Trump team 'fuming' as margin of victory dwindles after Election Day: 'Delegitimize his mandate'

22 November 2024

In a Friday, November 22 post on X, formerly Twitter, Donald Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt angrily railed against the New York Times and Politico for reporting that the president-elect's margin of victory had decreased in the vote count since Election Day.

Leavitt tweeted, "New Fake News Narrative Alert!…. The fake news is trying to minimize President Trump's massive and historic victory to try to delegitimize his mandate before he even takes the Oath of Office again."

But in fact, the Times and Politico's reporting was accurate. Vote counting since Election Day has demonstrated that although clearly defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, his victory was far from a landslide.

According to Cook Political Report's vote tracker, Trump won 312 electoral votes compared to 226 for Harris and he carried Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and other key swing states. Trump won the popular vote as well, but not by huge margins.

Cook's national vote count, as of November 22, shows that Trump defeated Harris by roughly 1.5 percent in the popular vote.

President Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932 were landslides; 2024, Cook data demonstrates, was a close election in which Trump enjoyed a narrow victory.

The New Republic's Malcolm Ferguson, on November 22, explained, "It's no surprise that Trump and his team are fuming: Since November 5, Trump's margin of victory has narrowed considerably…. Trump and his supporters have been pushing the landslide narrative ever since he defeated Harris…. Trump likes the landslide narrative, true or not (not), because he thinks it gives him more ground to stand on for his insane agenda. But his mandate is much weaker than he'd have you believe."

That same day, The New York Times' Peter Baker reported, "By traditional numeric measures, Mr. Trump's victory was neither unprecedented nor a landslide. In fact, he prevailed with one of the smallest margins of victory in the popular vote since the 19th Century and generated little of the coattails of a true landslide."

Baker added, "The disconnect goes beyond predictable Trumpian braggadocio. The incoming president and his team are trying to cement the impression of a 'resounding margin,' as one aide called it, to make Mr. Trump seem more popular than he is and strengthen his hand in forcing through his agenda in the months to come."

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