Donald Trump won more than a second term in the White House last Tuesday. He also won what eluded him in 2016—the prestige of being the people’s choice for President.
The Constitution says that the President is to be elected by a majority vote of the presidential electors selected by the states. Should nobody win such a majority, the House of Representatives is to select the president with each state’s House delegation to get one vote, and with a majority of delegations required to elect the president. Whosoever is elected by either of these means becomes the legitimate President of the United States—at least in theory.
The Constitution says nothing about a popular vote for President, and hence winning the popular vote without winning the electoral vote has no constitutional significance. Yet in America there is a widespread sense that winning the popular vote is required to win political prestige and legitimacy. A president who fails to win the popular vote commands less prestige and respect within the political system, among members of Congress, and from the general public. Indeed, he may be considered vaguely illegitimate, having entered the White House under less than democratic circumstances, and his chances for a successful presidency are thereby compromised at best.
In 2016 Trump won the dubious distinction of being the fifth president to win the White House while losing the popular vote. Hillary Clinton won almost 3 million more popular votes than Trump won, but because of the distribution of the vote, Trump nonetheless won a majority of the electoral vote and therefore the White House. For the history minded, his four similarly elected predecessors included:
- John Quincy Adams: In 1824, he came in second in a 4-man race for the presidency, winning 31% of the popular vote to frontrunner Andrew Jackson’s 41%. Because no candidate won a majority of the electoral vote, the House of Representatives selected Adams over Jackson to be President.
- Rutherford B. Hayes: In the presidential election of 1876 Republican Hayes won a 1-vote majority of the electoral vote after the intervention of a Republican-dominated commission but only 48% of the popular vote to Democrat Samuel Tilden’s 51%.
- Benjamin Harrison: Republican Harrison won an electoral vote majority over incumbent Democratic President Grover Cleveland but won only 47.8% of the popular vote to Cleveland’s 48.6%.
- George W. Bush: In 2000 he won an electoral vote majority after the Republican-dominated Supreme Court ordered a stop to a recount in Florida, but he had only 47.9% of the popular vote to Al Gore’s 48.4%.
Each of these presidents had to labor under the shadows cast by the circumstances of their dubious elections. Neither Adams, nor Hayes, nor Harrison is considered among the great or near great or even above average presidents as assessed by most presidential historians. Hayes, after four relatively ineffective years in office, during which he had to endure taunts that he was “His Fraudulency” and “Rutherfraud,” wisely chose to honor a campaign promise made in 1876 and retire after one term in office. Presidents Adams and Harrison were also one termers, being ousted by the voters when trying to win second terms. Only Bush managed to win a second term, eking out small popular and electoral vote majorities in 2004, probably on the basis of the prestige he won from his initial handling of 9/11.
But the 2024 election results not only return Trump to the White House, but also with the prestige and the concomitant political power that he failed to achieve in 2016. Trump not only won the constitutionally required electoral vote majority (312 votes to Harris’s 226), but he won almost 4 million more popular votes as well, making him the first Republican president since Bush in 2004 to defeat his Democratic rival in the popular vote count. Indeed, the current results also indicate Trump may have won an absolute majority of the popular vote.
The 2024 election returns confer no more legal authority on Trump than did the 2016 returns. But they nonetheless enhance his political power. Immediately after the 2016 election, there was a growing online movement to encourage or coerce electors to pledge to vote for him to break their pledges and vote for anyone else. Investigations into alleged Russian collusion were launched, and plans to impeach him at the earliest opportunity were laid.
But his clear-cut popular vote victory should reduce if not eliminate attacks on his political prestige. Indeed, his prestige will no doubt be enhanced, leading to a greater willingness among Republicans in Congress, and possibly even some Democrats as well, to support and adopt his legislative agenda. And this will be in addition to the greater ease with which he will win approval of his legislative and judicial nominees by a Senate with a Republican majority created partly by his election triumph.
Whether all this is good news or bad depends on one’s perspective. Republicans are jubilant; Democrats despondent. But everyone must cope with the fact that for better or worse the election was a triumphant in every meaningful way for Donald Trump, the once and future president.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville
Economic Development Authority since 2018 and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
Be the first to comment