The Myth Of The MAGA Majority
Trump's latest 'landslide' claim masks what a minority movement MAGA really is
Every four years like clockwork, whether they win the presidency or not, Republicans trot out some variation of this map as a sort of security blanket, to reassure themselves that the United States is—really, you guyzz!—a “red” nation.
They even sell t-shirts featuring this so-called “red wave” map.
Because, you see, America is “MAGA AF!”
Except, this is an objectively absurd notion. This map is based on county-by-county election data, with the red areas representing the most rural and therefore least populous counties in the country.
Or as the usual retort goes…
Because this “red wave” map portrays a very simplified reading of the data to push a misleading narrative, it was only a matter of time before Donald Trump would weaponize it for his own purposes, as he did in the Oval Office last week.
When asked by a reporter about his administration’s threats to revoke licenses from media networks that don’t give him the fawning coverage he believes he deserves, Trump replied:
“When you have networks that, where I won an election in counties -- I guess it’s 2,600 to 525, that’s called a landslide times two -- when you have that level of popularity or voter support, as I did in the last election, and yet 97%, 94%, 96% of the newscasts are against me...I think that’s really illegal.”
Yes, the data behind Republicans’ emotional support map has become Trump’s latest talking point—clearly written out by his team in his notes for him to cite—as evidence for his “landslide times two” level of popularity, all to justify cracking down on media outlets that criticize him.
It is quite a flex. And quite the tell, too, that Trump felt the need to prop up this new “evidence” of his “landslide” victory in order to claim critical media coverage is somehow “illegal.”
So, let’s dig into his claim. Is he even citing the correct data? And what is the truth behind those numbers? What does the county-by-county data from 2024 actually tell us, and is there a way to glean just how much support Trump truly has in the country?
“The Closest Election Of The 21st Century”
As with so much of Trump’s hyperbolic self-aggrandizing style of communication, his claim of strength here, i.e. his so-called “landslide times two” victory, masks significant underlying weakness, something Kamala Harris called out just yesterday on The View.
When discussing why she wrote her new book, “107 Days,” Harris observed quite rightly that the 2024 election was
“the closest presidential race in the 21st Century in terms of the outcome.”
Predictably, Trump was triggered by the comment, which drove him to lash out on Truth Social—again, quite the tell—by replaying his usual boast about his “landslide” Electoral College victory, his having won “all seven swing states,” as well as his new favorite statistic about his 2,600 to 525 county win. All of which are doing some real heavy lifting.
Notably absent from Trump’s “landslide!” boasts was any mention of his actual vote margin of victory over Harris, and for good reason. First, Trump didn’t even win a majority of votes cast last year. While he did win the popular vote outright, Trump came in just shy of 50%, which means more people voted against him than for him.
Secondly, it’s understandable that Trump wouldn’t want to bring up his actual vote margin, since he defeated Harris in 2024 by a smaller vote margin than the popular vote margin Hillary Clinton won over him in 2016. And, as Harris noted, it was indeed the closest election since 2000*.
*2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024
But for Trump, such facts are inconvenient.
No wonder that Trump would trot out county-by-county numbers, where, numerically at least, Trump finally gets his landslide!
What Does Trump’s County “Landslide” Actually Mean?
According to Trump’s latest boast, in 2024, he won 2,600 U.S. counties to Kamala Harris’s 525, which would bring the total number of counties to 3,125. That’s fewer than the 3,161 counties or county equivalents listed by github or the 3,143 cited by Wikipedia, but not far off.
This visualization from Engaging Data dispels the notion that winning a dominant number of counties somehow represents an electoral mandate. Because blue areas are more densely populated than red areas, the populations of the small minority of counties that went for Kamala Harris in 2024 actually represent a slight majority of the U.S. population.
Population isn’t the only measure that undermines Trump’s claim of electoral dominance. Look at The Brookings Institution’s analysis of election results from 3,060 counties for which county-level GDP numbers are available, and a stark picture emerges of what red America actually represents economically relative to blue America.
As Brookings put it last December:
According to the analysis, the U.S. economy remains starkly divided—albeit with some noticeable local shifts. Most strikingly, lower-output, small town, and rural areas continue to vote much differently—and more Republican—than the nation’s higher-output urban areas. These areas now comprise the foundation of the nation’s ruling party, joined by numerous new Republican-leaning places in the Sun Belt and elsewhere.
Now, in 2024, the story of red America’s minority status as an economic power continues unabated, albeit with unmistakable gains. This year, Brookings calculations suggest that President-elect Donald Trump’s winning base in 2,633 counties represents 86% of the nation’s total counties but just 38% of the nation’s GDP. Conversely, Vice President Kamala Harris’ losing base of 427 much higher-output counties represents 62% of the GDP.
