Trump Barely Won the Popular Vote. Why Doesn’t It Feel That Way?

In 2024, Donald Trump won the popular vote by 1.5 points. Trump and Democrats alike treated this result as an overwhelming repudiation of the left and a broad mandate for the MAGA movement. But by any historical measure, it was a squeaker.

In 2020, Joe Biden won the popular vote by 4.5 points; in 2016, Hillary Clinton won it by 2.1 points; in 2012, Barack Obama won it by 3.9 points; in 2008, Obama won it by 7.2 points; and in 2004, George W. Bush won it by 2.4 points. You have to go back to the 2000 election to find a margin smaller than Trump’s.

Down-ballot, Republicans’ 2024 performance was, if anything, less impressive. In the House, the Republicans’ five-seat lead is the smallest since the Great Depression; in the Senate, Republicans lost half of 2024’s competitive Senate races, including in four states Trump won; among the 11 governor’s races, not a single one led to a change in partisan control. If you handed an alien these election results, they would not read like a tectonic shift.

And yet, they’ve felt like one. Trump’s cultural victory has lapped his political victory. The election was close, but the vibes have been a rout. This is partially because he’s surrounded by some of America’s most influential futurists. Silicon Valley and crypto culture’s embrace of Trump has changed his cultural meaning more than Democrats have recognized. In 2016, Trump felt like an emissary of the past; in 2025, he’s being greeted as a harbinger of the future.