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%).

The 2024 election results highlight Trump’s narrow victory and the need for Democrats to address their mistakes and build a diverse working-class coalition.

The numbers also give Democrats a reason to push back on Trump’s mandate claims, noting most Americans did not vote for him.

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    At no time in the history of modern politics has the “popular vote” taken precedence over the electoral college. If you’ll remember, biden’s campaign made that point during his defeat of the orange 4 years ago. And the orange complained pretty loudly about it

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Not to mention the numbers I saw still show he has more votes than her, he just fell below 50%, add in the people who voted for other candidates or voted for other positions and not president and she is below. I saw only 4% of votes left in California, meaning he will beat her by at least a million votes.

    • Betonhaus@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      I thought we spent four years exhaustively proving that the election cannot be stolen? How did they find loopholes after the Democrats exhaustively proved they didn’t exist?

      • gmtom@lemmy.world
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        30 minutes ago

        It wasn’t that it can’t be stolen. We proved the dems didn’t steal it.

        This year we had lots of evidence of fraud and manipulation by Rs and like do you really think Trump and Musk would actually just play fair?

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        The biggest problem with the letters that went around is that it would require every swing state Secretary of State to stay quiet about it happening. And some of those SoS’s are die hard democracy and election people. It would also require the IT people not to leak any concerns and they aren’t known for staying quiet about systems being penetrated.

        All in all it seems like a weird thing happened but the silence is verging on Secret Government Agency with millions of domestic spies that never write a tell all book conspiracy territory.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            I haven’t seen anything. I know Arizona for sure would be all over it. Their last three SoS elections were about keeping Maga out of the elections. The current governor is governor largely for standing up to Trump in 2020. If they thought they got hacked they would be using bullhorns to let us know.

      • frunch@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        Seriously, how far does that excuse get anyone? “Well everyone didn’t vote for him so whatever” and he says “Yeah they did 🥴” and proceeds to do whatever tf he wants anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    It sucks that the Dems don’t bother with a recount, even if it’s still the same result. Republicans wanted recounts just about everywhere they could in 2020. Instead they just say “welp, looks like we lost. Here’s the keys to the kingdom.” Do some due diligence and have a damn recount.

    • nucleative@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Those kind of things have to be done in every single district and costs millions of dollars. Unless there’s a probable chance, it’s probably better to save the cash and use it for something that could get results in the future

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      5 hours ago

      What makes you say that? For me they all say the same as the article here.

      (AP is still at 50%, but it should drop any moment. I didn’t compare the numbers between them or do the math, so it may just be a difference in rounding.)

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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    13 hours ago

    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.

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      7 hours ago

      Think about the NPVIC critically for a moment. What would you have done if your state voted for Harris, but some agreement your state legislators made forced your state’s EC votes to go to Trump? Suppose the margins were narrow enough that your state’s EC votes were the deciding factor.

      I would be contacting my state representatives and governor immediately, demanding they withdraw from that compact before the EC votes are cast in December.

      Trump voters would make similar demands of their state if the situation were reversed.

      The NPVIC will never actually affect an election, because the participating states would almost certainly withdraw long before it did.

  • mercano@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    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!)

    • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      16 hours ago

      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

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        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.

              • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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                2 hours ago

                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”

          • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world
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            3 hours ago

            “Poor me, my constitutes don’t like that I am not representing them in government. Corporate lobbiest, you’ve done nothing but shower me in money, won’t you tell me what Americans really want?”

        • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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          15 hours ago

          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?

          • YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH@infosec.pub
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            15 hours ago

            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.

    • demesisx@infosec.pub
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      13 hours ago

      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.

      FPTP

        • demesisx@infosec.pub
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          3 hours ago

          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.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        Typical liberal cope.

        “We KINDA won!”

        Face it y’all. Democrats and liberals are a LOSING block. FAILURES.

        I’ll continue to vote straight D, because it’s the only choice I got. Fucking losers and failures.

      • arandomthought@sh.itjust.works
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        15 hours ago

        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.

        • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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          15 hours ago

          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

    • testfactor@lemmy.world
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      16 hours 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.world
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        15 hours 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
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          11 hours 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.

  • testfactor@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    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.

    • Wrench@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      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.

  • TommySoda@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    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.

    • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      14 hours ago

      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.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        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 removed hurts!”

        • frunch@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          You should seriously consider running for office. You might have the energy and wherewithal to reshape the liberal party into something halfway worthwhile 🤌

    • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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      16 hours ago

      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.

  • 7112@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    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.

    • frunch@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      That is certainly a possible solution. However I also think a lot of folks simply don’t have the time to commit in addition to their regular jobs and responsibilities. Guess that’s how we wound up with so wealthy people in politics… they got all that free time ⏰ (and they think they know what’s best for everyone else too, perhaps? 🙃)

    • Restaldt@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      “If you have the ability to lead you have the obligation to. Because if you don’t you need to consider who will”

  • WatDabney@sopuli.xyz
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    16 hours ago

    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.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      16 hours ago

      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.

  • NeoToasty@kbin.melroy.org
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    16 hours ago

    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.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      15 hours ago

      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.

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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      15 hours ago

      there apparently are some groups that Harris and the Dems failed on

      That’s every group except for republicans, who voted Trump anyway.