While none of these numbers matches exactly with Trump’s 2,600 to 525 boast, the breakdowns over the past three presidential cycles track pretty closely. In fact, according to these numbers, even Trump’s own numbers undersell his so-called “landslide.”
But no matter what numbers he uses, there is simply no way to bend them to his narrative. A dominant showing in the number of counties won in 2024 simply does not constitute an electoral mandate, let alone justify cracking down on media companies over their coverage of him. In fact, the reality is quite the contrary.
The Truth Behind The MAGA Majority Myth
Trump’s insistence that he won in a landslide last year, similar to his persistent claim that he really won the 2020 election, is only partially about his own narcissism and ego. Trump doesn’t care whether it’s true or not (and may actually know it’s not). But he knows that his supporters will believe it because it feeds a narrative they are deeply invested in: that the right is ascendant and is in fact the majority in the U.S.
It’s why MAGA makes such a big deal when a so-called “woke” film or TV show fails. “Woke goes broke,” they love to declare, hoping against hope that the culture they despise will actually shift to reflect their own minoritarian regressive values. It rarely does. It’s why Trump supporters constantly insist that “We the people” (read: the majority of the country) are with Trump, and why they have been blasting our feeds with videos from Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, calling the sheer numbers of attendees a “turning point” for our country.
MAGA’s deep emotional investment in this narrative was on full display last night as Megyn Kelly addressed a Turning Point USA event at Virginia Tech. Kelly adopted the flimsy narrative Trump has sought to advance, namely that the mere fact he is president is proof enough that conservatives comprise the majority of the U.S.
As Kelly said:
“We know we’re in the majority. We know that conservatives are in the majority of The United States of America. That is why we have Trump as 47.”
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Who wants to tell her?
As I discussed above, Trump didn’t even win a majority of 2024 voters. But things are far worse than that for the President now, as G. Elliott Morris bluntly lays out in a piece appropriately titled, “A lot of powerful people just don’t realize how unpopular Trump is.”
First of all, there’s Trump’s topline average net approval/disapproval number, which at this point is at -12%.
Then there’s the fact that his agenda is remarkably unpopular across the board, particularly his signature tariffs.
But that’s not the end of it. As Morris makes clear:
It’s not just that more people disapprove than approve of Trump, but that the disapprovers feel their emotions much, much more intensely. Depending on the polls you pick for your average, between 46 and 50 percent of U.S. adults tell pollsters they “strongly disapprove” of the job Trump is doing as president. That is double the percent that strongly approve (24%).
So what is the best way to ascertain support for Trump and MAGA broadly as a portion of the U.S. population?
Morris breaks down the basic metrics:
54%: Trump’s topline disapproval in our polling average today
48%: The percent of U.S. adults who “strongly disapprove” of Trump’s job as president.
49.8%: The share of the vote Trump won among voters in 2024
And then adds an important fourth stat that is the one that Trump and MAGA want to conveniently ignore:
64.1%: The share of voting-eligible adults who turned out to vote in 2024
Morris does the math:
To calculate the share of adults who voted for Trump, you need to multiply the percentage of adults who voted by the percentage of people who voted for Trump:
64.1 * 0.498 = 31.9%
Concluding, finally:
Under a third of American adults are Trump voters
53% of adults are Trump disapprovers — with 48% intensely opposed
In sum, far from having a majority of support, it turns out a full 2/3 of Americans are non-Trump voters.
Yet MAGA, fully bought into whatever narrative Trump spins for them, and as reinforced in their social media feeds, is fully convinced of their own majoritarian status.
As Mike Brock wrote over at Notes From The Circus,
MAGA appears to believe the American people will simply accept whatever they impose. They’re treating democratic opposition like a switch that can be turned off rather than a river that finds new channels when blocked.
But if anything should shatter this MAGA illusion, you’d think it would be the events of this week, when the pro-democracy coalition rose up against ABC and Disney’s caving to Trump’s attempt at government coercion with a massive cultural backlash.
As Trump continues to try to bend our constitutional rights to his will and to cow private companies and institutions into submission based on his claims of having won a “landslide” and a “mandate” from the people, corporate executives and university presidents would be well advised to take a look beyond the myth Trump and MAGA are selling, and see where the actual majority in our country lies.
Get rid of the electoral college system!!!!!
I knew deep down most Americans are more like me than not! Their propaganda is so powerful you start to believe the BS! Thank you for this!