The Ever-Evaporating Trump Mandate
The Audacity of Misreading the 2024 Presidential Election Outcome
Welcome to the Civic Way journal, our quick take on the relevance of current events to America’s future governance. The author, Bob Melville, is the founder of Civic Way, a nonprofit dedicated to good government, and a management consultant with over 45 years of experience improving public agencies.
Hubris is one of the great renewable resources. – P.J. O’Rourke
While not as inescapable and banal as pre-election coverage, post-election opinion has come close. While much of it is premature (at least until all votes are counted), we can make two broad observations (with the knowledge that they will be subject to the cleansing power of updated data).
First, due in large part to the noble work of election officials and workers, the election was fair, secure and accurate. Thus far, there has been no evidence of foreign interference or electoral fraud. Even the election deniers, perhaps because their presidential candidate won this cycle, seem far more muted than they were after the 2020 election.
Second, based on what we know thus far, the 2024 election looks like a “change” election. Like so many other nations, America turned against incumbents. Most American voters want to be taken seriously, especially on economic matters. Despite positive macro evidence about the US economy, the data voters saw every day—like grocery and housing prices—convinced them that systemic change is overdue.
Most US voters want change that will benefit them, and more voters thought Trump could deliver that change than Harris. Such voters, overcome by a sense of abandonment and resentment, wanted this change so badly they were willing to overlook the potential risks of a second Trump term and vote for a convicted felon and a man David Brooks and many others have called a “narcissist.”
Trump won, but what is his mandate? He carried the Electoral College 312 to 226, a mathematically significant margin, but far short of LBJ’s margin in 1964, Nixon’s in 1972 or Reagan’s in 1984. Under our Constitution, the Electoral College determines the winner, but it does not define a president-elect’s mandate. With 58 percent of the electoral votes, Trump’s margin ranks 41st (of 47), below that of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.
The Electoral College is the constitutional device for formalizing election results, but it is the popular vote that best signifies a president’s mandate for governance. Trump, for the first time in three tries, will likely win the popular vote. However, he will probably fall just short of a majority. In fact, Trump’s popular vote margin will probably be the smallest for a victorious presidential candidate since 1888 (excepting Kennedy in 1960 and Nixon in 1968).
By any definition, Trump’s popular vote plurality was narrow. According to the Cook Political Report, Trump has won 77.0 million votes (49.9 percent) and Harris won 74.5 million votes (48.3 percent), a difference of 1.5 percentage points. In contrast, Biden beat Trump by 4.4 percentage points of the popular vote in 2020 and Clinton beat Trump by 2.1 percentage points in 2016. More noteworthy, LBJ won by 22.6 points in 1964, Nixon by 23.2 points in 1972 and Reagan by 18.2 points in 1984.
Trump’s coattails were short. The GOP picked up four US Senate seats[i], but this was mostly a function of this cycle’s electoral map. In the five fiercely-contested swing states with Senate races, four GOP Senate candidates lost[ii]. The GOP maintained its narrow majority in the US House, and won a political trifecta—the presidency, house and senate. However, given the incumbent president’s low job approval ratings, they should have picked up far more Senate and House seats. But for the multi-year GOP voter suppression campaign, the GOP might have done even worse [iii].
At the state level, results were mixed depending on local factors. In Wisconsin, in its first election under new legislative maps (after the state supreme court’s invalidation of extreme partisan gerrymandering), Democrats flipped all four targeted state senate seats and ten assembly districts, ending the GOP’s supermajority. In North Carolina, due in large part to aggressive local organizing, Democrats clawed back two state legislative seats and ended the GOP’s supermajority.
Still, Trump and his Republican allies see the election outcome as titanic. Trump gleefully boasted, “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” Many of his allies have called the election a “landslide.” The president-elect won the popular vote for the first time in three tries and increased his support among several demographic groups and in some blue states. However, Trump’s mandate is anything but “unprecedented and powerful.”
The urge of the victors to read election results as a mandate for sweeping change has considerable precedent. Many presidents have misread their mandates to the detriment of the nation and their own parties. In 1993, Clinton read his 5.6-point win as a mandate to overhaul healthcare. In 2005, Bush exploited his 2.4-point win to launch an initiative to privatize Social Security. Biden leveraged his 4.5-point win to commence a major expansion of social programs and realignment of wealth.
A similar overread would be an epic blunder, for Trump and the nation. With the exception of MAGA zealots, Trump’s coalition is largely transactional. As Matthew Dowd (George W. Bush’s chief strategist in 2004) said, “The non-MAGA folks who voted for him did it despite Trump.” Trump voters focused on the economy were far more concerned about their grocery bills than Trump’s rallies. For these voters, other issues like immigration were secondary. In the future, they are unlikely to support attacks on social programs like Social Security and Medicare, let alone democracy.
Many Trump voters are counting on him to keep his promises to fix the economy and improve their lives. And most Trump voters will abandon him—and his party—if he fails to deliver on his promises, especially concerning the economy (assuming the loyal opposition constantly reminds voters of those failures). If Trump enacts policies, like tariffs and mass deportations that worsen economic life for ordinary Americans, his favorability ratings will plummet, and the markets will suffer.
By virtue of winning—even narrowly—Trump can argue that he has a mandate to shake things up, to a point. The nation will support him if he can find lawful ways to implement his agenda. Improve border security and curb the flow of illegal immigrants. Curb inflation. Reduce living costs. Make life better for Americans who survive from one paycheck to the next, many of whom voted for him.
Ultimately, however, Trump’s mandate is to govern a divided nation in a way that bridges the divide. By winning the electoral college and a narrow plurality of popular votes, he earned the right to govern the federal government from the right or right-center. However, he did not earn the right to do so at the peril of the stock market or those who need the federal government’s help. Nor did he earn the right to punish his detractors, undermine the rule of law or assault the Constitution.
Yes, he does, but he makes fun of both parties.
A really well articulated post, as always.
The O'Rourke quote brought a smile. (However restrained because of it's accuracy.)
The cleansing power of updated data, great line.
Great to see Civic Way back in the game.
Melville for President! Let the write in process begin!!