Trump Won With One of the Lowest Percentages of the Popular Vote in History

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:36 pm

Donald Trump lost so badly that if he wins the electoral vote on December 19, he will enter the White House with one of the lowest percentages of the popular vote since Republicans and Democrats have been competing in the two-party system.

Donald Trump insisted yesterday he would have won the popular vote if not for millions of people voting illegally. But George Takei spoke nothing less than the truth when he pointed out that Clinton received more votes than Trump, a margin that is expected to rise to at least 2.5 million when all the votes are tabulated:

While Trump would love to erase our votes, he cannot erase facts.

Rutherford B. Hayes received 47.9 percent of the popular vote in 1876. Trump is already down to 46.5 percent and will sink lower once all the votes are in.

It is true that Bill Clinton received only 43 percent of the popular vote in 1992, but whereas Hillary Clinton received more votes than Trump, incumbent George H.W. Bush did not receive more votes than Bill Clinton (Bush received 37.5 percent of the popular vote).

If you exclude Clinton, the only president-elect to receive a lower percentage of the popular vote than Donald Trump was the sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams with 30.9 percent of the popular vote in the 1824 election. That was back in 1824, back when all candidates were from the same “Democrat-Republican†party.

Trump’s reaction to both losing the popular vote and to having election results recounted reveals that Trump as just as unstable as many of us suspected. Paul Krugman’s retort was scathing:

Trump’s co-writer of The Art of the Deal doesn’t pull any punches in his verdict:

As has been pointed out, Trump made two contradictory claims, one being that he won fair and square (‘the people have spoken’) and the other being that ‘millions’ voted illegally for Hillary Clinton. Both can’t be true.

The only reasonable thing to do then, by even Trump’s own reckoning, is to recount as Keith Olbermann pointed out: “So if this is true, @realDonaldTrump, by your logic, we clearly need a nationwide recount. Perhaps even a new vote. Right?”

Right. Trump is panicking. He is seeing his opportunities to violate the Constitution rapidly slipping away, along with opportunities for wealth previously unimagined. He is at one stroke revealing not only just how dishonest he is by claiming two contradictory things are true but his reaction is showing us how completely unhinged he is at the same time.

Ana Navarro has some reassuring words for us, however: “Could be worse, could be tweeting against cast of Kinky Boots…”

Well yes, and wouldn’t that be silly for a president-elect to attack a play?

Look, here’re the facts: If Trump’s Saturday tweet that “The people have spoken and the election is over” is true, then it is also true not only that Donald Trump “won” with one of the lowest percentages of the popular vote since Republicans and Democrats began competing for the White House and that he received fewer votes than the candidate he defeated – but that votes for third-party candidates included, some nine million more people voted against him than for him.

If Donald Trump sets foot in the White House it will be the result of one of the biggest travesties in American political history.



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