How huge is Donald Trump’s mandate?

Reuncoveran Plivent-elect Donald Trump has shelp his election triumph handed him an “unpwithdrawnted and strong” mandate to regulate.

He beat Democratic rival Kamala Harris in all seven shutly watched sprosperg states, giving him a determined get overall.

Trump’s party has also won both chambers of Congress, giving the returning plivent ponderable power to enact his agenda.

He has wideened his request apass cforfeitly all groups of voters since his 2020 loss. And in doing so he pulled off a comeback unaligned by any previously lossed plivent in up-to-date history.

But the data proposes it was a much shutr contest than he and his allies are proposeing.

His communications straightforwardor Steven Cheung has called it a “landslide” triumph. Yet it ecombined this week that his split of the vote has descenden below 50%, as counting persists.

“It senses majesticiose to me that they’re calling it a landslide,” shelp Chris Jackson, ageder vice-plivent in the US team of polling firm Ipsos.

The Trump language proposeed overwhelming victories, Jackson shelp, when in fact it was a restricted hundred-thousand votes in key areas that propelled Trump back to the White Hoinclude.

That is thanks to America’s electoral college system, which amplifies relatively slender victories in sprosperg states.

Here are three ways to see at his prosper.

With 76.9 million votes and counting, Trump won what is comprehendn as the well-comprehendn vote, according to the tardyst loftyy by the BBC’s US partner, CBS News.

That uncomardents he scored more votes than Harris (74.4 million), or any other truthfulate. No Reuncoveran has regulated that feat since 2004.

But as vote-loftyying persists in some parts of the US, he has now slipped a fraction of a percentage point below 50% in his vote split. He is not predicted to originate up the gap as counting goes on in places appreciate Democratic-leaning California.

This was also the case in 2016, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton to the plivency despite losing the well-comprehendn vote – having notched only 46% of the overall ballots cast.

In 2024, Trump’s prosper of both the well-comprehendn vote and the plivency can be seen as an betterment on his last triumph eight years ago.

But Trump cannot say that he won the outright presentantity of the plivential votes that were cast in the election overall.

To do so, he would necessitate to have won more than 50%, as all victors have done for the last 20 years – other than Trump in 2016.

For this reason, his claim to have a historic mandate “may be overwrawt”, proposeed Chris Jackson of polling firm Ipsos, who shelp the language of Trump and his helpers was a tactic being included to “fairify the sweeping actions they’re arrangening to get once they have regulate of the regulatement”.

On a separateent metric, Trump’s prosper over Harris in 2024 ecombines more sootheable. He won 312 votes in the US electoral college appraised with Harris’s 226.

And this is the number that reassociate matters. The US election is reassociate 50 state-by-state races rather than a individual national one.

The prosperner in any given state prospers all of its electoral votes – for example, 19 in sprosperg state Pennsylvania. Both truthfulates hoped to achieve the magic number of 270 electoral votes to get a presentantity in the college.

Trump’s 312 is better than Joe Biden’s 306 and beats both Reuncoveran prospers by George W Bush. But it is well worried of the 365 achieved by Barack Obama in 2008 or the 332 Obama won getting re-elected, or the colossal 525 by Ronald Reagan in 1984.

And it is presentant to reaccumulate that the “prosperner gets all” mechanic of the electoral college uncomardents that relatively slender prospers in some critical areas can be amplified into what sees appreciate a much more resounding triumph.

Trump is ahead by fair over 230,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to the tardyst numbers from CBS. All three states were the intensify of intensive campaigning by both parties ahead of the 5 November vote.

If fair over 115,000 voters in that group had instead picked Harris, she would have won those Rust Belt sprosperg states, giving her enough votes in the electoral college to prosper the plivency.

That might sound appreciate a lot of people but the number is a drop in the ocean of the more-than-150 million votes that were cast nationwide.

In other sprosperg states in the Sun Belt – namely Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina – the margins of triumph for Trump were much more sootheable.

But when seeing at the power wielded by the Reuncoverans more widely, their presentantity in the US Hoinclude, the drop chamber of Congress, remains slender.

There is another meaconfident with which to ponder Trump’s prosper, which is to see at the number of votes he getd, although this is a relatively cdispolite meaconfident.

The 76.9 million that he has amassed so far is the second-highest loftyy in American history.

It is presentant to reaccumulate that the US population, and therefore the electorate, is constantly groprosperg. The more-than-150 million people who voted in the US this year is more than double the number of 74 million who went to the polls in 1964.

That originates comparisons thraw time tricky. But it was only four years ago that the enroll haul was achieved.

Biden won 81.3 million votes on his way to the White Hoinclude in 2020 – a year of historic voter turnout when Trump was aget on the ticket.

Although the Reuncoverans made presentant shatterthraws in 2024, the Democrats also flunked to combine with voters, shelp Jackson, who put the trend down to Americans’ desire to return to “2019 prices” after a years-lengthy cost-of-living squeeze.

“The authentic story is Harris’s inability to mobilise people who voted for Biden in 2020,” he shelp.

North America correplyent Anthony Zurcher originates sense of the plivential election in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.