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.
The fact that a majority of voters did not want Trump to win makes me simultaneously feel happy (that I’m not surrounded by idiots) and more depressed (that the Electoral College has screwed us AGAIN!)
It’s a lack of majority not a lack of plurality. Harris is still trailing Trump by 3m votes or so (and 1.6%), Trump is just not above 50% after further votes have been counted. So this isn’t an electoral college steal
Yeah, but even if Kamala wins the popular vote, this is going to be the closest a republican has gotten in…
Decades?
Maybe longer?
But the DNC is going to latch onto this and try to claim if they had moved just a little more right they’d have won.
Regardless of what happens, the DNC will always say the answer is moving to the right.
The DNC brain trust is already claiming that they should go further to the right
They were told they abandoned workers, and somehow heard “What if we betray Transpeople?”
They’re already starting to trial run the messaging through lower ranking democrats in safe seats. (Link)
Well at least they’re getting roasted for it, I mean in this link the aide who said that was fucking fired over it. Yeah it said he resigned, but when you get up enough you aren’t “fired” you’re “asked to resign”
Oh no, you’re reading that wrong. The aide resigned in protest to Rep. Moulton’s comments. The article also quotes Rep. Tom Suozzi. Moulton is also in the House Equality Caucus, which is supposed to be protecting LGBTQ rights. I’m not sure how they square that with his comments that fundamentally misunderstand the process for transgender kids though. His comments show a fundamental misunderstanding of scholastic sports, human physiology, and hormone blockers. Which you think 2 of the 3 would be required reading for that caucus…
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Regardless of what happens, the DNC will always say the answer is moving to the right.
This isn’t borne out by trending or statements. What kind of crystal ball are you smoking?
Two examples: ran on being humane to migrants and continued title 42 three years into the Biden term and proposed a draconian new immigration law.
Ran on reforming the police, flooded them with money.
FPTP should get FAR more attention as the culprit for this situation. Sure, the electoral college caused Kamala to lose (or whatever) but if we had a true democracy, there wouldn’t be only two possible parties to choose from.
This fixes congress. How does this fix the presidency, which is one single office?
FPTP applies to ALL political offices in a country that uses it.
Using the presidency in this graphic would have been a very poor choice to display the difference between the two. Comparing 1 result with another result on a scale of 1 person would not have the pedagogical weight that the Congress graphic does.
Yes, and you abolish FPTP and now you elect a president how? I’m interested in your proposal, because it’s incomplete to say get rid of FPTP… Otherwise top vote getter, who gets maybe 30% of the vote leads the country which is also an abomination as 70% didn’t vote for that person.
Abolishing FPTP requires doing something else on top of it, ranked choice or run off would be better than the highest count.
Ranked choice voting
You can do it in a multitude of ways. The French for instance elect their president by voting twice, the first time they vote for their favorite candidate (and the parliament), the second time they vote for either of the two candidates that got the most votes (a run off)
There are other ways, like ranked voting, or you could look up parliamentary republics for an alternative form of government.
Read up on what happens in the rest of the world, at this point, we, as a human species, have tried pretty much everything
It could give people opportunities to vote for third parties without feeling like they’re throwing away their vote
Okay so you go with what system?
Let’s say the breakdown of votes looks the same as the Swedish breakdown. There will be more people that voted for a different candidate than the red one (Social Democrat).
This then requires a run off system like france, or a ranked choice, which is also fine to propose, but you can’t hold up a visual of a parliament and say the system is so much better, when we talk about one singular office.
The post compared two things that have different end goals
Any system where your vote is a list instead of a checkbox.
That way in 2016 you can vote for Bernie as 1, and if he loses, you can vote for Hillary by putting her as 2. You don’t have to give up your moonshot to get your safety net.
