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...

[Political Junkie Too]

How about a red wave?

See the full interactive map from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/11/politics/vote-shift-trump-election-dg/

-PJ

[Bobbyvotes]

Quite a few, but in much smaller numbers than in 2020. The inflation created by Biden/Harris pinched enough people to abstain from voting for Kamala or even vote for Trump.

[joshua c]

sore losers as usual

[fightin kentuckian]

No, it wasn’t close at all. This is their denial stage, a permanent denial stage. Let them believe this and keep blaming the voters. This is a win for us as long as it lasts.

[dragnet2]

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

If you are not exposed to germs your immune system atrophies.

So that's it! We must know of every thought of the rejected losers so can be strong and healthy.

Got it.

[faucetman]

STFU! Yeah, right.

Gaslighting! AND I know it ain’t raining.

The American people KNOW that it was a landslide/MANDATE.

That’s why everyone is doing the Trump dance.

[Honorary Serb]

It WAS a landslide, no matter what the corrupt and dying NYT says!

And anyone who voted for kamala voted for stupidity! That especially applies to graduates of our great universities!

[central_va]

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

Why do 5 Y.O. like to smear poo on the bathroom walls? Same level of thinking.

[cymbeline]

“But it most certainly was a *comfortable* victory”

And call it what you want, but the Democrat Party is engaged in heavy soul searching on where they went wrong.

They’re concluding that they need to reinvent themselves.

[DouglasKC]

These guys really piss me off. Everyone KNOWS it was a landslide and a mandate. Everyone KNOWS that these cheating sobs just keep making up votes.

[Gaffer]

Instead of engaging in constructive retrospection about their domineering leftist tactics and actions to support fringe group(s) victimology that actually requires oppression to a vast part of America, they double down on “well, it wasn’t reaaallllyy a mandate...blah, blah, blah...”

So focused on their hate of Trump they didn’t care that their actions ended up affecting US....we the people. Donald Trump didn’t just win (and decisively, too)...WE won.... you get that? WE WON.

And we don’t care what you think. We’re going to do our level best to put you and your entrenched fringe machine out of business. Whine on...

[Pearfect]

HE WON.

HE WON.

HE WON.

HAVE THEY GOT IT YET ?

[Gaffer]

.... the tally used by The New York Times showed Mr. Trump winning the popular vote with 49.997 percent

When you have to get down to three decimal points with all this continued counting and recounting of votes, you've pretty much shown how biased you are and willing to do anything to win.

You got your collective asses whupped across the board and you don't like it. Still talking about "what Kamala's going to do, blah, blah, blah... " You guys have no one on the left who even remotely approaches the needs, wants and desires of the voting public as a whole, irrespective of pandering to their cornucopia of weirdo fringists.

[Gaffer]

When you lose the battle grounds (all of them), even most of your “Blue Wall,” you’ve lost - decisively.

[stanne]

It was a landslide. And if the real numbers were ever to get out they’d deny thise too.

[enumerated]

Landslide… tsunami… meh..
It was a solid win - who cares what metaphor they apply.

[TonyM]

The first election to be called within hours of the closing of the polls in decades and the NY Crimes Comic Book says it’s not a mandate? We know that if it were the other way around they would be calling it the landslide of the century!

[DaiHuy]

Or sabotage it like Mitch the butch is currently doing

[Kudsman]

Precisely. A movement that was smeared as fascist garbage faced off against Academia, Entertainment, Sports, Corporate collaboration with deep state, Media and the Democrat cheat machine. And we kicked their butt.

Do the Trump dance. Now blue states are losing congressional seats and Electoral votes. Complete sea change that is growing.

[T. Rustin Noone]

comprehensive?