Jan. 14, 2025, 1:26 p.m.
In the early-morning hours of Election Night, when it became clear that Donald Trump was going to be reelected, a narrative took hold: This was a huge win for Trump and Republicans, and they now have a mandate to govern. At that point, it looked like Trump had about 53 percent of the popular vote—a substantial win in the context of recent presidential elections—and a few congressional seats had already flipped from Democratic to Republican.
Any narrative formed on Election Night, however, is incomplete, and that was certainly true in this case. Several states take a few days, some even weeks, to count ballots. Among them are heavily blue states like California and New York. By the time counting finished, Trump ended up with 49.8 percent of the popular vote to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 48.3 percent—one of the narrowest popular-vote margins in recent presidential elections. Republicans ended up with an even narrower House majority than they had last session, but they did pick up four Senate seats.
Is this a mandate?
The simplest definition of a mandate is winning popular support. Republicans won control of both chambers of Congress. The presidential popular vote was close, but the Electoral College vote was not—Trump ran the table in the battleground states, even though some of those margins were fairly narrow. Claims to a mandate make some sense.
However, the fact remains that we are essentially a 50-50 country (or 49.8-48.3, if you prefer). About 51 percent of voters supported Republican House candidates, and 48 percent supported Democrats. To state it differently, nearly half of voters did not support Republicans at the presidential and congressional level, although slightly more voted for Republicans. In a winner-take-all system like the one in the U.S., “slightly more” means everything. Narrow wins look larger than they are.
This electoral outcome is a far cry from substantial mandates in the past. President Reagan’s elections in 1980 and 1984 stand out as examples of mandate elections—Reagan won the popular vote by 10 points in 1980 and by 18 percent in 1984. Notably, Democrats still had a firm grip on the House majority, yet Reagan still accomplished much of his policy agenda, in part because public opinion was on his side.
That was a different time, though. It seems unlikely that we will ever see a Reagan-size win in the current era of polarization; it’s also unlikely that Democrats will support much of Trump’s agenda.
The flip side of a mandate is producing policy in line with that mandate. That’s a complicated picture for Trump: Republicans’ majority in the House can only sustain two defections, and their majority in the Senate is not filibuster-proof. Both chambers likely need some Democratic votes in order to pass legislation, with the exception of bills moved under reconciliation rules in the Senate. These conditions automatically limit what Congress will be able to accomplish, although Trump can (and will) do some things on his own using executive orders.
In a sense, then, whether we call it a “mandate” doesn’t matter so much as what Trump is able to get accomplished and how the public views those policies. The two biggest priorities voters have for Trump are the economy and immigration. In both cases, some of Trump’s proposals are popular and some are not.
Trump spent most of the campaign telling voters that his plan for tariffs would turn the economy around and make everything more affordable. Most voters believed this but seem not to understand what tariffs do. You can see this confusion in polling data: A YouGov survey from December showed that 52 percent of voters support tariffs, while 59 percent say they think tariffs will raise prices. A more popular policy? A Monmouth poll showed that two-thirds of voters support eliminating taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security.
On immigration, Trump campaigned on mass deportations for those living in the country illegally. Support for mass deportations depends on the exact parameters of those deportations. The general idea is popular, but so is having a way for some illegal immigrants to stay in the country under certain conditions. In an August Pew study, 64 percent support the latter.
So perhaps Republicans do have a mandate by the definition of winning elections and majorities. But legislating out of that mandate is severely complicated by the fact that nearly half of the country is on the other side. Public opinion gives a mandate, but public opinion can take that mandate right back.
Contributing editor Natalie Jackson is a vice president at GQR Research.
