A lot of Republicans are calling it a landslide, but I think they've forgotten what a landslide looks like; along with forgetting a lot of other things.
Out of 538 votes, in 2024, Trump had 312; in 2020, Biden had 306, just a few less, and Trump had 304 in 2016, only 8 less than his "landslide". In 2012, Obama had 332 and in 2008, he had 365. Clinton had 370 and 379. I wouldn't call any of those landslides though.
GHW Bush had 426 which is quite a lot, but Reagan before him had 489 and then 525. Those are landslides.
Nixon got 301 the first time, which is just a win; but he got 520 in his second term. That was a landslide.
I would draw a line in the sand at 90% of the electoral vote is a landslide, and anything less is puffery. Ranked by percentage of electors, Trump's "landslide" is only 44 out of 60. That's the saddest landslide ever. 58% of electors is a clear and undebatable win, but it's not a landslide and it's not a mandate, or even a large margin. It might be an indictment of the Democratic Party or some other lesser hyperbole though.
I agree with you the true landslides were Nixon, Reagan, FDR, etc.
The absence of electoral landslides in recent years implies both parties are better tuned and optimized now. Their data collection to enable a "winning campaign platform" is probably much better now, resulting in close elections.
My theory is that it's a result of institutionalized corruption: neither party wants to win by a landslide anymore. They want to win, in Dick Cheney's words (quoted in Obama's biography), "fifty percent plus one".
They want to share the spoils of victory with as few as possible. Winning with a big margin, to the party apparatus, is evidence that you wasted valuable political capital on pleasing voters that could instead have been spent on pleasing donors.
Out of 538 votes, in 2024, Trump had 312; in 2020, Biden had 306, just a few less, and Trump had 304 in 2016, only 8 less than his "landslide". In 2012, Obama had 332 and in 2008, he had 365. Clinton had 370 and 379. I wouldn't call any of those landslides though.
GHW Bush had 426 which is quite a lot, but Reagan before him had 489 and then 525. Those are landslides.
Nixon got 301 the first time, which is just a win; but he got 520 in his second term. That was a landslide.
I would draw a line in the sand at 90% of the electoral vote is a landslide, and anything less is puffery. Ranked by percentage of electors, Trump's "landslide" is only 44 out of 60. That's the saddest landslide ever. 58% of electors is a clear and undebatable win, but it's not a landslide and it's not a mandate, or even a large margin. It might be an indictment of the Democratic Party or some other lesser hyperbole though.