In exaggerating his win as a landslide, Trump risks overreaching his narrow mandate - The Boston Globe

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

64% : The November election was as much a repudiation of Biden and Harris as it was an endorsement of Trump, Cook said, in the same way that the 2020 election was a repudiation of Trump after his first term.
62% : We won the popular vote by millions and millions of people," Trump told reporters during a new conference last week.
55% : "President Trump won by a landslide, he has a resounding mandate by the American people to deliver on his campaign promises, and the reporters should get over it," Trump transition spokesperson Anna Kelly said in an emailed statement.
51% : While he did sweep all seven battleground states, Trump won the popular vote by a little less than 2.3 million votes.
49% : Biden's 2020 electoral college victory was about as slim as Trump's in 2024, winning 306 electoral votes, but the Democrat also had a significantly larger margin over Trump -- 4.5 percentage points -- in the popular vote.
47% : That was followed by other bold efforts, such as the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better social safety net and climate legislation, which had to be scaled back because of congressional opposition, and executive action to forgive tens of billions of dollars in student loan debt, an initiative that was retooled after the Supreme Court struck down the first sweeping attempt.
46% : His victory in November might seem like a landslide to Trump after he won the presidency in 2016 despite losing the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by 2 percentage points.
45% : "In a country that is as divided as we are, to have one presidential candidate sweep all of the swing states, I think it is fair to call that a landslide," said Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican.Trump, who has a penchant for superlatives, also proclaimed his 2016 victory a landslide, so it's only natural he'd call his larger margins in 2024 one as well.
38% : Trump won the popular vote by 1.5 percentage points, one of the narrowest margins ever and far short of the widely accepted level for a landslide of at least 10 percentage points.
38% : The victors of those races -- Ronald Reagan in 1980, Bill Clinton in 1992, and Barack Obama in 2008 -- won the popular vote by at least 5.6 percentage points and had at least 365 electoral votes.
35% : But at his Tuesday news conference, Trump went beyond those promises to discuss plans that did not come up during the campaign.
33% : But given the level of economic dissatisfaction among voters, an argument can be made that Trump underperformed by historical standards.
24% : Senator Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, said Trump deserves credit for his victory but risks falling into the "classic trap" of political overreach.
19% : Woolley said Trump demonstrated the potential risk in exaggerating the scope of an election victory.
14% : "Trump doesn't need to look any further than Biden to see the risks of political overreach, Cook said.

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