Great video on the problems with first past the post, with links to some other videos discussing better systems: https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo
Don’t worry, you’re still surrounded by idiots no matter who wins the presidency
Yeah does it really make that much of a difference in terms of “being surrounded by idiots” whether 51% of the people around you are idiots or 49%? Sure, I’d prefer the 49% scenario, especially if there’s an election happening, but you’re still surrounded by idiots.
The fact that Trump could get elected at all, let alone twice, is proof that there’s too many idiots to want to participate in normal society
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.
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.
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.
To be clear, because the headline I think is a bit misrepresentative. Trump still has over a million more votes than Harris. He just no longer has over 50% of the votes cast.
It’s like 49% Trump, 48% Harris, 3% Other. So Trump still won the popular vote.
This isn’t a “the Electoral College screwed us” situation. He still “won” the popular vote. He just didn’t win a “majority” of the votes cast.
Yep. And as much as I’d like to blame 3rd party voters, even if they all voted Harris to giver her the majority, she’d have still lost due to electoral college.
I will absolutely blame the non-voters though. And the 3rd party voters still get part of the blame.
58% of the deciding power with just under 50% of the vote?
This might be a catalyst for states to sign the NPVIC. Pennsylvania started the process to sign on this week in legislature.
Perhaps in the past, swing states enjoyed the attention they got.
Now, I have a feeling voters are frustrated from getting way too much attention with mailers, calls, texts, illegal lotteries, news stories, events. As a bonus, voters in swing states are and will be getting outsized blame for electing the returning rapist-in-chief. Anyways a potential silver lining in the impending sea of shit.
Wasn’t it something like he only gained about 500,000 votes from the last primary election? The reason the Democrats lost was because they lost 10,000,000 due to people just straight up not voting for Kamala by either going 3rd party, switching to Trump, or abstaining. In my opinion it wasn’t really Trump’s popularity that won him the election but more of just the Democrats lack of popularity.
Democrats lack of popularity, coupled with active voter suppression tactics in numerous states, four straight years of misinformation campaigns designed to decrease voter turnout and/or drive them to third parties maliciously, and most critically, no more covid lockdowns allowing people the free time to vote. People working full time wage jobs that are most likely to vote more blue are, quite intentionally, not financially allowed to vote in person due to work scheduling; 2020 was an outlier year.
OR, wait for it, it might be because Democrats absolutely suck at winning elections. It might be because no one likes them. And all that might be because they’re total fucking failures at governing.
“But muh libs have done such wonderful things and the GOP is the devil!”
SELL it to us then.
“But LOGIC!”
No one votes on logic. Sales class, before lunch, “People buy on emotion.”
Your post is exactly why libs so always fucking lose. Jesus, just say it out loud, “We lost because my pussy hurts!”
You should seriously consider running for office. You might have the energy and wherewithal to reshape the liberal party into something halfway worthwhile 🤌
Actually, Harris did nearly as well or better than Biden in the only states that matter, the swing states. In the ones the Harris didn’t beat Biden’s vote total, even if she had gotten it Trump would have still won the electoral college.
In other words, no it’s not because dems didn’t vote.
The big problem is we all think someone else will solve this issue. All the investigations, congress, and even the public… they did nothing.
Run for office. Start small. Kick them out of the school boards follow their playbook and work bottom up.
This is the way.
“If you have the ability to lead you have the obligation to. Because if you don’t you need to consider who will”
Since when has reality made any difference at all to Trump?
He doesn’t believe he has a mandate because the numbers add up that way, so he’s not going to believe he doesn’t because they don’t. He believes he has a mandate because he’s the bestest and smartest and most perfect president ever in the history of ever. And he’s never going to stop believing that.
It makes a big difference to him, personally. He’s a walking ego, and the fact that the American people aren’t in a majority behind him will gnaw at him.
It means fuck all in any practical way. At best, the country isn’t quite as giving into fascism as we thought. That’s the best I got, and it ain’t much.
76+ million fascists voted for a fascist. Period.
