Trump has claimed his victory was a mandate. Washington’s realities are already challenging that

Donald Trump has yet to arrive in Washington, but he is already confronting the limitations of his electoral mandate.

Donald Trump has yet to arrive in Washington, but he is already confronting the limitations of his electoral mandate. Trump’s 11th-hour attempt to blow up a carefully negotiated bill to keep the government funded into March did not achieve the outcome he had sought: clearing a debt ceiling battle looming early in his next presidency. It did, however, expose a lingering rift among House Republicans that had been hiding behind the GOP’s post-election euphoria and made clear Trump’s sway over his own party remains far from absolute. In a stunning turn, 38 Republicans defied the president-elect on Thursday. By early Saturday morning — 48 hours after Trump threatened primary challenges for anyone who supported funding the government without eliminating the debt limit — 170 House Republicans and dozens of GOP senators voted for just that. The chaotic episode one month before Trump returns to the White House served as a reminder that governing has foiled plenty of successful politicians, and it foreshadowed the challenges ahead for Trump as he navigates a narrow House majority and a Senate full of people who expect to outlast the president-elect’s four years in Washington. Trump has asserted his decisive November victory should clear any roadblocks standing in the way of his agenda. He has demanded fealty from fellow Republicans while often overstating the breadth of his win. Though he is the first Republican in a generation to win the popular vote, Trump ended up with less than 50% of the country behind him and his Electoral College margin was sizable but hardly historic. “The beauty is that we won by so much,” Trump told Time Magazine in a recent interview. “The mandate was massive.”