Yep. As important as the Presidential race is, it’s still just one race, and any one race can have a lopsided result, or a contrary result to relative party strength. The Republicans were in MUCH worse position from 1932-1980 than they are now in terms of party affiliation, yet managed to win the Presidency 4 times, once by an incredibly lopsided result.
I’d actually say we’ve got a better chance of a landslide this year than most, because the parties are really weird about the nominees this time around. Both parties seem bound and determined to nominate people with -20 or worse favorability. If one of those parties comes to their senses, there may be a landslide win.
I define a presidential election landslide victory as the elected candidate not only getting over 50% of the popular and electoral college vote, but also leading her or his party to a majority in the House and filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. That allows the new president to to put forward his or her party’s agenda in a way that , say,ba 75% popular vote WITHOUT command of Congress does not.
Given a built-in 40 percent or so minimum for each party’s presidential candidate, a 2-1 margin of the remaining 20 percent, or 57-43, qualifies as a landslide for me. That gets amplified in the EC for structural reasons, of course, even though old geographic divisions there still exist.
In fact, I’d argue that you often need a landslide before a party will actually change. Before then, there is always a way to rationalize.
As for a mandate, I agree one cannot exist in the type of elections we currently have. We don’t vote for issues, and the candidates always have around 50% support or less.
The only one that sorta makes sense is if the you get (super)majorities in both houses that match the President, but even that’s not really a mandate when half the country voted against that party. It’s less mandate and more “We have the power, so let’s use it.”
Hillary will get the White House and a Democratic majority in the Senate and very possibly Speaker Pelosi. She will beat Trump with over 400 EV and will win about 60-40. This will be a mandate.
I think Obama got a mandate in 2012 after spanking Romney following four years of Republican sabotage of the economy. Of course Republicans thought this only granted him a three year term of continued obstruction.
You seem to be operating under the mistaken assumption that Congress is somehow obligated to enact a President’s agenda. To paraphrase Mr. Obama, he is not the King.
Did you show such deference to President Bush? I didn’t think so.
Don’t listen to Harry Reid. Congress has very few constitutional duties. In fact, they are free to set their own agenda, answerable only to the voters in the next election. They are under no obligation, none, to support Mr. Obama’s (or Mr. Bush’s, or Mr. Trump’s) preferred policies.
an electoral college landslide is an electoral college victory of 200+ electoral votes. A popular vote landslide is a pop vote victory of 8% or greater. A total landslide is having them both. I have that 8% number because it’s twice the margin of error in the most generous opinion polls (4% is usually the highest MoE in GE matchups; some do have 5% tho but rarely any greater). I believe a MoE is actually a standard-error from statistics.
And really, getting 50% of the vote means jack. We are a first-past-the-post/plurality, not a threshold/runoff system. Zero electoral college jurisdictions give their electoral votes based on a threshold. Winning 49-30, or even 49-41 is a much bigger win than 50.5-48.2. Marco Rubio won a senate seat in Florida 49-30; that’s not “close;” he won a landslide. John McCain beat GW Bush in New Hampshire 48-30. And I see no reason the principle of needing 50% of the vote should matter for GE Prez but not a Senate seat or primary. There is also nothing undemocratic about being elected with a plurality; ask Canada, Mexico, UK, and many other democracies that have gone decades without a winner getting 50% of the overall vote.
Why 200? Wouldn’t a 195-vote margin be pretty fucking huge in the electoral college? That’s the problem with trying to assign numbers to inherently subjective terms.
Your rationale for 8% is, perhaps, even more illogical. The fact that 4% is the margin of error in terms of polling is essentially meaningless in terms of the actual result in the actual election. There is no relationship between the two things.
Methinks you jest. But what I is that a president who wins as I decribe has much more power to implement her or his policy’s than one who gets huge electoral and popular majorities while the opposition party controls the House and/or Senate.
I see 55-45 as a much more likely outcome, and there’s no way she’s getting 400 EV. Too many red states, many of them with hefty chunks of that disaffected-blue-collar vote, and her likability factor is too low.
The biggest doubts are Arkansas and Georgia, IMO. Arkansas is reachable because Bill carried it, Georgia perhaps because Trump could increase minority turnout for Hillary. Utah could well turn blue for the only time this century due to Mormons’ distaste for the hate being promoted by Trump.
I used to read books on American politics and elections all the time in my youth, and my best recollection is that the low cutoff point for a landslide was 55%, all elections, not just national.
50-51% was usually defined as a squeaker. If a candidate hit 52% it was still a good distance from a landslide but depending in other factors, which cities and counties a candidate was strong in, the 52-53% range,–roughly–was good enough when mitigating factors (higher percentages for Dems in cities during recession, for instance, would offset lower percentage or even substantial losses in small town, non-metropolitan areas) were added into the mix.
54% was considered a solid, substantial win, and anything above that a landslide. But I’m using that may now be outmoded figures. Still, when I hear landslide it’s always, to my way of thinking, 55% and above.
