Title: Obama's 3 Million Vote, Electoral College Landslide, Majority of States Mandate | The Nation
Headings: Obama’s 3 Million Vote, Electoral College Landslide, Majority of States Mandate
Obama’s 3 Million Vote, Electoral College Landslide, Majority of States Mandate
The president won big. Democrats added Senate seats and won the majority of the votes cast for the US House. It’s a mandate. Don’t squander it.
By John Nichols
November 9, 2012

Content: 3. Barack Obama is the first Democratic president to win more than 50 percent of the popular vote in a re-election run since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1944. 4. Barack Obama is the only Democratic candidate for president since FDR to twice win more than 50 percent of the national vote. 5. Barack Obama has, in both of his presidential runs, won a higher percentage of the national vote than any Democratic nominee since Lyndon Johnson in his 1964 landslide victory. Add it all up and Obama has a mandate from this year’s presidential election that is significantly greater than those afforded John Kennedy in 1960, Richard Nixon in 1968, Jimmy Carter in 1976 or George W. Bush in 2000 or 2004. But wait, there’s more: It appears that Obama had coattails or, at the very least, led a ticket that ran remarkably well in congressional, state and local races. To wit: