A strong tactical ground game, because Democrats can’t steal an election when Democrat zones vote REpublican. Unexpected.

I ran the numbers in 2012, and was very much unimpressed with obama’s victory too, on a very similar basis it turns out (though his margins were larger than trump’s).

The left / msm tried to make it an electorally (re)affirmed mandate.

I’m sure many here who are claiming trump landslide / mandate balked at that notion in 2012.
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The GOP control all three branches, so there is an opportunity.

The wild card is trump.

That unknown and highest potential for downside impact, is mostly in the foreign sphere where trump has the least restraint and influence from Congress.

His appointees have largely been good in this respect, but some are questionable, and it is yet to be seen how much influence they have vs trump’s twitter diplomacy.

That’s where the next 100 days will, I very much hope, make it much clearer where trump is really headed.
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The real indicator will be when he is “tested” a second time on something major.

FWIW, my theory is that all foreign governments will want to tread lightly, but someone will do something to trip a response and trump will be chomping at the bit by then to make an example.

The second test will really be the measured test for trump.

That may not yet be within the first 100 days, but who knows.

I crunched the numbers from the last three elections and came up with the same results. Trump came closer to catching Romney than I figured, but he still failed to match Romney.

Trump was not as strong a candidate as Romney or McCain. He won because his votes were more strategically distributed. He won because of a razor-thin margin of 78,000 votes out of 13,000,000 in three key states.

And he won because he didn’t run against Obama. Instead Trump ran against the least charismatic, most obviously corrupt Democratic candidate I can remember.

Aside from its unexpectedness this is not an impressive victory.

1) trump’s overall percentage was lower than clinton’s. Spare me the “but it was almost all in the coasts” – I know that, but it doesn’t make the point false, if one is attempting to claim “landslide”.

2) BOTH candidates pulled in one of the lowest percentage of eligible voters (i.e. many expected voters from BOTH parties stayed home). trump had 27.2% to clinton’s 28.4%. For perspective, two things:

a) McCain had 28.1% against obama’s real landslide with 32.8% of eligible voters. In 2012, Romney had 27.4%, and trump underperformed even that.
b) trump had performed historically poorly by the standards of challengers in post-incumbent elections (i.e. where the same party is seeking a third term).
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443687/barack-obama-real-reason-trump-won

3) trump received razor thin margin (less than 1%) in the three swing states that put trump over, WI, MI, PA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016

4) The above three points feed into the reality trump didn’t win a landslide level of ec votes. In fact, trump’s margin over clinton of 77 ec votes is 15th of the last 18 elections, and is one of only five of those 18 that didn’t break a margin of 100 ec votes. The top four of these all won with >400 ec vote margins.
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/historical.html
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What is different this time is GOP domination on all three: House, Senate, POTUS.

So, perhaps one COULD say the GOP won a landslide this year.

There is certainly enough evidence to point to which says trump hardly, if at all, had any coattails, as GOP candidates in a large proportion of Congressional races received larger percentage margins than trump did.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443909/real-reason-trump-won-trend-away-incumbents-strongest-factor

So, their wins are largely on their own, or in spite of trump at the top of the ticket.
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IF there is a “mandate”, it is far murkier than a simple declaration as such.

If we are talking legislatively, then it would seemingly belong to the GOP in general, given trump’s lack of “coattails”.

Also, to the extent one declares so for trump, they’d have to make the case about a mandate for what?

It was well debated in these comments sections here just how unknown / unknowable (mutable) trump was on many issues.
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But, that is a separate, very debatable issue, whereas, certainly, one cannot credibly say “the President was elected with an Electoral landslide” (at least not without redefining what a “landslide” essentially is – there seemed to be a lot of this redefining in 2016, so no surprise it continues).

That this is even debatable is akin to the (unnecessary and distracting) “debate” over the size of the inauguration crowd.

Everyone chooses which to believe, facts be d*mned (or should that be “alternative facts” be embraced).
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trump is the legitimate president. He won fair and square.

There is no need to “exaggerate” it as the “biggest XXXX ever”, when it is clearly not.

We don’t win the argument with our own, and bigger, lies.

Nobody wins.

BTW, see Bachner & Ginsberg’s new book on the Federal bureaucracy: “What Washington Gets Wrong”.

Obama’s administration was chock full of “action”.

Of a most devious kind.

Accompanied by a litany of lies to hide just how devious that administration was.

And the media was complicit in those lies and in that absolute deviousness.

Crminially complicit.

You don’t “fundamentally transform” a country without action.

Just as you don’t “fundamentally transform” a country without a tremendous amount of deviousness…