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Republicans have gained 0.1% of the national House vote

In 2022 Republicans won 50.6% of the total vote for the House of Representatives.

With most of the votes counted in 2024, Republicans have won 50.7% of the vote.

I dunno. This is perhaps not really a huge mandate for change for the Republican Party?

47 thoughts on “Republicans have gained 0.1% of the national House vote

  1. S1AMER

    House Republicans say they have a mandate. Our national press and pundit class says House Republicans have a mandate.

    Facts say ... well, who pays attention to facts these days?

  2. fabric5000

    man·date (/ˈmanˌdāt/) the authority to carry out a policy or course of action, regarded as given by the electorate to a candidate or party that is victorious in an election.

    While I agree with you in spirit, the spirit of the rules is dead. They won, they have the mandate.

  3. Doctor Jay

    They can go ahead and do whatever stupid, cruel, harmful things they can manage tp pass, and then face the voters with those decisions in 2026.

    So sure, they have a mandate. Next time around, though, you won't be able to blame the Biden administration for inflation...

    1. OldGuyInTheClub

      What makes you think that? The media will at minimum report both sides to blame. Trump will deflect it to Biden and the base will go along with it.

      Congress got cowed into invading Iraq with accusations of treason to do otherwise. When things went horribly wrong Democrats got blamed for voting for it.

      1. Doctor Jay

        Well, in 2020, lots of people were unhappy about Trump's handling of Covid, after all.

        And what about 2018? They took a beating. In 2022, the Red Wave did not materialize.

        We used to say that "covid doesn't care about your propaganda or lies. It will do what it does in spite of whatever you say."

        Despair means giving up. Don't give up.

        1. OldGuyInTheClub

          As some said of Jan 6th, it was a dress rehearsal. The GOP has learned quite a bit since and have changed accordingly.

          I've not yet given up hope. I wish that Biden and the Democrats will still scorch earth before the inauguration. Allowing the missile strikes into Russia is a good first step. I'd like to see more where that came from. Further I'd like to see them dig in and make life hard in Congress. It's time to take the gloves off and put the brass knuckles on.

    2. Austin

      “Next time around, though, you won't be able to blame the Biden administration for inflation...”

      Hahahahahahahahaha! Dr Jay - you’re hilarious.

      I believe GOP mouthpieces are still blaming The Black Guy for insurance problems and The Blowjob Guy for shipping jobs overseas. Why would The Old Guy be unblameable for inflation decades from now?

      Grievance and resentment are forever. Ask the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland.

  4. jte21

    And this is with a number of states with Republican majorities and supine courts that have gerrymandered the shit out of their Congressional districts.

  5. tomtom502

    It was a shock that Trump got more votes. I thought he had a hard ceiling around 48% and his path was an electoral college victory. I was hardly alone.

    None of that changes the basics. It was a squeaker. The polling error was modest, polls never have been reliable for that last 2-3%. There is no "mandate".

    Would Republicans have done better running Nicky Haley? I don't know. I imagine they don't care. Winning is winning.

    I do know Haley vs. Harris would not have forced me to downgrade my opinion of millions of voters.

    1. Doctor Jay

      Yeah, and there was some pretty significant movement in the last couple of weeks of the campaign. I am still not sure what that was about.

      1. KenSchulz

        That was when all the inside dope was that TFG’s campaign staff was frantically trying to keep him focused on the issues, while he was insulting people left and right, and being his vulgar self. Part of his base are assholes and wannabee assholes, and his being (more of) an asshole really fired them up.

    2. gs

      My understanding is that about 5 million fewer people voted this time than did 5 years ago. Trump supporters were never going to sit out the election, but Harris was always going to have trouble motivating anyone unhappy about Gaza or other issues.

    3. Austin

      He apparently did have a hard ceiling. It just was 49.9%* or so instead of 48%, but really either % is more than enough for a (Republican) Electoral College sweep.

