Trump and Republicans think the election gave them a mandate. They're wrong. | Opinion
Since the election, President-elect Donald Trump has claimed voters gave him a broad mandate for change.
However, Republicans preparing to enact the Trump agenda would be wise to temper their ambition and be realistic about what victory means.
Trump's win is impressive, and his comeback tells us a lot about how Americans view President Joe Biden's tenure. Still, there are a number of reasons to think that Trump won't have as long of a leash as he and his fans predict. Pretending he has a sweeping mandate is a mistake and a trap Republicans should avoid.
Trump's victory is closer to Biden's than Obama's
In 2024, Americans were frustrated with four years of a brutal economy and the cover-up of Biden's mental decline. The Democrats ran an absolute mess of a campaign, and Trump still only managed to win by slim margins in several actual swing states.
Recent elections in America, and concurrently the rest of the Western world , have repeatedly flipped between the two major parties. Dissatisfaction with the status quo has been the theme of every election in the United States, and 2024 was no different.
Opinion: Republicans picked Johnson as House speaker. But they also sent him a message.
With the exception of Nevada, Trump won the seven swing states by similar margins to his 2016 victory. While electorally, the race wasn't close, margin-wise, the election becomes closer when you compare 2020 with 2024.
Trump's victory was relatively narrow compared with what we would honestly call a landslide and isn't in the same ballpark as either of Barack Obama's victories. Unlike Obama, Trump's victory also had a limited impact on the party's success, compared with Obama's 2008 victory in which his party gained more than 20 seats .
Trump's victory looks much more like Biden's in 2020 , in which Americans were sick of the status quo and voted modestly for the Democrats but didn't give him a mandate. Percentage-wise, Trump was far closer to this than he was to Obama.
Few outside of the Democratic leadership saw Biden's victory as a sweeping mandate for change, and his own party would have likely seen a brutal midterm election if not for the issue of abortion being thrust to the top of the ballot. If Trump overreaches, the GOP is likely to suffer in the 2026 midterms, barring a major conservative voting wave.
Some of Republicans disagree with Trump. Like me.
The GOP is already attempting to restrain Trump from acting too foolishly following his victory. The Senate has preemptively blocked some of his more outlandish nominations.
Some of this has to do with there being some genuinely principled conservatives sprinkled among the GOP caucus, but there seems to be a recognition that Trump should not get carried away with his lunacy.
Opinion: There is little chance Elon Musk will save us from debt. It's all a show.
So far, that restraint has only extended to nominations of unqualified Cabinet members.
Even so, as soon as day one, we could see fights over how far Trump's legislative mandate truly reaches. GOP members are concerned that parts of Trump's agenda will struggle to get the votes to pass a simple majority.
I hope that the GOP can walk Trump back from some of his more outlandish decisions for more reasonable measures that could get passed, even with bipartisan support. Some Republican senators and House members in swing districts are going to have to justify their record come election time, and some of Trump's decisions will be tough sells. They might also have to contend with threats from Trump, who has already called for challenging Republicans .
Republicans ought to deliver measured and competent results for the American people without getting sucked too far into Trump's vain revenge path.
The GOP shouldn't get carried away once Trump takes office
The 2024 election was far more akin to Americans tentatively trusting Trump again because the alternative was so bad.
Like Biden in 2020, Americans simply want him not to be the other guy.
Opinion alerts:Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store .
The No. 1 thing that Trump needs to do is build a strong economy, which is the sole reason he has been trusted with the keys to power for a second term. As much as people like to attribute the culture war to Trump's victory, it's the economy. If Trump can't even deliver on that, the biggest complaint against Democrats, then none of the rest truly matters.
Going too far down the MAGA road is unlikely to produce long-term success for the GOP or even success beyond this election. If recent electoral trends continue, the Democrats will likely regain power over the Republicans in upcoming elections, and making voters uncomfortable with the Trump platform is the easiest way to accelerate that.
Americans are sick and tired of the Democratic Party, for now, but voters have a short political memory, and Trump could very quickly remind Americans of why they voted him out in the first place.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.
You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page , on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter .
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump returns to the White House with a win, not a mandate | Opinion
