In 2016 Hillary Clinton bested Donald Trump in the popular vote by just under 3 million votes and by 2.1%. With several 3rd party candidates polling well (relatively speaking), both the major party candidates were held below 50%.
- Clinton: 65,853,625 (48%)
- Trump: 62,985,106 (45.9%)
In 2020, at this stage of the counting, both candidates have significantly improved on those numbers.
- Biden: 74,566,732 (50.5%)
- Trump: 70,396,573 (47.7%)
In other words, the Democratic share of the vote improved by 2.5%, while the Republican share by 1.8%. Both Parties bettered their showing over the previous election, but the Dems improved more. Biden, so far, has added 8.7 million votes, while Trump has added 7.4 million. If you take only these roughly 16.1 million extra votes, you see that Biden won 54% of them.
It was a close race, turnout was amazing, and the country is clearly divided. All talk of a mandate, and what kind of mandate, or whether there is a mandate at all arising form these totals, is mostly political gamesmanship. Everyone will strongly aver that the mandate coming out of this election is for Biden to do exactly what they want him to do. But I will say this: I think it was mainly a mandate for sanity and calm, an end to bellicosity and constant recrimination, a return to being able to take the president seriously. That's just my opinion.
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