Democrats need to stop wasting time by challenging the results of this election in any way. We’re going to be under the control of a party that waives facts and truths so it doesn’t matter.
The Democrats need to be re-worked entirely. The reason why they failed this year is like how they failed in 2016. They focused on the whole “TRUMP BAD!” wagon and expected that to carry them. That’s great…as a platform. But it was all that they mostly had. Platforms aren’t any good if you can’t build off from them and that’s what the Dems didn’t do.
I know and understand that if Harris had a full year of campaigning instead of a handful of months, maybe she could’ve had a better shot and a better understanding of how she’d turn this country around. But, she fell into the same trap as Clinton did and that’s why she lost. She wasn’t the entire reason, the Dems had a part in that too collectively, but a part of the reason.
You cannot just scream “THAT MAN BAD” without backing it up and without promise of how you’ll do things right - for everyone. Emphasis on ‘everyone’ because there apparently are some groups that Harris and the Dems failed on and lost their votes. That’s important.
Right now, Democrats need to seriously reconstructure.
And I hope that within the first year of this fascist’s term of how much shit they’d have to sit, watch and fight over on. That by the 2026 mid-terms, that they get their heads out of their fucking asses.
I’m calling him a fascist, and those who voted for him fascists. Fuck this fascist country.
there apparently are some groups that Harris and the Dems failed on
That’s every group except for republicans, who voted Trump anyway.
I know and understand that if Harris had a full year of campaigning instead of a handful of months, maybe she could’ve had a better shot and a better understanding of how she’d turn this country around.
I think she’d have dug herself into a deeper hole, if anything. That’s what she did with the time she had available.
This is major league copium. The fact is that Trump’s opponent got way more votes in 2020 than in 2024, and had the blue turnout in 2024 equaled what it was in 2020, he would not have won in 2024. Period.
I mean…. Does it really matter?
Nope.
Some liberals will say that he won’t be able to claim a mandate. Doesn’t matter. He will.
This is a ridiculous argument. Orange man won the electoral college, got the most votes, won the senate, house of reps, the presidency, and the supreme court. What more is there to lose?
Plenty of coping from the liberal corporate media, instead of admitting that liberals abandoned the working class to court the monied interests.
idk why people keep yapping about abandoning the working class, it mostly just seems like a dogwhistle to a general dissatisfaction that never seems to go away.
People were doing the same shit before biden dropped out, saying they would support someone else, like kamala. That happened, and then they didn’t.
how would the liberals court the working class? would electing a fucking immigrant factory worker do it? At what point does the working class actually go “you know what, i agree, i will vote for this person” because the problem is, you can’t just put some guy in the seat, we did that with trump, it was a horrendous mistake, and trump should have some idea of how this stuff works.
You need someone politically educated and experienced, capable of representing the people, like biden. There’s a reason he got so much legislation through the government, even with how polarized it is right now.
unless of course, you want to overthrow the government, and install a dictator. That would also work.
Bernie Sanders is correct that the Democrats abandoned the working class. I will be blunt and say that Lemmy has ironic bigotry and disdain on the people of colour and working class who voted for Trump. It is important to understand the other side even if you don’t agree; that way you would know where they are coming from and sway them. Call Trump voters of all backgrounds racists, hillbillies, mysoginists, redneck, traitors, Uncle Toms or Uncle Hector; but people don’t have jobs and crime rate is up. The former blue wall is now the orange Rust Belt that colours Trump. And it is taboo to say this but many places are indeed overwhelmed by too much immigration since those places don’t have the infrastructure to support the sudden population increase. Chronically underfunded public services make locals and immigrants compete for school, jobs and hospital beds. Immigrants are blamed instead, when in fact it’s the affluent middle and upper classes who keep voting against building more social housing and expanding health services because they don’t want their property value to go down and/or pay more taxes. And frankly, I believe many Lemmy users fall into this class camp and don’t want to admit we’re part of the problem. Many of us are college-educated with higher economic mobility and earnings live in safe and affluent areas because we benefit from the new knowledge economy. We are not rubbing shoulders with working class folks who lost their traditional manufacturing jobs and not experiencing their every day struggle. So, we become detached from the real lived experiences of those left out and deprived of opportunities. We consign rural and de-industrialised Appalachian former workers as ignorant and racists, when in fact we’re also being bigoted against them for dismissing their genuine feelings of not having anymore jobs left, and their community left rotting by offshoring and automation caused by mismanaged globalisation. Why else has protectionism returned to the political menu? Has no one asked this instead of simply saying autarky and protectionism is dumb and makes their favourite video-games more expensive?
