Editor, Gazette-Journal:
This letter is written in response to “Landslide victory” (Nov. 14 Readers Write).
Donald Trump did not win a landslide victory. Nationally, in the popular vote, he won 49.94 percent over Kamala Harris 49.26 percent. “After all of the 2024 votes are counted, only five popular vote winners in history will have prevailed by smaller percentage margins than Trump.” (The Nation, Nov. 19, 2024). In Virginia, Harris won 52.1 percent over Trump at 46.3 percent. Electoral College votes were Trump 312 to Harris 226. (270towin.com).
Neither of these wins qualifies as a landslide. The last landslide victories were both attributed to Ronald Reagan in 1980 when he won 91 percent of the Electoral votes (489 out of 538) and again in 1984 when Reagan won 97.6 percent of the Electoral votes (525 out of 538) (The Cook Political Report, Sept. 23, 2021 (“When Every Win Is a Landslide”).
What we have is a tug-of-war in which one side rallies and pulls the other side close to the win...