- cross-posted to:
- usa@midwest.social
- cross-posted to:
- usa@midwest.social
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.
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!)
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
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.
This fixes congress. How does this fix the presidency, which is one single office?
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.
Yes, and you abolish FPTP and now you elect a president how? I’m interested in your proposal, because it’s incomplete to say get rid of FPTP… Otherwise top vote getter, who gets maybe 30% of the vote leads the country which is also an abomination as 70% didn’t vote for that person.
Abolishing FPTP requires doing something else on top of it, ranked choice or run off would be better than the highest count.
Ranked choice voting
It could give people opportunities to vote for third parties without feeling like they’re throwing away their vote
Okay so you go with what system?
Let’s say the breakdown of votes looks the same as the Swedish breakdown. There will be more people that voted for a different candidate than the red one (Social Democrat).
This then requires a run off system like france, or a ranked choice, which is also fine to propose, but you can’t hold up a visual of a parliament and say the system is so much better, when we talk about one singular office.
The post compared two things that have different end goals
Any system where your vote is a list instead of a checkbox.
That way in 2016 you can vote for Bernie as 1, and if he loses, you can vote for Hillary by putting her as 2. You don’t have to give up your moonshot to get your safety net.
Great video on the problems with first past the post, with links to some other videos discussing better systems: https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo
You can do it in a multitude of ways. The French for instance elect their president by voting twice, the first time they vote for their favorite candidate (and the parliament), the second time they vote for either of the two candidates that got the most votes (a run off)
There are other ways, like ranked voting, or you could look up parliamentary republics for an alternative form of government.
Read up on what happens in the rest of the world, at this point, we, as a human species, have tried pretty much everything
the simplest fix for states would be to adopt something like what maine and nebraska have, since they have vastly more representative turnout compared to FPTP.
Wouldn’t be perfect, but would basically kill any chance of republican DEI in the fed ever again lol.
Don’t worry, you’re still surrounded by idiots no matter who wins the presidency
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.
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
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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.
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.
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.
Since it’s just about a half split, you’re at least semi-circled by idiots.
So stay away from walls and other obstacles you can back into…got it!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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You should seriously consider running for office. You might have the energy and wherewithal to reshape the liberal party into something halfway worthwhile 🤌
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.
I mean…. Does it really matter?
Nope.
Some liberals will say that he won’t be able to claim a mandate. Doesn’t matter. He will.
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)_/¯
It’s still good to know he doesn’t have one, be able to prove it, and say it a lot all over the place with the receipts in hand.
I think this type of thinking is dealing with Trump the wrong way. Censoring him is pointless. He’s going to say what he wants until it isn’t useful and then pivot. He’s going to do what he wants regardless of what he says.
Don’t take him literally. Take him seriously. Defend at the points of real vulnerability. Counter at the right times. Sow discord and distrust in his hapless helpers and incompetent ranks.
Play to win.
None of the news you read on this app matters. This is at least an interesting tidbit.
It won’t matter. He, and his cultists, will continue to claim otherwise.
Actually only 50% of us support the fat pedophile fascist.
It’s way less than that. Like 35% of eligible voters did not vote.
Only 33% of eligible voters actually voted against Trump. 66% either agree with him or don’t care.
Yup, just 71 million or so goddam people voted for a narcissistic grifter felony with daddy issues. Fuck.
Or 71 million people voted against democrat corruption and the fact that they do not represent the working class.
By voting for blatant corruption instead? And tax cuts for the rich is not a policy representing the working class.
They voted for disruption. And that’s the one thing trump is good at.
Ah yes, that’s why they did it. I’m sure that’s exactly why they voted for the, as stated previously, narcissistic etcetera etcetera. Get the fuck out of here.
Maybe a percentage of those votes were because of this, but you can’t actually believe that 71 million people voted for him because he somehow represents the working class better than the dems would. The vast majority people who were protesting the dems not representing the working class, did so by not voting or voting 3rd party, not by voting for Trump.
99 percent of those people voted for Trump because of 3 reasons: Racism, Misogyny, or ignorance. There is a fourth group of rich voters who voted for him to line their pockets, but they are a miniscule portion of his votes. This fourth group mostly just invests money to encourage the racist, misogynistic, and ignorant ones to go vote.
