There’s already widespread concern about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election. Mail-in ballots and ballot counting have become the subject of partisan disagreement. And when asked whether he would accept the results of the election and commit to a peaceful transfer of power, President Trump has replied, “We’ll see what happens.” It looks as if we might be in for a bumpy election night – or election month. But, hopefully, at the end of it all, the legitimate winner will become president on Jan. 20, 2021. How might the unusual 2020 election shape his ability to govern?
Put another way: How will either Trump or Joe Biden emerge from 2020 with a mandate to enact his policies and agenda?
Political scientists have been pretty adamant that mandates — i.e. claims along the lines of “the people elected me to do x, y and z” — aren’t real. It’s impossible to know exactly why people voted the way they did, and inevitably millions of people will have different reasons for casting a ballot. Even if we could determine a clear reason why the winner won, how should the views of voters who cast ballots for the losing side be factored in?
Still, the idea of an electoral mandate remains powerful. So what does the research tell us about how presidents claim mandates, and how those claims are received? First, presidents tend to claim mandates when they need to bolster their legitimacy – when they’re facing political pushback, trying to expand presidential power into new areas, or public trust in institutions is flagging in