Who Has a Mandate?

Statistics:

US Population as of November 5, 2024: 340,865,045

Total number of certified votes cast on November 5, 2024: 155,238,302

Total certified votes for Trump: 77,302,580 (49.80%)

Total certified votes for Harris: 75,017,613 (48.32%)

Total votes certified for someone else/no candidate: 2,918,109 (1.88%)

Total number of registered voters as of November 2024 (estimated): 210,000,000

Total number of registered Republicans as of November 2024 (estimated): 38,800,000

Total number of registered Democrats as of November 2024 (estimated): 49,000,000

Total number of Independent/unaffiliated voters as of March 2024 (closest figure to November I could find; estimated): 32,500,000

Conclusions:

Only 45.5% of the total US population voted. The majority of the population did not vote at all (185, 626, 743; 54.5%). Included in that majority are people who cannot vote (aged 17 and under (~12%), not registered, in prison, in care facilities, etc.) and people who chose not to. 

Of the ~210 million registered voters, only ~155.2 million voted (73.9%). 26.1% (~54,800,000) of registered voters didn’t vote in the presidential election. This is worse than many other democracies, especially in a leadership year (versus a representative year). Looking at just the registered voters, Democrats make up only 23.3%, Republicans 18.5%, and Independents ~15.5%.

When looking at the country's total population at the time of the election, this means that 22.67% of the population wanted Trump as president and 22% wanted Harris as the president, less than a quarter of the population each. 

If we consider only those who voted, neither of the major candidates got 50% of the vote. No party can say it has a mandate from the people without at least 50.1% of the vote tally.

The nearly 3 million voters who voted for a candidate other than the Republican or the Democrat potentially altered the outcome of the election. Also, the large number of registered voters who did not vote made a huge difference to the outcome, one way or the other. Adding another ~55 million votes to the tally of the election could swing the outcome wildly.

When you look at how few people are actually running the show, it really puts into perspective that a small minority of people are making decisions for the majority of Americans.

Sources:

• fec.gov (official, certified election results/numbers)
• census.gov/popclock/
• worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/registered-voters-by-party
• ballotpedia.org/Partisan_affiliations_of_registered_voters
• www.pewresearch.org