Simply saying that the economy is doing better is not enough if the rest are not feeling it. Just because we’re feeling cushy in our office job doesn’t mean those in the Rust Belt are feeling the same. We would not say we’re fine if we have cancer on the liver while the rest of the body don’t.
There is no denying that there are outright bigotry, but many people are left behind by emerging new technology and job market trend. And the folks who are out of jobs who could not put food on the table is the stuff that dictators are made of. I did not say this, it was Franklin Roosevelt. He knows that desperate people are easily brainwashed and swayed. Tell me you have not been in a dark place on a personal level before and you have not had negative thoughts dominate? It’s the same situation happening right now with the working class which manifest on the societal level.
If the mostly affluent Lemmy users, progressives and liberals realise this, then we can take back progressivism into the political spotlight. The same progressives who always call for empathy do not place the same to the blue collar, working class folks left behind economically. Progressives need to understand the people different from them. It is only right to learn even from the other side.
During the Great Depression, neighbours would buy their neighbouring farmers’ property at a penny to prevent being possessed by uncallous bankers, and threaten auctioneers for not agreeing with the sale. Where is that solidarity right now?
I will be blunt and say that Lemmy has ironic bigotry and disdain on the people of colour and working class who voted for Trump.
it’s not that complex, i just think that everyone who voted for trump is stupid. Or at the very least, incredibly ignorant. And the facts back me up on this one.
It is important to understand the other side even if you don’t agree; that way you would know where they are coming from and sway them.
literally how, they live in delusion, They do not live in reality. They think “illegal immigrants” aren’t here of legal status. Which is factually untrue. They think democrat cities are a hellhole, and they think they have more gun violence than red states, which is also untrue. In fact large urban cities tend to have the lowest per capita gun violence rates. They think kamala harris is a literal communistic fascist trying to overthrow the government and steal power from biden.
They also think that jan 6th was a guided tour of the capitol, and when presented with information will tell you it was either “FBI agents” or “antifa”
They can’t even tell you what caused the inflation in 2020-2024.
These people are akin to dementia patients. How are we supposed to understand them?
but people don’t have jobs and crime rate is up.
according to what, and on what timescales? Unemployment is still relatively low, and crime rates have been trending down since post pandemic. It seems like things might be moderately worse, mostly because of inflation, but that’s about it.
The former blue wall is now the orange Rust Belt that colours Trump.
it’s literally been one election cycle. If this is our standard of proof, this has already happened before, a few times probably.
And it is taboo to say this but many places are indeed overwhelmed by too much immigration since those places don’t have the infrastructure to support the sudden population increase.
and who is responsible for this? Republicans, the people we just elected. We had two border bills under biden, title 42 for the rest of the term, and a late executive order to actually do something after the congress failed twice.
Chronically underfunded public services make locals and immigrants compete for school, jobs and hospital beds. Immigrants are blamed instead, when in fact it’s the affluent middle and upper classes who keep voting against building more social housing and expanding health services because they don’t want their property value to go down and/or pay more taxes.
technically it’s the asylum immigration causing this strain, since they aren’t full citizens yet, or kicked out for not passing asylum court, but of course, nobody wants to pay a few million dollars in the fed to fix this problem outright. Although there are problems with things like NIMBYism and people not voting for things like funding education, which has been a republican talking point for ages so there’s that.
