Trump Wins, But No Landslide

The Electoral College has voted with Donald Trump, giving him more than 270 votes needed to be sworn in January 20, 2017. He will likely receive 304 electors with only a couple of Texas members defecting. The Democratic Party and Clinton campaign strategy for recounts and attacks on the Electoral College look as poorly conceived and executed as the last days of the campaign. It might be time for some party leaders to start to think about 2018, not November 2016.

Some Trump partisans in the new post-truth environment have called the electoral vote a landslide. In fact, it is a very modest margin. A few recent presidents and the electoral total are:

Trump’s modest 304 electoral votes are hardly anything his campaign operatives should be touting a landslide. His mere 36-vote margin is miles from the Reagan, Clinton and Obama wins and more like the close wins by Kennedy in 1960 (303), Nixon in 1968 (301) and Carter in 1976 (297). Both of the George W. Bush races produced narrow electoral victories. The near dead even 2000 race he won with 271 electoral votes (Florida provided the winning margin) and he received 286 in 2004 (Ohio).

Trump’s victory is better than some, but hardly a landslide and, of course, he lost the popular vote by 2 points, or 2.9 million votes.

Read CNN: Electoral College set to make Trump’s win official