How Democrats can weaponize Hillary Clinton's popular vote victory
Donald Trump's crushing popular vote loss obviously bothers him. And it should.


A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
All newly elected presidents claim a mandate to lead the country in whatever direction they want, and in typical Donald Trump fashion, he and his team have claimed a huge one.
"We truly do believe that our president-elect has secured a mandate for leadership," Vice President-elect Mike Pence told a group of wealthy donors last week at a Heritage Foundation dinner in Trump's new hotel in Washington, D.C. "This is a historic victory." Late last month, Kellyanne Conway, Trump's senior adviser and former campaign manager, tweeted a similar conceit about Trump's Electoral College tally: "306. Landslide. Blowout. Historic." On Sunday, Trump claimed on Fox News that he won a "massive landslide victory, as you know, in the Electoral College."
These claims should be taken seriously, but not literally, as the Trump campaign might say. They need to be taken seriously because Trump won, and he will be president. But the "mandate" should be regarded as hyperbole because — not to put too fine a point on it — to call Trump's victory "historic" (in a positive sense) is to stretch the definition of the word beyond all recognition. Here's stats guru Nate Silver on that point:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In a historical context, Trump's Electoral College performance is decidedly below-average. So it's a bit Orwellian to call it a "landslide" or a "blowout." There have been 54 presidential elections since the ratification of the 12th Amendment in 1804. (Before that, presidential electors cast two votes each, making it hard to compare them to present-day elections.) Of those 54 cases, Trump's share of the electoral vote — assuming there are no faithless electors or results overturned by recounts — ranks 44th. [FiveThirtyEight]
A mandate is the authority to enact policy based on victory among an electorate. Nationally, the electorate gave Hillary Clinton 2.8 million more votes than it gave Trump, or 2.1 percentage points, and the counting isn't over. Clinton has already won nearly as many votes as President Obama did in 2012 — and more votes than any victorious president save for Obama in 2008 and maybe 2012. To be clear, none of this means that she won the election. Under the rules everyone agreed to play by, Trump won more electoral votes — 306 to Clinton's 232. But the big loss among actual voters obviously bothers Trump. He even concocted the absurd talking point that he "won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally."
Well, it should bother him.
In reality, Trump eked out "a historically small mandate," says Aaron Blake at The Washington Post. The fact that Trump did not win a mandate "is almost so obvious that it doesn't bear stating," says Robert Schlesinger at U.S. News & World Report. "Trump is a glitch president, not a mandate president."
Going "back to 1856, the first contest pitting the two major parties against one another, Trump's 2016 win is below average on every single metric," says Phillip Bump at The Washington Post. "Trump's popular vote loss was in fact historic. Trump's loss in the popular vote was three times all previous popular vote losses from an eventual president combined. As a percentage of votes cast, Trump's margin was the second worst loss among eventual presidents over the past 160 years."
The obvious rejoinder to that is: So what? And it is a good point, actually. Trump will be our next president. Clinton will not be.
So here's why it matters that Trump lost a crushing popular defeat to Clinton: It is a license to say no.
Democrats in the House will have very little power, but Senate Democrats will have a chance to block Trump's more outrageous proposals — at least as long as the filibuster stands — and a handful of Republicans skeptical of various aspects of the Trump agenda (see: Russia) will wield a lot of clout. More to the point, these senators will have every right to block Trump, if they see fit. After all, America has elected its senators by popular vote since the 17th Amendment took effect in 1913 — unlike Trump, all 100 of these Senate members won more votes than their opponents.
"Mandates are ephemeral and ultimately require the assent of the defeated party," Schlesinger notes. Republicans did not assent in 2009 after Obama won 365 electoral votes, 52.9 percent of the popular vote, and nearly 10 million more votes than his Republican opponent. If Democrats, and even a few Republicans, don't buy this 46 percenter's claim to a mandate, that seems more like common sense than fighting dirty.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Peter Weber is a senior editor at TheWeek.com, and has handled the editorial night shift since the website launched in 2008. A graduate of Northwestern University, Peter has worked at Facts on File and The New York Times Magazine. He speaks Spanish and Italian and plays bass and rhythm cello in an Austin rock band. Follow him on Twitter.
-
Why is the government on the brink of a shutdown?
Today's Big Question GOP infighting is bringing the country to a standstill, but even Republicans aren't entirely sure why
By Rafi Schwartz Published
-
Today’s political cartoons — September 29, 2023
Friday's cartoons - Biden's dog bite incident, the government shutdown and more
By The Week Staff Published
-
'A teetering democracy of gerontocrats?'
Instant opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass Published
-
Will the cannabis banking bill get the Senate's green light?
Talking Point The SAFER Banking Act is advancing to the US Senate for the first time, clearing a major hurdle for legal cannabis businesses. Does it stand a chance?
By Theara Coleman Published
-
Trump surrenders in Georgia election subversion case
Speed Read
By Catherine Garcia Published
-
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries chosen to succeed Pelosi as leader of House Democrats
Speed Read
By Brigid Kennedy Published
-
GOP leader Kevin McCarthy's bid for House speaker may really be in peril
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
Are China's protests a real threat for Beijing?
opinion The sharpest opinions on the debate from around the web
By Harold Maass Published
-
Who is Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist who dined with Trump and Kanye?
Speed Read From Charlottesville to Mar-a-Lago in just five years
By Rafi Schwartz Published
-
Jury convicts Oath Keepers Stewart Rhodes, Kelly Meggs of seditious conspiracy in landmark Jan. 6 verdict
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
A look at the White House's festive and homey holiday decor
Speed Read
By Brigid Kennedy Published