Beyond 46
Republican presidential candidate Ryan Binkley joined us for an “Iowa Talking Points” program last week, which you can hear on KXEL in a few weeks, part of our new series of those programs airing on Saturday evenings.
During the conversation, he returned to a theme he struck at the Republican Party of Iowa’s Lincoln Dinner last month. The businessman and pastor said the party needs to go “Beyond 46”.
Now, that’s obviously a reference to Joe Biden, president number 46. But in order to get past Biden, Binkley says there’s another “46” that the party has to get beyond.
He notes that in 1984, Ronald Reagan tallied 59 percent of the popular vote…by contrast, in the last two presidential elections when Donald Trump was the GOP nominee, the party did not get above 46 percent of the popular vote.
Now as you’ve heard me say here repeatedly, popular vote does not matter because that’s not how we elect presidents…it’s through electoral votes. But those electoral votes do come from how the popular vote is clustered in states.
But his broader point is that regardless, any president who does not have a majority of the people behind him or her is going to have a difficult time governing. And given how divided the country is…you certainly have a hard time claiming an Oval Office mandate when a majority of the people cast votes against you.
It’s an interesting concept, and one worth contemplating. How does a political party work to get beyond 50 percent of the popular vote, while also winning the electoral vote?
In times like these, there’s too much at stake to ignore good ideas and simply preach that folks should do what they always did…because that’s not working now.
