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The idea behind an electoral mandate is pretty straightforward: Presidential candidates present voters with a series of ideas they want to pursue in office, and if they win, they claim that they have the nation’s support for that agenda. To stand in their way, the argument goes, is to reject the will of the American electorate.
With this in mind, Donald Trump said in the run-up to Election Day 2024 that he wanted a mandate, and as the results came in, the Republican claimed to have one. NBC News reported early Wednesday morning:
Trump, claiming victory, said America gave him an ‘unprecedented mandate.’ ... ‘America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate. We have taken back control of the Senate. Wow, that’s great.’
Let’s note at the outset that Republicans’ interest in presidential candidates and electoral mandates is, at best, selective.
In 2008, Barack Obama won roughly 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes. Were GOP officials on Capitol Hill willing to grudgingly concede that the Democrat had earned a mandate? No, they were not. Four years later, when Obama became only the sixth president in American history to top 51% of the popular vote twice, did Republicans acknowledge the then-president’s mandate? Again, no.
In 2020, when Joe Biden won the popular vote by a fairly wide margin and ended up with the strongest support of any presidential challenger since FDR, did his opponents on the right respectfully recognize his mandate? Take a wild guess.
If you’re thinking that, under GOP rules, only GOP presidents’ mandates matter, you’re not alone.
But let’s put recent history aside and consider the core question of whether Trump has a legitimate claim to a popular mandate — because there’s ample room for skepticism.
First, the president-elect might have a stronger case to make if he’d presented voters with a detailed governing blueprint, but he did not. Trump peddled some vague, bumper sticker–style talking points, but the post-policy president became a post-policy candidate, indifferent to the substance of governing. It’s difficult, in other words, to credibly claim a mandate for a set of proposals that, for the most part, didn’t exist in a meaningful way.
Second, Trump’s policy priorities (to the extent that they existed) weren’t especially popular. It’s fair to say the GOP candidate prevailed despite his ideas, not because of them.
Third, the idea that Trump’s mandate is “unprecedented” is demonstrably silly. Did he win? Yes. Did he win by historically enormous margins? Not even close. He might eke out a narrow popular-vote win, but plenty of other presidents fared far better. What’s more, he’ll probably finish with 312 electoral votes, which will rank 41st on the presidential history list.
Just so we’re all clear, my point is not to argue that Trump’s win is somehow illegitimate. He won fair and square, as Democratic leaders have been quick to acknowledge. I believe the electorate made a horrible mistake, but that doesn’t change the legitimacy of the outcome.
But if the president-elect and his allies are going to argue that his win was such a historic landslide that policymakers have no choice but to yield to his will because he’s the true voice of the nation — that is not an argument worth taking seriously.