Donald Trump’s popular vote total has fallen below 50 percent, and his margin over Kamala Harris has narrowed considerably as all the votes are counted.

Summary

Trump’s popular vote share has fallen below 50% to 49.94%, with Kamala Harris at 48.26%, narrowing his margin of victory.

Trump’s share of the popular vote is lower than Biden’s in 2020 (51.3%), Obama’s in 2012 (51.1%) and 2008 (52.9%), George W. Bush’s in 2004 (50.7%), George H.W. Bush’s in 1988 (53.2%), Reagan’s in 1984 (58.8%) and 1980 (50.7%), and Carter’s in 1976 (50.1%).

This puts the 2024 election results in perspective, highlighting the narrowness of Trump’s victory and the need for Democrats to address their mistakes and build a multiracial, multiethnic working-class coalition.

The numbers provide Democrats with an argument against despair and surrender, as they can counter Trump’s mandate claims by explaining that the majority of Americans did not vote for him.

  • testfactor@lemmy.world
    16·
    2 months ago

    He still had more of the popular vote than Harris, it was just they were both less than 50% due to 3rd party votes. So neither had a “majority” of the vote.

    So he still would have won, even under a purely popular vote based system.

    • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      Another thing it means is that if we had ranked choice voting, those 3rd party votes would be the deciding factor in who won the presidency.

      • Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
        1·
        2 months ago

        If we had ranked choice and got rid of the electoral college*

        A lot of those third party votes are in solid red or blue states where it wouldn’t matter. Also a lot of the third party votes this time was for rfk and the libertarian Oliver, who wouldve probably went to trump so the outcome would probably be the same.