You should look into the Trump/AOC voters and their reasons why.
I have read about them, but the crossover between people who voted for Trump and AOC is so small, though. Its nowhere close to the total 71 million who voted for Trump.
Look at their reasons. There is major crossover on reasons why people voted for Trump.
And in not doing so, they objectively supported him, whether they’re too braindead to know or not.
Yeah like those people who voted for the people actively funding a genocide that somehow believe the vote they were casting was for less genocide.
That is an amazing brain trick.
this is my favorite israel palestine talking point, instead of actually doing something about the issue, or like, discussing actual things actually happening, people just bitch and moan about semantics instead.
Who gives a fuck whether or not voting for kamala was a vote for genocide, or whether or not abstaining, and therefore helping trump get elected was also a vote for genocide, go do literally fucking anything for the cause.
I agree with that, but this is a political discussion on a messageboard so that’s what is haplening here. This is what lemmy is for.
i guess so, but i would much rather talk about the things actually happening, and have fruitful discussions with people who have significantly more knowledge about these things than i do. But people would rather just concern troll instead i guess lmao.
You are claiming that Trump automatically wins if nobody votes. That’s objectively not how US elections work. He still has to get the plurality of votes to win. People who do not cast votes don’t automatically support Trump, it just doesn’t sway the election at all. Please stick to the facts and not to the fake news. Election misinformation is not cool.
Every single person in this country was aware of the stakes here. Kamala lost because people didn’t show up. Therefore those no-shows made Trump’s win easier. Therefore in practice, they supported Trump. This is not up for debate, and it’s not hyperbole or misinformation.
Yea but he has 100% of the control now so it doesn’t matter unfortunately.
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.
The problem is Republicans are heartless, but Democrats are spineless.
Democrats are heartless genocidal freaks, and hardly “spineless” they just don’t care. It’s a party of billionaires. I have no idea how you can unironically believe this ethos that they’re all a bunch of bleeding hearts but are just too scared, quivering in their boots to act but they all mean well… apparently! No, they just never fight for those values you want them to fight for because their party does not represent those values, and pretending they do at this point… I have a bridge to sell you.
I have no idea how you can unironically believe this ethos that they’re all a bunch of bleeding hearts but are just too scared, quivering in their boots to act but they all mean well… apparently
Because that’s what they are, soft-willed bleeding hearts
No, they are not, they are incredibly wealthy millionaires whose campaigns are bought and paid for by billionaires. The Democrat party is actively supporting an ongoing holocaust, an industrial scale genocide and ethnic cleansing of millions of people from their homeland. The idea that these people are all secretly saints who are just too scared to act on it is such a completely ridiculous belief. They do not do moral things because they are not moral. They are not saints. They simply do not represent those values. You elect a party that openly believes X and then claim they don’t do Y because they’re too scared to do it. No, they don’t do Y because they don’t represent Y, they represent X. Democrats are by no means in any way “soft-willed.” Whenever it comes to something they actually believe in, they are very good at rallying the votes to get it passed, such as when they are passing something in favor of the military industrial complex or the Israel lobby.
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
I do have problems with Democrats simply handing power to fascists that have literally told us that they will end our Republic on day 1… However, at this point, I think recounting at the level you’re talking about would be a waste of time. Even if it changed the results, Republicans wouldn’t accept it.
I agree it’s a waste of time now, but loke the Wednesday or Thursday afternoon election, they should’ve put the wheels in motion.
Democrats like losing because they only disagree on Republicans on like 2 issues and their funding is great when Republicans are in power.
I saw that Harris’s campaign was fundraising to pay for a recount, is that not the case?
He still won the popular vote.
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What do poplar trees have to do with this ?
Their wood is too soft to stand up to the Republicans, the Democrats need something stronger, like oak or maple.
I kinda like the sound of Maplecrat.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what Yew can do for your country!
Soon there will be no more of them
The first line of the summary starts with …
Trump’s popular vote share has fallen
He still has more than Harris. I’m not thrilled about any of this, I just don’t see any sort of significance of being under 50% when we already don’t use the popular vote for anything meaningful. If it drops below Harris’s, then that’s worth talking about.
i think in presidential elections in order to “win” you need at minimum a 51% vote. Otherwise you don’t actually win, but i could be mixing some shit up lol.
