No, Trump doesn't actually have an electoral mandate—here's why

As the last votes continue to get tallied across the country, one thing is clear: Donald Trump’s victory on Nov. 5 is nowhere near the “mandate” Republicans are claiming . On Monday, CNN data reporter Harry Enten broke down Trump's incredibly weak popular vote victory.

"Look, if you look historically speaking, Donald Trump is now under 50% in the national popular vote, barely under 50%,” Enten told CNN anchor John Berman. “Compare his popular vote victory to those, historically speaking, over the last 200 years. His popular vote victory ranks 44th out of 51.



That ain’t exactly strong," he explained. Indeed, Trump has the shakiest popular vote win since George W. Bush was reelected in 2004 , and the latest popular vote margin is the leanest since Al Gore’s win over Bush in 2000 (Bush won by a single Electoral College vote, while Gore won the popular vote by 543,895 ).

Americans also did not show much confidence in Republicans downballot. "In fact, I went all the way back to the history books, and this is the most Senate races that the winner's party lost in states the president won since 2004," Enten said. Democratic Senate candidates have officially won four states that Trump also won, and the Pennsylvania Senate race between incumbent Democratic Sen.

Bob Casey and Republican challenger Dave McCormick is not yet called. As for the House? "You'd have to go all the way back before there were 50 states in the union to find a smaller majority for the incoming House majority" based on the current election count projections , giving Republicans a paper-thin 221 to 214 majority. Enten notes that some of those GOP House members are set to leave their seats to join the Trump administration , making the already thin Republican majority even smaller.

"We are talking about a very wide win for Donald Trump. But the depth, it's not particularly deep,” Enten said. “It's actually quite shallow, historically speaking.

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