(The Center Square) – President-elect Donald Trump has the potential to be the most influential president since Ronald Reagan if he and a Republican-controlled Congress can accomplish three things, pollster Scott Rasmussen says – make the economy work for all Americans; secure the southern border; and return to common sense around gender identity issues.
In a post-election analysis published Monday, Rasmussen said Trump’s 2024 election win was significant but not a landslide.
“A realistic assessment of the results shows that it was not a landslide,” Rasmussen wrote. “While Trump won the popular vote, it was by the narrowest of margins (approximately 1 percentage point). Since 1888, only three winning candidates have had a smaller popular vote victory (1960, 2000, and 2016).”
As of midday Monday, Trump won 74,851,207 votes across the U.S. to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 71,287,325, according to Decision Desk, with votes still being counted, particularly in Blue states. California, for example, where Harris won, is reporting just 74% of all votes being counted to date. Trump won the Electoral College with 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 226; 270 were needed to win.
“Additionally, it looks like he will fall short of winning a majority of voters (current estimates show him winning about 49.8%),” Rasmussen added. “In other words, despite the president’s strong showing, a majority of voters cast their ballots for someone else.”
Despite that, Trump has the opportunity to become the most influential president in a generation.
“Donald Trump now has the opportunity to become the most influential president since Ronald Reagan,” Rasmussen wrote. “If over the next four years he and the Republican Congress can achieve the three main priorities established by the American people, he will have presided over a fundamental political realignment and paved the way for ongoing GOP success.
“However, Trump’s lasting influence and the potential realignment are far from assured. They depend entirely upon whether or not the incoming administration can do what voters are hoping for: making the economy work, securing the border, and returning to common sense about gender identity. If they fail, voters will move on, and the Trump era will be just a blip in the nation’s history.”
Rasmussen notes that, before the election, only 25% of voters thought the economy was getting better while 41% said it was getting worse.
“Voters in swing states were even more pessimistic,” Rasmussen said.
The border was a signature issue for Trump. There have been at least 14 million illegal border crossings since President Joe Biden took office, The Center Square first reported.
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The border has “become even more important to voters as the impact of Biden’s open border policy has been felt nationwide,” Rasmussen said.
On gender identity issues, Rasmussen wrote: “Simply put, voters recognize that men and women are different. They want their governments and societal institutions to stop insisting that they are not.”