Voting is fucking weird.
You can win the presidency with as little as 22% of the popular vote. https://youtu.be/7wC42HgLA4k
is this the electoral college win, or did they “win” the popular vote since they had more of the votes than the opponent.
A genuine real win via the electoral college can happen with as little as 22% of the popular vote.
yeah i believe i said winning the popular vote though.
You asked me an “or” question.
yeah, and it was the wrong answer.
Very, very slimly.
now take into account the massive GOP voter fraud
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?
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?
I thought we spent four years exhaustively proving that the election cannot be stolen?
Wrong.
Trump’s team claimed for 4 years that the election was stolen without evidence. We’ve spent 4 years showing that the 2020 election was not stolen, which does not mean that election fraud doesn’t exist and never will exist.
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.
so… are we hearing any of that now?
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.
What about the starling machines
I couldn’t find anything about voting machines named Starling. There is a StarLink theory. The problem is that seems to be based on a TikTok video that was incoherent by most reports, and is no longer up.
I get that moneyed interests could get evidence removed from a centralized social media service. But nothing in the transcript I’ve found describes a specific link from StarLink to voting machines. In fact it sounds like the person just described the basics of TCP/IP in a roundabout way to make it sound sinister. The problem is election systems are air gapped with the exception of a few highly controlled access points. Situations where that’s been compromised, (such as allowing remote work from home for election office workers) have made the news for precisely the reason that it’s rare. And the most credible criticism of election security is that the election office’s computers could be compromised and used to spread malware to machines. But that’s an inherent weakness. If the office can’t access the results, they can’t report them.
Furthermore, there’s nothing special about StarLink that would make them a better access route. They aren’t close enough to intercept the unofficial results as a false cellphone tower, (and that wouldn’t change the official results later anyways), and any traffic going through them to attack election systems would also have to travel through modems on the ground, controlled by election officials. So destroying the satellite does nothing for covering your tracks. If you believe they can erase all traces of their traffic, then there’s no need to destroy a satellite as surely that would be even easier on a satellite controlled by a close ally.
At the end of the day, with what we know right now, the fuck up was with the Democrat’s messaging. Not anything to do with election security.
the only two significant things i’ve heard, one is pretty much confirmed.
republicans had access illegally to source code for dominion voting machines (we know this because people were charged over it) this is also the contents of the “letter to VP harris” thing that was released a minute ago. Though it doesn’t claim fraud or anything of the nature, just calls for a recount, and establishing that no foul play happened.
The second, and one i haven’t dug into at all, so take this at face value, is that apparently, there may have been a very large number of “bullet ballots” or ballots just voting for trump, in AZ i think. I don’t know the status of this one. Even if it’s true, it doesn’t explicitly mean voter fraud happened. It may be a tad bit suspect though.
Those are the only two theories i’ve heard that have weight, granted i’m not following election conspiracies, because i’m a normal sane person.
Realistically the most likely “fraud” was elon musk buying twitter.
I thought we spent four years exhaustively proving that the election cannot be stolen
Um, hate to tell you bro, trump did cheat and steal the 2016 election (proven in court, 34 counts convicted)
“Cannot”? How does one prove a negative?
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.
This is the way.
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? 🙃)
“If you have the ability to lead you have the obligation to. Because if you don’t you need to consider who will”
Great! We can relish the fact that he didn’t win over the majority of Americans as our country descends into a fascist hellhole run by billionaires, war hawks and rapists.
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.
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.
76+ million fascists voted for a fascist. Period.
And a whole ton of non-voters became fascists that day by abstaining.
You all need to get your “Fuck Trump” flags made and start driving around with them for the next 4 years.
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.
I’m calling him a fascist, and those who voted for him fascists. Fuck this fascist country.
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.
I’m sorry but what timeline are you in? Harris barely focused on the fascism at all (I forget if she even said the actual word. Maybe twice?), and provided a shit ton of specific policy proposals that would have directly helped the working and middle classes. People can’t blame anyone but themselves if they chose to ignore her.
Comments like this make me feel like I’ve lost my mind. Where have you been for the past 6 months?
there apparently are some groups that Harris and the Dems failed on
That’s every group except for republicans, who voted Trump anyway.