Does Obama Now Have a Mandate?

I’m seeing a lot of chatter about whether the 2012 election was a mandate for Barack Obama.  The pro-mandate crowd argues that Obama’s 332-206 electoral college victory and gains in both the House of Representatives and Senate prove a mandate.  They also argue that if the GOP could declare the 2004 election as a mandate, they can declare 2012 a mandate, too.  I’m going to burst some bubbles here.

Obama had a decisive electoral college victory, but in the popular vote, he only beat Mitt Romney by about 2.75% in 2012.  True, the popular vote means nothing to the results of the general election, but it is useful as an indicator of a mandate.  For context, Obama had a 365-173 electoral college victory in 2008 with a popular vote win of about 7.25%.  Obama gave back 4.5% of his popular margin from 2008 and lost ground in the electoral college.  No mandate claim can be legitimately made given this evidence of regression. 

The Democrats picked up seats in both houses of Congress, but, in the end, two key pieces of evidence weaken the mandate argument here, too.  The House of Representatives remains with the GOP, though the Democrats managed to pick up some seats.  Had the House gone back to the Democrats, they could try to claim a mandate.  It did not, and no mandate claim can legitimately be made here, either.

What about the Senate?  If we look at the Senate in the past two elections, we see that the Senate outcomes hinged more on poor GOP candidate selection than decisive victory for the Democrats.  The GOP has allowed at least five very winnable Senate seats to go Democrat between 2010 (Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Sharon Angle in Nevada) and 2012 (Todd Akin in Missouri, Richard Mourdock in Indiana, and Linda McMahon in Connecticut).  With a 53-45 (plus two independents that closer to the Democrats), you can see that these five seats are costly for the GOP.  It could be 50-48-2 for the GOP instead of 53-45-2 for the Democrats.  A win is a win whether the Democrats beat self-strengthened or self-weakened GOP, but the quality of the win does matter and, in this case, still hardly indicative of a mandate.  It does show that the GOP needs to do a better job of picking candidates, yet that’s all we can conclude.

But, the GOP claimed a mandate in 2004, so the Democrats are surely justified in claiming a mandate in 2012, right?  Not necessarily.  George W. Bush beat John Kerry by roughly 2.5% of the popular vote and by one state in the electoral college.  However, the GOP did retain the House and picked up four seats in the Senate to retain their majority there. 

Of the two supposed mandates, namely the GOP in 2004 and the Democrats in 2012, the GOP in 2004 is the stronger argument, but both fall shy.  2004’s razor thin electoral and popular victories for Bush prevent the 2004 mandate claim while the slightly thicker popular victory and failure to reclaim the House deny the 2012 mandate claim.

So, what does a mandate actually look like?  2008 is an example.  The Democrats picked up a whopping eight seats in the Senate to claim a majority at 55-41-2 while retaining the majority in the House.  You have to go back to the GOP in 1994 to see a party pick up that many Senate seats.  Also, as stated above, Obama beat John McCain with a 365-173 electoral college victory and a popular vote win of about 7.25%.  The Democrats easily retained the House and decisively won both the Senate and White House to gain full control.  That is what a single-party mandate looks like.  Of course, the Democrats followed through on that and proceeded to get trounced in 2010 because the people didn’t like what America looked like with the Democrats in full control, but that’s a whole other point.

A mandate here requires decisive victory for one party and full control of both the White House and Congress.  Most of the time, an election will be a call for bipartisanship or an attempt to put the brakes on a party in full control rather than a mandate.  

Here’s the bottom line.  It is more often a call for bipartisanship or a check on a party in power than a mandate.  2012 isn’t a mandate for the Democrats.  2004 wasn’t a mandate for the GOP.  2008 was a mandate for the Democrats.