      *my guess is that a lot of the MAGA youth - the kids who only remember Trump and Biden being preznit - came of age between 2020 and 2024 to more than replace the Covid victims (who themselves were more likely to be poor and thus left-leaning).

  6. realrobmac

    This is what bothers me about all the recriminations on the Democratic side of things. I get it. We lost. But of the last 5 presidential elections the Republicans got a majority of votes in exactly 0 of them and Democrats got a majority of votes in 4.

    Any way you cut it, this election was basically a coin flip, not an utter repudiation of everything Democrats stand for. I am not saying we can't to better, but let's not lose our minds.

    1. Austin

      All elections are becoming coin flips, given that the media bothsides and sanewashes the candidates to keep the elections horse-racey enough to retain eyeballs and advertisers, and the electorate increasingly is too distracted or stupid to be able to tell truth from a lie or decency from vice anyway. We’re fucked… it’s just a matter of how long we can delay the country’s collapse at this point.

      Yes, democracy is still better than any other system for determining a country’s leadership… but not by as much as we thought/hoped, and not for much longer it appears.

  7. Joseph Harbin

    The lesson here is more than the obvious one that people are discussing. There's more to it.

    1. Republicans were not awarded a huge mandate for change. (The obvious one.)

    2. Democrats were not repudiated in a way that calls for dramatic change.

    3. The country is fairly evenly split, as it has been since at least 2000, and the number of persuadable voters is probably smaller than it has been historically.

    4. The last president to enter office without a "trifecta" was GHW Bush, elected in 1988. Till then, the idea of a "mandate" mattered because it may have signaled a need for deference from the other party. Now, winning the presidency is a "winner take all" event. Republicans acted accordingly before Democrats, but under Biden Dems went big and the country is better for it.

    5. Because Democrats lost, people are learning the wrong lessons. One of them is that "deliverism" doesn't work. If you never heard of the term, count your lucky stars. Joe Biden did deliver, but the country never heard about it. The fault for that is on everyone. But many factors go into winning and losing elections, and whatever pet theory you have about how politics works, consider that there's more to it than what you think.

  8. Lon Becker

    But 2022 was an election run with inflation at around 10% which is why Democrats were actually happier with the result than in 2020 when they got a majority of the vote. The expectation was that the Republican vote would fall with inflation having fallen so far. That was part of my reason for optimism. It is problematic that things were worse at all in 2024 given the better economic conditions.

    That said it is true that Republicans do not have any more of a mandate than the Dems did in 2020. And they have even more unpopular policies.

    1. Joseph Harbin

      Trump was not on the ballot in 2022. In all his runs, he brought out a lot of voters who never voted otherwise. If he just been a billionaire clown, he might not have won in '16. But he was a big TV star that a lot of people knew and liked. Celebrity is a lousy guide to how anyone will perform in office, but it's pretty good way to capture the attention of lazy voters.

      Almost all presidential elections go to the bigger celebrity. Even a doofus like Dubya topped polls early because many people thought his father was running again. Hillary was probably the biggest "star" to lose, but her celebrity was in politics and she wasn't the star of a long-running primetime TV show.

  9. camusvsartre

    At the moment it is not clear that the Republicans have won a majority in the House. The press continues to show them at 218 but Gaetz has resigned so they are really only at 217. The Democrats have 213 seats and there are still 4 uncalled races. My best guess is that the Republicans will win at least 2 of those but it isn't obvious. A slim 219 to 215 majority with several other Republicans already chosen by Trump to serve in his administration will make control of the House really dicey. Johnson is a smooth talking liar but he certainly hasn't demonstrated that he can even control his own caucus. I'm actually not that big a fan of chaos but with this crowd the more dysfunction the better.

    1. Joseph Harbin

      Elise Stefanik is going to the UN. I believe another R rep is going to the admin, along with a couple of R senators (Rubio, Vance).

    2. Doctor Jay

      I have assumed that Ron DeSantis would appoint a Republican to take Gaetz' place, and that the other Reps appointed are also from states with R governors. Am I wrong about that?

