Is Trump’s win a landslide with a mandate from the American people?
Only one president elected since 1980 has won by what might be considered a landslide, and that is Ronald Reagan. In fact, Reagan has the highest percentage of the popular vote in his second election (58.77%) than any other president since then.
Presidents generally get a higher percentage of the popular vote in their second run for president, which is what happened with Donald Trump’s second run, because in his first run, he had lower popular vote than his opponent. With a popular vote in 2024 of less than 50%, Trump’s second run hardly qualifies as a mandate.
Because Trump pulled in 49.78% of the popular vote compared to Kamala Harris’ 48.31%, the vote is so close that it cannot be considered a mandate or a landslide. Similarly, Trump pulled in 312 electoral college votes to Harris’ 226, also not a mandate.
The one president who could potentially claim a “mandate” or “landslide” for both the popular and electoral college votes was Ronald Reagan who in addition to his nearly 58% popular vote, won 525 of 538 possible Electoral College votes running against Jimmy Carter who only got 13 Electoral College votes.
Trump certainly did not get that “landslide” that he claims simply because “mandates” for governing or “landslides” rarely happen.
That’s why presidents have known that to get high approval ratings during their presidency, they need to be a president for all of the people, and they need to do their best for all Americans across the country regardless of the party they voted for. That may be why Trump lost in his second election in 2020 to Joe Biden who won with 51.32% popular vote and 306 electoral college votes.
Here's a summary:
For the 2024 Presidential election, the popular vote/electoral college vote totals are:
| Candidate | Votes | % | Electoral College Votes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trump | 77,303,573 | 49.91 | 312 |
| Harris | 75,019,257 | 48.43 | 226 |
| Others | 2,568,997 | 1.66 | 0 |
| Total | 154,891,827 | 100 | 526 |
Trump’s victory hardly qualifies as a “mandate:”
• He received less than half of the votes cast. In other words, more people voted against Trump than voted for him.
• His popular vote margin of victory was 2,284,316 votes in 2024, compared to Biden’s victory by 7,059,526 votes in 2020.
Data drawn from multiple sources including
• https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-States-Presidential-Election-Results-1788863