Democrats keep winning the popular vote in US elections. That worries them

Democrats won the popular vote in this year's presidential election yet again, marking seven out of eight straight presidential elections that the party has reached that milestone.

And, for some Democrats, that's worrisome.

President-elect Joe Biden has so far won 50.8 per cent of the vote compared to the 47.4 per cent who voted for President Donald Trump, a 5 million vote advantage that is likely to grow as Democratic bastions like California and New York continue to count ballots.

Biden's 77.5 million votes to date are the most for any winning candidate, and Trump's 72.3 million also set a high water mark for a losing one.

 

Experts predict Biden's margin of victory will surpass former President Barack Obama's 4 percentage point popular vote lead in 2012. Only Obama's landslide 2008 victory with a 7 percentage point margin in the popular vote was larger in recent elections.

But what alarms many Democrats is a growing gap between their popular vote tallies and their political power. Democrats may be winning over more supporters, but as long as those votes are clustered on the coasts or in cities and suburbs, they won't deliver the congressional victories the party needs to enact its policies.

That power gap is especially clear this year. While Biden was racking up those historic margins, Democrats lost at least eight seats in the House of Representatives and failed to gain a single statehouse in fact, they lost control of New Hampshire's legislature.

They also fell short of taking back control of the U.S. Senate, with their hopes now resting on winning two run-off elections in Georgia that are considered an uphill climb for the party.