November 7, 2020

Trump Is Now Bragging About the Popular Vote, Which He Is Also Losing

By a lot.

sad trump

Evan Vucci / AP

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After returning to the White House from a long day at his Virginia golf course on Saturday, President Trump still did not concede, but he did not really declare victory either. In his first public comments since an angry statement after the race was first called for Joe Biden, Trump tried out a new message: He had set a new record for votes received by an incumbent president.

This spin was previously embraced by his longtime mouthpiece, Breitbart, which noted that Trump improved on Barack Obama’s 2012 showing by half a million votes:

This kind of bragging is less impressive when you consider the United States has 18 million more people than it did in 2012, but more to the point: Trump is losing the popular vote by a very large margin! He will have lost the popular vote by a very large margin in both of his presidential campaigns. Biden’s is currently winning by more than 4 million votes. That margin is going to grow as more ballots are counted in places like California. This is sort of like the Tampa Bay Rays bragging about winning more World Series games this year than any American League team.

Don’t let anyone tell you participation trophies are just for libs, I guess.

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This is how change happens.

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This investigative reporting takes time too. Months of research. Weeks of writing, editing, and fact checking—and putting together the photography, art, video, and audio that tell the stories in a new way, illuminating new perspectives and voices.

We can afford to take our time because we don’t report to oligarchs or corporations. We report to you, and for you.

And the stakes are high. Democracy is on the defense. We’ve been exposing corruption and scandal for five decades, and this is a pivotal moment in our country’s history. Will democracy prevail? We won’t wait for time to tell—independent journalism is essential for democracy, and we’ll keep doing our part to amplify the free press.

So, we’re asking: Will you join the fight? Mother Jones has been here for 50 years, and we need your support to fuel the future of investigative journalism. Mark our 50th anniversary with a gift of any amount.

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