Great landslides of the American past!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2024

What ever happened to landslides? When all the votes have been counted, how will this year's presidential election look? Ezra Klein offers this in the New York Times:

Where Does This Leave Democrats?

[...]

Donald Trump’s victory was not one of the grand landslides of American political history. As I write this, estimates suggest that [Trump] is on track for a 1.5-percentage-point margin in the popular vote. If that holds—and it may change as California is counted—it is smaller than Barack Obama’s win in 2008 or 2012, Bush’s in 2004 and Bill Clinton’s in 1992 or 1996. It may prove smaller than Hillary Clinton’s margin in 2016.

It won't be "one of the great landslides," Ezra somewhat sardonically says. Indeed, if the margin turns out to be less than two points, it won't be a landslide at all.

Here's what the Times' Nate Cohn says:

How Trump Won, Again

[...]

Despite Jan. 6, the end of Roe v. Wade and a felony conviction, Mr. Trump won a clear victory. He is on track to win all seven battleground states. He made gains in every corner of the country and with nearly every demographic group: If you look at The Times’s map of what has changed since 2020, you’ll see a sea of red.

According to our estimates, Mr. Trump is also on track to become the first Republican to win the national popular vote in 20 years.

At the same time, the scope of his victory shouldn’t be overstated. This was no landslide. A one- or two-percentage-point victory in the national popular vote with roughly 312 electoral votes is not unusual. It’s not as large as Barack Obama’s modest win in 2012, and falls far short of “change” elections like Mr. Obama’s in 2008 or Bill Clinton’s in 1992.

Cohn mentions that felony conviction, the venerated object of Blue America's cable news over the past several years. The outcome constitutes "a clear victory," but it was "no landslide," he says.

Alas! Depending on circumstances, an election can change the world without having been a landslide. 

In 2016, Candidate Trump lost the nationwide vote—but that particular lack of a landslide allowed him to place three people on the Supreme Court. President Obama, who won elections by 7.2 and 4.9 points, only got to name two Justices over his eight years in office. 

(In a sign of what was to come, one Justice was stolen, of course.)

What ever happened to landslides? At one time, there actually were such beings. Let's take a look at the record.

Did the modern political era start in 1960? However you answer that question, that election was very close:

Nationwide vote, 1960
Kennedy 49.7%
Nixon 49.6%
(Turnout: 63.8%)

That was no one's landslide! According to Theodore White, Kennedy learned that he had won when he arose on Wednesday morning.

Four years later, the deluge! By now, President Kennedy had been murdered. We the people said this:

Nationwide vote, 1964
Johnson 61.1%
Goldwater 38.5%
(Turnout: 62.8%)

By American norms, that was a genuine, stone-cold landslide. The others which followed were these:

Nationwide vote, 1972
Nixon: 60.7%
McGovern: 37.5%
(Turnout: 56.2%)

Nationwide vote, 1984
Reagan 58.8
Mondale 40.6
(Turnout: 55.2%)

Turnout was sliding but landslides lived on, though that was the last of the breed.  

In 1988, President Bush the elder won by almost eight points. In 1992 and 1996, President Clinton won by 5.6 and 8.5 points, each time in a three-way field. 

As of 1996, turnout had declined all the way to a bit less than 52%. Since then, only Obama's margin, that one time, has exceeded five points.

Will Trump end up with a two-point win? We don't know at this point. That said, a relatively slender nationwide win could still end up changing the world. In Blue America, we badly need to understand how it ever got this far—though some such belated comprehension may no longer matter.

For the record, Kennedy's very narrow win had been preceded by a landslide. 

In 1952, Eisenhower beat Stevenson by almost eleven points, with a turnout of slightly better than 63%. Four years later, when they did it again, the numbers looked like this:

Nationwide vote, 1956
Eisenhower 57.4%
Stevenson 42.0%
(Turnout: 60.2%)

In 1960, Eleanor Roosevelt—FDR's widow—wanted to nominate the highly erudite Stevenson again!

Out of one of those elections, a famous story emerged. In all likelihood, the story isn't true, but the story goes like this:

Still Madly for Adlai

Like many of the best political stories, this one about Adlai Stevenson, the former two-time Democratic presidential nominee, is probably apocryphal. It was late in a long day on the campaign trail in 1956—or 1952, it varies with the telling—when a voice called out of the crowd: 

“Every thinking person in America will be voting for you!” 

“I’m afraid that won’t do,” Stevenson retorted. “I need a majority.”

We Blues! We've never quite stopped thinking that way. Our human wiring inspires us to truly believe that such thinking is plainly correct.

We Blues have never stopped thinking that way. In our view, it doesn't help.