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While I agree with the sentiment, Trump did lose by millions of votes. There was a 7.61 million vote differential. He also lost the popular vote to Hillary by 2.9 million votes.
Biden won 81,283,098 votes, or 51.3 percent of the votes cast. He is the first U.S. presidential candidate to have won more than 80 million votes. Trump won 74,222,958 votes, or 46.8 percent of the votes cast. More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than any other losing presidential candidate in US history.
Going back further, incumbency aside, there hasn't been a Republican who has won the popular vote since GHW Bush in 1988..35 years ago
Those numbers don't matter though.
What they were saying, accurately, was that the election was decided by a few tens of thousands of voters delivering swing states with tight races.
Trump lost by a few million votes in 2016 too, but that's not what mattered then either.
Those numbers do matter for clarity. Saying he didn't lose by millions blurs the truth. Saying he lost by a few thousand votes is not at all accurate when electoral college votes are the only ones that matter, and adding "in a few swing states," only fuels those stop the steal Maga idiots
They do not. They only matter in the context of a discussion of the election among those familiar with how the system works, where all parties specifically understand that the popular vote is a meaningless metric as it relates to electing a president.
Again that's just factually incorrect. By the same standards, you'd logically have to argue that Trump lost the 2016 election, which is obviously nonsense.
If anything, the opposite is true: using terms like "won" and "lost" based on the popular vote is what's really blurring the truth.
It's like talking about an American football game and who won and lost based on overall yards gained or time of possession instead of the final score.
Interesting angle, considering this is the first possibly valid point you've made...but that it also completely contradicts the rest of your argument. You've been here arguing the popular vote matters then turn around and say the EC votes are the only ones that matter...bold strategy.
In concession, I'll admit you're right on this one and I stand corrected.
Trump lost by 74 votes.
Yeesh you really don't know how to keep to a side. Thanks for the props, thanks for saying what I already said, thanks for rehashing what you already said, and thanks for not understanding the point and drawing this out. This whole exchange is unnecessary and has been a waste of my time
Yeah, I know all of that. But about 5 million of that 7.61 million, for example, came from California. There was never a chance that California was going to Trump, so those 5 million extra votes were largely overkill votes that had no bearing on the overall election outcome. Those 5 million could have stayed home and it wouldn't have changed the outcome a single bit. The same goes, to a much lesser degree, with states like New York and Massachusetts, which are about as blue as you can get.
The same holds true for Trump, by the way. Trump won several southern states by double digits, leading to himself getting millions of overkill votes in states that were never in danger for him. A few million people in those states could have stayed home and the outcome wouldn't have changed a bit. But a few thousand more votes in a couple of key states could mean we'd be sitting in the midst of Trump's 2nd term while Biden goes down as a footnote who ran his campaign from his basement.
It's all about the crucial votes in key areas of swing states. Georgia is a prime example. A swing of just over 11,000 votes out of a pool of 5 million could have thrown the state to Trump. A 20,000 vote swing in Wisconsin could have turned Wisconsin red. Between the two of them alone, 31,000 votes could have sent two states and their 26 Electoral College votes to the GOP. The same could be said about half a dozen other states where Biden's wins were razor thin.
The popular vote is great for bragging rights, but in reality has no actual bearing on the outcome of the election due to the existence of the Electoral College. It's great for chest thumping, but winning by 7.6 million votes when 7 million of those votes came from heavily populated states that Biden was going to easily win anyway doesn't really say much. When you're talking about votes that actually have an impact on the results, Biden's victory was much, much narrower.
Look at it this way: Do you really think Biden is going to waste his time running up the score in California, or is he going to spend his time in swing states to try to at least maintain if not expand upon the narrow wins he got last time? He's going to spend his time in the swing states because running up the score in California by a few million votes will do exactly nothing for him, while ensuring he at least maintains the 11,000 votes he won by in Georgia will mean he doesn't lose 16 EC votes right off the top.
That was a lot of words to say what you already said, and I corrected. He didn't lose by a small margin, he lost by electoral votes. Saying he only won or lost by a few thousand votes is wildly inaccurate when it is electoral votes that matter
...i think bush the lesser won the popular vote for his second term: didn't make him suck any less, but wars win elections, which is a terrible incentive for the next minority-victory president...
That's what an incumbency is