Since his upset victory in 2016, President Donald Trump has frequently bragged about the electoral margin by which he beat Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Clinton won the popular vote by nearly three million votes, but narrowly lost crucial swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, leaving the projected electoral college at 306 \votes to Trump and 232 to Clinton (two electors didn't cast votes for Trump despite their state's vote, while five did the same for Clinton, leaving the final certification total at 304-227).
For years, Trump would claim that he won the electoral college by the "biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan." Like 20+ thousand of the President's other statements since inauguration, this was false. Only four years before, former President Barack Obama won the electoral college with 332 votes. In reality, Trump's electoral victory was by the 46th largest margin of 58 elections.
Flash forward to 2020.
Votes continue to be counted in four states, the most crucial of which is Pennsylvania, which Trump can't lose and in which Democratic nominee Joe Biden's lead is growing.
In fact, Biden is leading in all four of the outstanding swing states: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.
If these leads hold, which many are expected to, the initial electoral tally will be:
306 for Biden, 232 for Trump.
In other words, Biden is currently on track to win against Trump with the same number of electoral votes that Trump won in 2016.
CNN Fact Checker Daniel Dale noted this and reminded people how frequently Trump sensationalized his 2016 victory margin.
The rundown included Trump gems like:
"And then it got bigger and bigger and wilder and wilder, and then we won by a lot. Don't forget it was 306 to 223. That's a lot. Remember?"
And his claims of a "massive landslide victory":
"We had a massive landslide victory, as you know, in the Electoral College."
One that "the people haven't seen in a long time."
"We had a tremendous landslide, Electoral College victory the people haven't seen in a long time."
People were excited to see the karmic potential margin.
Except, unlike in 2016, the 2020 likely electoral winner will have won the popular vote.
Votes across the nation continue to be counted.