And frankly, I believe many Lemmy users fall into this class camp and don’t want to admit we’re part of the problem.
i’m not, and never will be, even if i had the money it wouldn’t be a problem for me. I hate being around people. So this will never be a particular strong suit or problem point for me.
We are not rubbing shoulders with working class folks who lost their traditional manufacturing jobs and not experiencing their every day struggle.
we also have to ascribe some blame to people who simply do not want to move out of the working class as well. Not to double back and be classist here, but coal mining? Seriously? That industry is dead! Get over it and get another job already! Oh what’s that, your entire county is out of work? Sounds like a governmental failure. They should’ve done better.
This is a really big problem with republican populism right now.
We consign rural and de-industrialised Appalachian former workers as ignorant and racists, when in fact we’re also being bigoted against them for dismissing their genuine feelings of not having anymore jobs left, and their community left rotting by offshoring and automation caused by mismanaged globalisation.
and unfortunately, they don’t do themselves many favors half the time either. It is the rural voter block that backs trump mostly at the end of the day. They also don’t do themselves much of a favor calling dems pedos and child rapists, or communist authoritarians either. I’m certain not all of them do it, and i’m open to the ones who don’t. Though if they aren’t open to my existence, i’m not going to psyop myself out of existence here unfortunately. My bare minimum here is living in reality, and not being delusional. If you can meet that bar, we will get along well, if not, oh well, gotta crack some eggs to make an omelet i suppose.
when in fact we’re also being bigoted against them for dismissing their genuine feelings of not having anymore jobs left
not saying i disagree, but please do some polling about how many rural people would like to move to urban areas for job opportunities.
Why else has protectionism returned to the political menu?
right wing populism.
And the folks who are out of jobs who could not put food on the table is the stuff that dictators are made of. I did not say this, it was Franklin Roosevelt. He knows that desperate people are easily brainwashed and swayed.
you mean during the great depression? The single worst economic collapse, ever.
The same progressives who always call for empathy do not place the same to the blue collar, working class folks left behind economically. Progressives need to understand the people different from them. It is only right to learn even from the other side.
you cannot extend empathy to that which does not request it.
like ultimately, i’m sympathetic to this, but the US doesn’t need this right now, it needs a reality check.
It really didn’t have much to do with abandoning anyone. It didn’t matter what democrats proposed at all. The vast majority of people answers they were dissatisfied with America in exit polls. The economy is doing fine on paper but people don’t feel that way. It was the inability to distance from Biden and provide actual radical solutions to things that got them voted down.
At this point it has nothing to do with working class policies. It has everything to do with voter dissatisfaction and pandering to moderates.
The third dimension of the political compass is radical vs. moderate. People want more radical change, and the Democrats didn’t meet them there.
He still won the popular vote.
By being less less poplar than he was last election, because the Dems were even less poplar
i think in presidential elections in order to “win” you need at minimum a 51% vote. Otherwise you don’t actually win, but i could be mixing some shit up lol.
Voting is fucking weird.
You can win the presidency with as little as 22% of the popular vote. https://youtu.be/7wC42HgLA4k
is this the electoral college win, or did they “win” the popular vote since they had more of the votes than the opponent.
A genuine real win via the electoral college can happen with as little as 22% of the popular vote.
yeah i believe i said winning the popular vote though.
You asked me an “or” question.
yeah, and it was the wrong answer.
It won’t matter. He, and his cultists, will continue to claim otherwise.
Let’s see him wriggle out of this one
now take into account the massive GOP voter fraud
The only thing of note here is that since the winner got <50%, then I’m guessing 3rd party votes were slightly higher this election.
1.7% in 2024.
1.9% in 2020.
5.7% in 2016.
1.7% in 2012.
1.4% in 2008.2024 is not the outlier. It’s mostly about how well the other major party candidate does.
