Did Donald Trump win the 2024 election by the widest margin of any Republican president in history? According to a recent X post by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, yes, he did.
“Making it real clear for House Republicans in here as we discus tax law, just told my colleagues. Trump won the election by the biggest margin of any Republican presidential candidate in history!!!” she wrote in a post encouraging her House Republican colleagues to support the president’s tax agenda.
Greene’s claim is false. Trump’s margin of victory in both the popular vote and Electoral College rank relatively low compared to other Republican presidential victors.
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican to win a presidential election in the United States, winning 39.8 percent of the popular vote and defeating the nearest of his three challengers by 10.4 percent. Republican candidates have won 24 of the 41 presidential elections since, stretching from Lincoln’s second victory in 1864 to Trump’s victory in November.
In the 2024 election, Trump—who notably won the 2016 election despite losing the popular vote—defeated Kamala Harris by a popular vote margin of 1.5 percent and Electoral College margin of 16 percent. According to the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Trump’s 1.5 percent popular vote margin is only the 19th highest of any Republican presidential victor in history, and his Electoral College margin of 16 percent is the 20th highest ever won by a Republican.
By comparison, Republican Richard Nixon won the 1972 election with a popular vote margin of 23.2 percent and Electoral College margin of 96.7 percent. Ronald Reagan earned similarly high margins in 1984, defeating Democrat Walter Mondale by popular and electoral vote margins of 18.2 and 97.6 percent, respectively. Republicans Theodore Roosevelt, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover also won by overwhelming popular and electoral vote margins in their respective 1904, 1920, 1924, and 1928 elections.
Rep. Greene’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Dispatch Fact Check.
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