Is our nation more divided? Let's examine the facts

I keep hearing the hysterical left claim that 'Trump is going to govern a historically divided nation' as some form of argument that we are in unusually bleak and divided times. Let's just look at the facts, m'kay, from my lifetime.

1976 : Carter received 50.1% of the popular vote and 297 Electoral Votes
1980 : Reagan earned 50.7% of the popular vote and 489 Electoral Votes
1984 : Reagan earned 58.8% of the popular vote and 525 Electoral Votes
* Note Reagan the Republican earned the largest "landslides" of anyone in my lifetime, even Obama
1988 : Bush earned 53.4% of the popular vote, and 426 Electoral Votes
* A larger EC landslide than Obama as well
1992 : Clinton earned a low 43% of the popular vote, but won with 370 Electoral Votes
* Clinton won with far less than the popular majority, even far less than Trump has this election! I don't recall any Dems complaining then...
1996 : Clinton earned 49.2% of the popular vote, and 379 Electoral Votes
2000 : Bush narrowly lost the popular vote with 47.9% (to Gore's 48.4%) and won with 271 Electoral Votes
2004 : Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote and 286 Electoral Votes
2008 : Obama won 52.9% of the popular vote and 365 Electoral Votes
2012 : Obama won 51.1% of the popular vote and 332 Electoral Votes

2016 : Trump won 46% of the popular vote (compared to Clinton's 48%), but won 304 Electoral Votes

So, let's break these figures down a bit. (Note the EC landscape and population of the USA has changed some in the last 4 decades so these are of good reference but not apples-to-apples; the percents are the key really to show how divided the US has been).

First, we see that in 4 decades, only Reagan earned more than 55% of the popular vote, and Reagan and Bush SR had the only real "blowouts" with over 400 EC votes. The largest popular vote win was Reagan with 58%, but the rest are right around high 40s% to low 50s% (~48ish% to 52ish%). Not even Reagan really had a popular vote mandate; meaning that if you had a room of 100 people for each of these elections, and divided the room by color (red and blue), each side would be nearly evenly represented.

Secondly, in nearly every election, with the exception of perhaps '84, the popular vote was extremely divided. Clinton never earned >50% of the popular vote, and Bush JR only barely did in one out of two elections. Obama's wins were barely over 1/2 of the popular vote by 3 and 1%.

Third, Trump has a greater popular vote than Bill Clinton did in his first term (46% vs. 43% respectively). Bill Clinton actually got the lowest popular vote of any POTUS in my lifetime! Lower than Trump, lower than Bush JR, lower than Carter...

Fourth, in a head-to-head match-up of Trump vs. Obama (2012), Trump would earn less popular votes but beat Obama in the Electoral College because Trump would win the swing states and get to 270. http://ift.tt/2hUAjPN

Quote:

The electoral college would produce a razor-thin margin: Trump 273, Obama 265.

Fifth, if you examine Hillary's vote pools vs. Trump's, you'll see that Trump won the overwhelming # of counties and states in the US, far more representative of the population. Hillary's major vote pools were from a tiny segment of densely populated areas. It's a bit misleading because those counties were often widely split internally. However, what is not misleading is that of Hillary's 227 EC votes, 45% came from just 3 states; CA (55), IL (20), and NY (29), which are DEM strongholds since the 1990s. It would hardly be fair for someone to win with nearly 1/2 of their votes coming from only 3 states!

So this election has no real "unusual" issues. It's just the modern liberal pouting and complaining; which they didn't do when Bill Clinton won with the lowest popular votes in modern history in 1992 and didn't break 50% in 1996 either.

1. The nation is not necessarily "more divided" now than in the last 4 decades. About 1/2 went for each of the two major candidates in this election.
2. Trump won more EC votes (304) than Carter (297) and Bush JR twice (271 and 286).
3. Trump (46%) has a greater popular vote than Bill Clinton did in 1992 (43%)
4. Trump is not the first to lose the popular vote to his opponent, since Bush did in 2000; also, Bill Clinton never won over 50% of the popular vote (which Bush did in 2004).
5. Trump earned more raw popular vote numbers than many of the former POTUSes (although the nation has grown a lot so that's not particularly useful).

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Is our nation more divided? Let's examine the facts