I’ve seen more than a few comparisons between President-elect Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan, a president who also came to Washington intending to upend the status quo. Some Trumpsters — notably Vice President-elect Mike Pence — like to say he and the president-elect have a Gipper-like mandate to make sweeping changes.
That bit of self-inflated delusion is easy enough to debunk. Reagan crushed President Carter, winning the popular vote by 8.3 percentage points and winning an overwhelming 91% of the Electoral College (489 of 538). That, my friends, is a mandate. Not only did Trump lose the popular vote by more than 2 points, his Electoral College percentage (56.9% or 306 votes) is only 46th best out of 58 elections.
