.

[katana]

Denial thy name is the Times’ editorial board.

[kickstart]

When Biden won in 2020 it was a mandate even though it was a few hundred thousand (provisional) votes that grabbed him the swing states.

[cgbg]

Looking for Democrat “moderates” is like a Unicorn hunt.

The moment a Democrat attempts to be moderate they are viciously attacked and canceled by the rest of their party.

Then the “moderates” have to run back into their hidey hole.

My favorite example was Manchin trying to run against Harris for the nomination.

That lasted about two days.

Lol.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Hopefully, President Trump can send them home before the next election.

[eyeamok]

Maybe they are right. Should we have a Forensic Audit of all votes cast in the last election? Especially Absentee and Mail in votes. Let’s just see for sure OK?

[AbolishCSEU]

Most of those blue voters believe all the lies spouted on MSM. MSM needs to be abolished.

[mass55th]

These people are pathetic, pathological liars.

[Tench_Coxe]

The NYT version of: “Because some people didn’t vote for Trump in the primaries, he can’t win the general election”.