      1. camusvsartre

        I'm reasonably sure that a Governor can't appoint a House member. Governor's can appoint Senators. The House member must be replaced by a special election. Each State has different rules around the scheduling of these special elections. So there is a reasonably good chance that the Republican's will be operating off a short deck (pun intended) for a while.

    3. stilesroasters

      FWIW, technically I don’t think his resignation affects the term that starts in 2025. Obviously he will likely relinquish that as well.

  10. jdubs

    The narrative is now set.

    -Anything close to a simple majority is an overwhelming, historic mandate.
    -The warnings of facism, white nationalism and a rapid erosion of basic rights was a big whoopsie, there is nothing to worry about here anymore. Lets congratulate Donald and move on from this topic. Everyone just settle down, genuflect (deeply!), watch some football or holiday movies and forget about all that THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!! stuff.

    1. d34df4n

      While Trump is obviously a threat to democracy, I think the message is wrong if you're trying to get voters. People just don't understand what it actually means. It is inconceivable to people that the US might actually be very different if Trump was elected. It's hard to put into words, but there's a weird feeling amongst the MAGAs that "America" is somehow a thing that just exists, and the federal government is only there to control it and prevent it from reaching it's true potential. It's so hard to get these people to understand that 1. government employees are just other Americans trying to make a living, and 2. that the *United* States of America is united by the existence of a federal government. It's fine and healthy to disagree on specific policies, but when you find yourself opposing government just because it's the government, you are basically on the insurrection spectrum. That doesn't make you a "real American". It makes you an asshole that should just stay out of politics.

  11. akapneogy

    The national House vote is perhaps the closest to what matters in other democracies. With a 50.7% share of the vote, if we ran our country the way most democracies do, Republicans would be frantically looking for coalition partners and frequently looking back furtively for signs of a no-confidence motion to bring the government down. I used to think that a four-year presidential term brings stability and continuity. Trump has forced me to ask "stability and continuity for what?"

    1. KenSchulz

      Yeah, I don’t doubt that, if we had a Westminster system, the Freakshow Caucus would vote no-confidence at every opportunity.

  12. stilesroasters

    And atill a chance they have a smaller majority. Looks at the moment like 3 seat majority is most likely outcome.

    And that’s without vacancies.

  13. kenalovell

    Unfortunately the fact their vote was essentially unchanged suggests one of two explanations, neither consistent with a healthy democracy:

    1. Many voters take little interest in which party controls the House, and just vote for the candidate from their preferred president's party.
    2. Many voters understood what a complete shitshow the Republican majority House was over the last two years, and wanted more of the same.

  14. Jasper_in_Boston

    This is perhaps not really a huge mandate for change for the Republican Party?

    Agreed.

    I wonder if the story about the 2024 election—one that's right under our noses and isn't really being focused on—is the reality that the electorate is just so damn evenly polarized: Trump (like Harris) headed into the election with 45-47% of the popular vote in his pocket.

    Thus, only a very modest shift in voter sentiment was required for the 2024 outcome to be different from 2020.

    And so, maybe the debate about inflation and national conditions—Things are fine! No, working people have seen living standards under pressure!—is a little beside the point.

    In other words, nothing's ever perfect. Perhaps if the electorate were more like that in the 70s or 80s, Harris would have won, because Trump wouldn't have been able to get a sufficiently large portion of voters to jettison the Democratic Party given the overall economic picture.

    But in 2024 that portion need only be very small. Which is pretty much what we saw. And I think it's telling that three elections in a row at this point have resulted in the White House incumbency party losing. AFAIK this has never happened before in all of US history. Maybe we've entered a new era where the White House is just going to change hands every election because there are always enough swing voters who are unhappy with their lot.

    1. Jasper_in_Boston

      EDIT: The incumbency party did lose three elections in a row, in 1884, 1888, and 1892 (and then a fourth, in 1896). Still a very rare occurrence!

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